Hi there,

Hardwood flooring newbie here. We want to replace our existing flooring with either solid oak or solid maple. I have read many negative things about maple--stability issues and issues with buckling/splitting due to humidity changes in the home. However, we much prefer the look of maple to the look of oak. On the other hand, we don't want to have to re-do our floors in a few years due to problems, we want a durable and stable floor.

We are only interested in pre-finished floors. We have been looking at Bruce and Mannington lines so far.

Any thoughts about oak versus maple?

Thank you!

If you prefer maple, then you should go with maple. All of the above issues apply to all hard wood floors. But maple simply more so. If it is pre finished, then acclimation will be a little easier . But make sure that who ever installs the flooring does a thorough check of moisture in the air, sub floor and flooring.

One other issue to be aware of is that most colored maple pre finished floors are not easily duplicated if you ever need to sand and re finish them. Pre finished floors are sealed at the factory and the color is sprayed on in many cases which allows the color to be very even. To sand that floor and then try to match the color by hand will be super difficult in comparison so keep that in mind. Staining maple with traditional methods usually yields a very blotchy looking floor.The same situation occurs with staining pine.

Frankly, I think pre finished maple looks nice because of how even the coloring is.

Glanced over the title here and had to add my 2c in...
Did you make a decision yet?

My '27 bungalow, and almost all the vintage houses here in Chicago (even the floors under layers of linoleum & subflooring)
happen to be made with oak throughout the house/apt. and an abrupt interuption of maple in the kitchen with usually a continuation into a pantry, closet, bathroom hall, back hall, or any area that sees heavy traffic and liquid usage. Back in the day, oak wasn't sealed that well
with the varnishes, shellacs, waxes etc. so food, coffee, ovaltine, anything you could imagine that would get stuck in the open grain would be a bad combination for Oak. Maple being closed grain and bullet-proof for the most part, was a much better form+function material.

I'm in the process of weaving and replacing old maple board in my kitchen and as I'm trying to salvage old board in critical places where the
eye will always be drawn (in front of the fridge door - I can tell you that 85 y/o maple, yes you must use a finer point nail-set when driving in the 8-penny nails LOL!! In all seriousness, it's just as strong a wood as Oak, if not stronger, and although you'll hardly find any figural/birdseye patterns like the old days (it's been taken out for fancier uses) I broke ranks from the Lumber Liquidators Haters here and dropped $75 on a cord of maple 2.25x.75 that turned out to be a fine product.

It would be a bold statement of tradition if you used both!!
You could either use a threshold to separate the rooms, or in my case since I hate stubbing my toes, I simply stained the oak having masked off the maple. It's a striking look, but since there's no way to imbed pix on here you'll just have to use your imagination!

Good luck, keep us posted.

Birdseye did you say? http://www.wdflooring.com/consumer/c_sa ... dMaple.htm

They have red maple as well. Plus they use Rubio Monocoat hard wax oils. And they make an awesome engineered with a thick wear layer. I hope they update their site to show all the new stuff. hint hint Peter.

Haha! OK I assumed it was floating out there somewhere but man that must be a premium compared to even the good select I picked up.
I'm stunned at the occasional board in my house having the most amazing figural and birdseye ornamentation in it, changes colors when you move, etc.
That's why I tried to salvage what old I could so I could blend it in at random. Nothing worse than having a huge patch of featureless patternless strips lol!

Mannington is a all engineered products if your looking for solid look eleswhere.

Oooooooh.....gotcha.

Hello,

Prefinished Maple vs Prefinished Oak. Northern Hard Maple has a higher Janka rating than white oak or red oak flooring. White Oak is less dimensionally stable than Northern Maple and Red Oak has a better dimensional stability than Northern Maple.

Janka ratings are used to determine the hardness of different species of wood.

Dimensional Stability is a rating used to see what species will perform better with climate changes. Normally the higher the stability rating the less expansion or contraction it will have when the climate changes.

Maple and Oak flooring will perform well when they are acclimated properly, installed properly, and the climate is maintained in the home. For best results the climate should be kept between 60F to 80F with humidity between 30% to 50%.

As you may already know Maple flooring is the preferred choice for gym floors and dance floors. It is also less likely to check/split because of its closed grain structure. You have to realize that these gyms are also kept climate controlled.

If the flooring is acclimated properly and installed properly and the climate is controlled you should have no issues with buckling.

If you cannot maintain a consistent climate in your home. I would suggest going with a Quarter sawn Northern Maple product. Because of the way Quarter sawn wood is cut it makes the product much more dimensional stable. This type of product will normally cost a bit more to purchase.
A device called a hygrometer can be used to monitor your home climate levels.