Wood Characteristics: Understanding the Basic Components of Wood

All hardwood flooring starts out as a living tree growing somewhere on the planet. This is true for all types of hardwood flooring regardless of how the tree is eventually processed. The trees are then processed into different types of hardwood flooring including solid, engineered, high density fiber click and others.

All trees used to manufacture hardwood floors grow with a system of roots in the ground with their trunks growing upward above ground. Inside the trunks of these trees are thousands of fibers that run the length of each tree. These fibers act like straws, soaking up moisture and nutrients from the soil below and in turn are used to help the tree grow.

When the tree is cut down, the moisture in these fibers begins to dry out causing all the fibers to shrink. If allowed to sit long enough, the wood would “cure” much like the process of allowing a stack of freshly cut firewood sit and season for at least a year to dry. The wood dries out and becomes lighter in weight.

In the hardwood flooring industry, harvested logs are cut in various ways to portray different parts of the wood rings, wood grain and other inner tree markings. The wood is then put into precision kilns which are large oven like machines that purposely dry out the wood to certain moisture limits in preparation for processing. These machines do not dry out the wood completely. Leaving some of the moisture in the wood keeps the wood “alive.” 

The wood is then processed into hardwood floors. Because all hardwood flooring is made out of some form of the original tree and still has moisture in it, it will behave in similar ways after installation as it did when it was planted in the ground. The fibers in the wood will still absorb moisture, expanding in months where there is a lot of moisture consistently in the air. In drier months, these same fibers will release some of that moisture and then shrink. This will happen over the entire lifetime of the wood. Solid hardwood flooring will do this more than any other type of hardwood flooring.

These factors play an important part in understanding some of the methods used in preparing and installing hardwood floors into your home. If the wood is not properly acclimated before installation, the wood can exhibit problems down the road in appearance or function. All installations should adhere to the National Wood Flooring Association Installation Guidelines.