In this series we share our experience to help customers select the most suitable timber flooring supplier.
Exceptional Quality and Great Service vs. Price
Many customers looking for timber flooring come into the Barwon Timber Showroom wanting the best quality timber and service, but expecting to pay the lowest price. As you’ve heard before, it’s like comparing apples with apples. Timber flooring is no different and quite often if you look a little closer to the details you are comparing apples with oranges. Doing your research and having a list of requirements before asking for a price is far more important and will ensure you get the best value for your money.
1. What to Consider When Choosing Timber Flooring
Understanding the difference between timber specie, visual grade, size, installation requirements, installation methods, hardness, and the value it can add to your home can save you not only time and money, but also the potential inconvenience of having to go through costly repairs on a timber floor that was of poor quality or installed incorrectly.
2. Timber Flooring Quality
The difference in quality between having your timber floor professionally installed versus otherwise is huge. Floors that aren’t glued properly or even at all, wavy lines instead of straight lines, joins between rows of boards lining up next to each other, colours of boards batched together from large dark areas to large areas of light boards, not to mention the numerous potential pitfalls of DIY sanding & polishing.
3. Timber Flooring Treatment Prior to Installation
To help minimise movement in timber flooring, it is recommended it be dried to standard moisture levels. Most flooring suppliers will provide a moisture test result for the timber flooring which is acceptable but may not relate to your order.
Quite often flooring sellers buy in large quantities and store flooring for months at a time before being bought by you. Timber flooring is a hygroscopic material and will absorb surface and atmospheric moisture. It reacts by expanding and contracting throughout the timber’s lifetime.
Oven testing is an extremely accurate method of testing timber flooring moisture content and is used by Barwon Timber on each timber flooring order. If moisture contents are not within an acceptable parameter, we will not send the timber flooring out.
4. Expertise of Timber Flooring Merchants
How long has the supplier been in business and how long will it stay in business. Barwon Timber has been in business and working with timber flooring for over thirty five years. During this time we have built up extensive experience and our team are happy to share this with our customers. Many of our customers are builders who repeatedly choose us as their preferred supplier or refer us to their customers. Our focus is on timber, it’s what we do best.
Why would you want to take a chance on one of the most visual and functional items in your home just for the cheapest price?
If a business is using the highest quality materials and the correct method of application, with a team that has a wealth of experience and skill it’s unlikely that they can be the cheapest. Barwon Timber can offer you exceptional service and provide you with a great quality timber floor. Ask us about our installation service.