What are grades of Hardwood Flooring?

Many people that are shopping for wood flooring don't realize that there are grades that they can choose from in whatever the species is that their interested in. Some people come in thinking that the grade is associated with the quality of the flooring and that they should buy the highest grade to get the best quality.

For starters when you decide on a species of hardwood flooring such as red oak, maple, ash, hickory and the list goes on, you have a choice of grade that you can get that species in. There are typically 3 to 4 grades available:

1) Clear grade - you would get the best board lengths and the least amount of color (most uniform) with no knots
2) Select Grade - this grade has a slight bit more color variation than the clear grade and no knots
3) Middle Grade - here you will get color variation between the boards and small pin knots scattered about.
4) Rustic Grade - has a lot of color variation and open knots and worm holes depending on the species.

I just did a quick generalization of the grades here without getting into the specifics, to give an idea of what to expect.

When choosing a grade you would be basing your decision on how much character and color variation you want in your floor. Some peoples preference would be a cleaner looking floor so they would choose a higher grade and some people prefer to have the variation so they would choose a lower grade.

Is the quality between the grades different? Typically not. For example at the flooring mill the lumber goes through the milling process and the tongue and grooves are put into the raw lumber to make the wood flooring. It is then sent down a conveyer belt where it is sorted and put into bundles of the different grades. So as you can see it is all running through the same machines, so the milling will be the same on all the boards through all the grades. The only difference that there might be in grading is if you used two different brands. Brand "A" may be a better quality milling than brand "B".

So when your out shopping for wood flooring either prefinished or unfinished, make sure that your salesman explains the grades to you and that you compare the grading between a couple different brands.