The use of recycled timber floorings has gained popularity in recent years. Let’s read a few advantage & disadvantages of Reclaimed Wood Flooring
What is the advantage of reclaimed wood flooring?
There are plenty of advantages of using recycled timber, including but not limited to:
Eco-friendly
One of the biggest benefits of reclaimed timber (both for us and our world) is sustainability. Unlike other types of timber, the wood used in recycled timers is taken from an object that does not need the trees to be chopped down. For floorings made from new material, carpenters need to cut down several trees to provide the wood required for the flooring, and there is always a lot of waste during the production process. On contrary, with recycled timber, no tree is cut and the flooring is entirely made from salvaged wood.
You make a major influence on the environment and global warming through buying reclaimed timbres. Keep in mind that it several years for a tree to grow, it can be very hard to replace trees cut for flooring, and burning old timber planks makes very bad carbon footage in the environment.
Durability
Another key advantage of recycled timber flooring is that it is usually more hardwearing than softwood species. Therefore, rather than spending on softwood species that will show sign of damage in few years, with the same budget you can get recycled timber and expect it will bear tear and wear for years.
Besides, some flooring experts say that recycled timbers are more durable than most newly grown hardwood species. Unlike new products in the market, most of the time old timbers was produced from tree trees that set to grow for hundreds of years. When a tree is allowed to grow this long, its wood becomes denser and harder. Thus, floorings made from recycled timbers are less susceptible to scratch and dents.
Versatile and Beautiful
Reclaimed timbers are also very versatile and aesthetically appealing. You can find reclaimed timber in a huge variety of species, colours and patterns. You can even find recycled timber from rare species or if you are lucky extinct wood species such as quarter-sawn oak, heart pine, American elm and chestnut.
Recycled timber also offers a kind of beauty that cannot be found in newer ones. If the building or barn from which recycled timber is salvaged was built before logging restrictions implemented, it’s a chance that the wood came from ancient forests. The wood came from such an old tree that has a finer grain pattern and look more pastoral as well as a more tough and denser wood.
Affordable
Recycled timber is a type of hardwood that is not harvested through the conventional method. This simply means that timber flooring manufactures can often buy this type of timbers at a lower cost and offer recycled timber flooring at a lower cost too. So, you might be able to save some bucks by investing in recycled timber floorings.
What are the disadvantages of reclaimed wood flooring?
Along with advantages, recycled timber flooring has some disadvantages, but most of them are minor and can be dealt with easily. Although reclaimed timber is cheaper selecting the right piece of timber pulling out nails, re-milling and refinishing can be more difficult and time-consuming.
Another disadvantage of recycled timers is that it’s hard to get them at the right size, especially if you need really long pieces. Keep in mind that these pieces of lumber are usually from demolished structures so they were already cut into size and their edges need to be trimmed to get rid of rot and crack.
Now you what a recycled timber is, where it comes from and its benefits and drawbacks, next time you’re going to start a new flooring project, you’d better think about using reclaimed timbers rather than the new one. That’s not only good for our environment, but it’s also beneficial for your pocket too.