“What are some of the top sustainability selling points of wood that you share with customers?”
Jared Mohler – Mohler’s Custom Wood Floors
I usually tell the customer that the floor is a lifetime investment. Once it is in, if a professional can sand it, they can get six to eight resanding processes with more than 10 years between resanding. And, if they are not tired of the color, they can just recoat it and get even more life out of a floor. With carpet prices where they are now, wood is not a huge leap in cost. Even if it is double the price, they are getting a lifetime floor and the carpet will be in a landfill in 10 to 15 years.
Ben Totta – Totta Hardwoods
One of the most common times I have these conversations with people is when they have seen an old floor restored and refinished or they have an old floor that they want restored and refinished. From time to time, we come across floors that are 100-plus years old, and I always point out this really is the only type of flooring that would be able to look this good after this much time and look brand new again. Nothing else can stand the test of time to the degree that wood can; certainly nothing that is synthetic. Wood doesn’t go out of style. Maybe a stain color does, but you can refinish it. The wood itself really is timeless in its look and design capabilities.
Mike Osborn – Start to Finish Hardwood Floors
Customers call about wood floors because they already know the tree it’s made from is grown in a forest environment, cut, and milled into flooring. When a new tree is planted, it can then be harvested after a 50 to 80-year growth cycle. The lifetime of a floor, if it’s well taken care of, will usually outlast the structure, as you can see in some of the historic buildings that still have original wood floors in them.
Sustainability, in a nutshell, is all about “maintenance.” Nothing lasts unless you take care of it.
Sometimes a customer will ask me how long their wood floor is going to last. I tell them you can compare it to a clutch on a truck. If you load that truck full of heavy gravel and you drive it hard, you’re probably going to be replacing that clutch in a year or so. If you drive this same truck without a load on the highway, and without many stops and starts, the clutch is going to last a long time, perhaps 100,000 miles…think of reclaimed wood flooring.