As much as many people know pine flooring, you need to know the pros and cons of pine flooring. Pine is a classic flooring material and a good choice. Pine wood flooring is made from pine trees.
It is part of the softwood family. Pine trees have more than 200 species; pine flooring is always available and with a lot of variety.
Pine floor is inexpensive, durable, and comes ready to be finished according to your preference. Though pine flooring is popular, it does not appeal to most homeowners.
Pros and Cons of Pine Flooring
Table of Contents
Pros of Pine Flooring
Durability
Pine flooring is highly durable. Pine floors of hundred years and even older are still in use today. Pine floors will serve you well for the full life of your home, not like a temporary flooring like linoleum.
Hardly will pine floors have problems with swelling or shrinking, although, in a humid climate, a coating of polyurethane will be an advantage to it.
Pine wood floors last long before it can be replaced. Pine can last longer when exposed to natural sunlight, which causes it to darken.
Read: How long does hardwood last
Attractive flooring
There are more than 200 types of pine trees, so, this wood comes in a myriad of colors that depend on pine tree type.
Pine flooring ranges in different colors like white, golden yellow, deep rich brown, and deep red. Pine wood flooring’s prominent grain, knots, and pinholes give it a rustic and inviting appeal.
Typically, pine flooring comes unfinished; you can finish your floor in any color of your choice and match it with the appearance of your home. Also, pine flooring can be stained or varnished and painted.
As pine flooring ages, it offers a vintage, distressed look in homes decorated to appear rugged and homey. Pine can also be whitewashed; whitewashing prevents pine floors from darkening with age.
Environmentally Friendly and Sustainable
Pine being a softwood grows rapidly than the hardwoods commonly used for floorings, such as oak or walnut.
Pine is better suited to environmentally friendly forestry practices. Forest stewardship council (FSC) has certified pine tree as a sustainable one.
Generally, softwoods are less expensive than hardwoods. Hardwoods like mahogany, oak, and maple prices are twice the price of pine.
Cons of Pine Flooring
As a softwood, it is exposed to scratches and severe damages in high traffic areas. Even low traffic areas can be easily damaged particularly if it is left in its natural state.
Pine wears soon after it is installed. You have to be cautious when moving furniture or heavy items across the floor to prevent deep scratches and gouges in the wood.
Deep scrapes and gouges can damage pine floorings which can force replacement that may not match the floor’s pattern when installed.
Pine floor takes a very long time to finish and this will create a lot of dust that will settle on all surfaces before it is vacuumed up.
The species of pine from which it was cut and it’s finish determines the durability of pine.
Pine flooring can last long if it is not used regularly and maintained by sealing and staining with a few coats of polyurethane.
Pine floor must be refinished regularly apart from applying coats of polyurethane during installation.
The refinishing process is laborious and it includes thoroughly cleaning the floor, sanding, cleaning again, applying a finish or stain, and then applying three polyurethane coatings.
Pine floor installed without a proper finish can swell or shrink in humid climates.
Cats and dogs with paws and claws can damage pine flooring. Pine flooring requires constant vacuuming and dusting as debris can damage surfaces.
In some areas, finished pine flooring is not sold at wood yard, local big stores, and other home fix-up retailers. You will have to go to the sawmill to purchase it.
Read: Is my floor oak or pine
Types of Pine Wood Floorings and their Pros and Cons
White Pine
White pine is a softwood with uniform grain. It has an incremental transition from earlywood to latewood, allowing it to be light weight with a low density. White pines have relatively small resin canals and fine texture.
White pine wood has a unique color with the heartwood being a pinkish, tinted light brown and the sapwood having a dim yellow color that looks white.
The sub-varieties of this category are very distinct because each of them has different features. The primary sub-varieties comprise Eastern white pine, Western white pine, and sugar. Sugar pine is the vastest of the pine species.
Sugar pine has a straight grain and even thick texture. Sugar pine has large resin canals as distinguished from other white pine that is very exceptional when the wood is sawn.
Western white pine also has a straight grain with a fair texture. Western white pine has the features of common white pine when talking about color, but the color inclines to darken with age.
Eastern white pine has the greatest texture of the lot with a straight grain. The color is identical with that of western white pine, even blackening with age.
Pros of White Pine Flooring
- It is portable
- White pine flooring is simple to work with
- It has a unique look
Cons of White Pine Flooring
- White pine flooring can be costly
- It can cause an allergic effect on people with allergens.
Yellow Pine Wood
Yellow pine wood is split into two main types with southern yellow pine and western yellow pine, each with their respective subsets of lumber.
Southern yellow pine is a high-density thick pine. Its density varies between 36 to 42 Ibs per cubic foot with an unequal grain. The southern yellow pine tree has a very rapid growth from earlywood to latewood.
The colors of southern yellow pine are red-toned brown at the heartwood and creamy-white with a tint of yellow at the sapwood.
The categories in this section of pine include shortleaf, lololly, slash, longleaf varieties, and so on.
Western yellow pine is a softer wood category, sitting as a great growth between hard and soft pine. Although this wood has similar rapid growth, it is a much lighter variety, weighing in at about 29Ibs per cubic foot.
Western yellow pine also has a more uniform grain compared to the southern variety.
The sapwood of this wood is the same in color to the southern yellow pine, but the heartwood is light reddish-brown with a tinge of yellow.
The subsets of this category include lodgepole and ponderosa pine; both are similar in feature and sold interchangeably.
Pros of Yellow Pine Flooring
- It is very durable
- It is not expensive
- It is a strong wood
Cons of Yellow Pine Flooring
- It is hard to work with
- It can cause an allergic effect on some people.
Red Pine Wood
Red pine is usually found in one category only, known as the red pine wood or as Norway pine. Red pine has an upright grain with a uniform texture that is neither too gentle nor too harsh.
The color of red pine is reddish-brown at the heartwood and pale, whitish-yellow at the sapwood.
Red pine wood weighs in at 34Ibs per cubic foot, making it a thick wood. Red pine has a distinct quality, it has an oily feel when touched.
Heart Pine Wood Flooring
Heart pine is technically a subcategory in all pines, but primarily in Southern yellow pines’ long leaf variety.
Heart pine is created entirely from the heartwood of pine, most often of the longleaf pine.
The trees used to create pine wood flooring are commonly a hundred years old, giving the flooring an abundance of virtue and durability.
Pros
- It is very strong.
- It has a fine color.
- It is environmentally sustainable.
Cons
- It is extremely tough to work with especially with sandpaper.
- It can cause allergic reactions to some people.
Conclusion
After knowing pine wood flooring pros and cons, you should be able to make informed decisions when you are about to purchase it.
For those of you that have it at home already, I hope you are better enlightened now. Pine wood flooring is a great alternative for any home, besides being cheap.
If you love having wood flooring at a inexpensive price, perhaps pine wood is the flooring for you. Tell us your thoughts in the section below.
