Whether you are deciding on flooring for your new home or replacing flooring you already have, there is a vast range of options available. Often, the cost of a flooring option becomes the deciding factor. However, there is one flooring option that is not just an expense – hardwood flooring is a true investment.
Hardwood flooring is a big investment for you home, and certainly important when it comes to the beauty and value of your home, but amongst other benefits, how can it save on energy bills? Read on to discover more about how hardwood flooring can be beneficial to you as a homeowner.
Hardwood floors encourage heat to move through the house
Essentially, I’m sure that the first thing you are thinking is, how can hardwood floors be more energy efficient when they make the room feel colder? Isn’t the whole point of having carpet to encourage and keep it warm. The main thing you need to know is that carpet is an insulator and wood is a conductor.
Carpet prevents heat from circulating while wood draws in the heat and enables it to circulate. People have an incorrect perception that carpet holds onto the heat, but it just decreases the flow of energy around the home. This indicates that your furnace needs to work a lot harder to encourage heat to travel through your carpets and heat up the house in its entirety. In once sense, wood improves your home’s heat circulation and allows heat to travel through it. Particularly in homes with radiant heating systems, wood conducts heat and enables it to reach you more easily while carpet need an increased heat settings to get the warmth into your living areas.
Hardwood floors create heat that lasts
Wood also maintains heat longer than carpet, this is due to the fact that it possesses an increased thermal mass. Wood along with other solid materials can significantly decrease your home’s temperature because they absorb and store heat while light materials such as material carpet, may act as a barrier. This applies to other solid materials like concrete, laminate, ceramic, and tile.
Possessing materials with increased thermal mass in your property will save money on your utilities due to the fact that your home doesn’t need to work as hard to uphold its cool during the heat of the day nor maintain its warmth late at night. The temperature will be more consistent.
Cost-effective warmth
So what does all this entail for your average homeowner? Realistically, the best way to decrease your utility bills is to install a wood floor, or another heat conductor with an increased thermal mass – and then insulate the outside of your property, the walls, roofing and windows. In time, by installing hardwood flooring you will find your home will be warmer, and your bills will decrease.
Long term investment
While initially costing you less upfront, carpet flooring requires a significant amount of maintenance while lasting for a much lesser time. Maintaining a carpet and keeping it in good condition is going to entail frequent vacuuming, at the very least, least once per week, but also having it professionally cleaned, this would need to happen at least every year or so. In return for the constant upkeep and annual cleaning expense, a carpet will only be expected to last around ten to fifteen years before it will need replacing.
On the other hand, a hardwood floor needs very minimal upkeep and will last a lifetime. Dependant on wear levels, a hardwood floor may need a simple refinished approximately every twenty years or so, but solid hardwood flooring will not need replacing for decades. In the time you have a solid hardwood floor, you may be required to replace the same carpet flooring up to around ten times.
The basic maintenance and extremely long life span of a hardwood floor makes it a much more economical choice than carpet over a lifetime.
Up the value of your property
If you ever put your home on the market, you will thank yourself for deciding to invest in hardwood.If the time comes where you decide to up and sell, you will certainly be thankful that you have invested in hardwood floor.
Typically, as anyone enters a house, one of the very first things they will pay attention to is what is under their feet, and that first impression is crucially important and can be a factor that often makes or breaks a decision. Homebuyers in today’s market have increasingly high expectations and many people looking to buy a property have come to expect hardwood flooring, as carpets are almost always seen as something that will need maintained. This alone can be enough to make your property less desirable in a crowded property market.
Hardwood flooring is undoubtedly a sign of quality and matches just about anything, giving prospective homebuyers a sense of reassurance of quality but also in the sense that
the pre-existing hardwood floors will go nicely with their taste in décor. The value of hardwood floor adds to a home will vary depending on the property itself, nevertheless, it will without question, always increase property value and make your home easier to succeed on the market.
Health and general safety
Carpet floor will withhold a certain amount of dust and debris no matter how often you vacuum it. This can be a significant problem for someone respiratory ailments such as asthma. Moreover, if the carpets traps enough allergens, it can in some cases even affect those who do not have pre-existing respiratory problems.
With this in mind, hardwood flooring will not embed any dirt or dust making it a whole lot easier to clean. When you consider the amount of debris and dirt that can so easily be bought into the from our shoes and clothes without even realising it, not to mention the implications of having pets, with hardwood flooring, you’re just a mop and damp cloth away from sparkling floor again.
Cooper & Williams: Roofing specialists offering roofing and flooring services in Shrewsbury.
With over 40 years of experience in flooring, we at Cooper & Williams are committed to withholding high standards that always deliver produce great results every time. We have been offering our customers durable and stylish flooring since 1970, you can be confident of the highly trusted service and quality you will receive. Whether you’re looking for solid wood flooring, laminate flooring, laminate wood flooring or modern porcelain tiling, look no further than or friendly team at Cooper & Williams. We have a wealth of experience in all of our three specialist divisions dedicated to roofing repair and installation, flooring installation and tiling. Our high quality tradesmen boast over 20 years’ experience, so you can rest assured that your work will be completed to an expert standard, using only the best materials and guaranteed for a minimum of 12 months. For more information about our roof and flooring services, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with our team of professionals today.
