With so many different brands to choose from, it can be hard to narrow down the best hardwood flooring brands. To help you invest in a hardwood floor that is going to make your house a home, we’ll discuss why choosing hardwood floors is a smart decision, list some of our top recommendations for the best hardwood flooring brands we recommend the most, and more.

Why Choose Hardwood Flooring for Your Home?

Although hardwood flooring is one of the more expensive flooring options, the benefits of hardwood floors can often outweigh the initial investment. This is especially true if you or someone in your home suffers from allergies as dust and germs easily get caught in carpet fibers. 

Hardwood floors are also more low maintenance than other types of flooring. And because they’re typically sealed with a layer of finish, they’re more stain resistant than other floorings like carpet. Hardwood floors can also be refinished, rather than needing replaced, when damaged.

Now that you know why we recommend hardwood flooring, let’s talk about the best hardwood flooring brands to choose from.

8 Best Hardwood Flooring Brands to Consider for Your Home

There are a lot of hardwood flooring brands to consider when choosing flooring for your home, and it can easily become overwhelming trying to choose one that is worth the investment. Although we would recommend any flooring brand that we offer as a great option, many homeowners have different preferences and key factors they’re looking for in quality hardwood flooring. To help you with your hardwood flooring comparison, we’ve narrowed down the top 8 best hardwood flooring brands we recommend to customers.

  • Shaw

Not only does Shaw offer hardwood flooring made from different tree species, such as oak and maple, it also offers textured finishes. You can choose from smooth, subtle scraped, heavy scraped, distressed, or wire-brushed hardwood floors, allowing Shaw hardwood floors to fit any style of home.

  • Mirage

Mirage is a newer hardwood flooring brand to the US industry, first being introduced to the US market in 1992. Over the years, they’ve expanded their products to offer three types of hardwood flooring – engineered, solid, and a laminate-like composite of hardwood plus high-density board. However, at Floor Concepts, we only carry engineered and solid hardwood flooring by Mirage. 

  • Mercier

Mercier is a Canadian hardwood flooring brand that offers a selection of hardwood flooring that rivals those of some of the biggest US hardwood flooring brands. It’s most known for its wide plank options and being a GreenGuard company, which means Mercier produces quality sustainable and eco-friendly products.

  • Bella Cera

Bella Cera is known for its hand-crafted hardwood flooring at an affordable cost. All of Bella Cera’s products are hand-scraped and hand-stained, making each piece unique yet able to seamlessly fit together. They also provide themselves by only using the best hardwood flooring finishes that won’t turn yellow as your floors age and are environmentally friendly. 

  • Mannington

Mannington provides top quality hardwood flooring. A big factor that makes them unique is that select Mannington hardwood styles are truly handcrafted. In fact, they source the finest hardwood species from around the world and a lot of their patterns are designed by Mannington’s expert stylists, 

  • Mullican

Mullican takes its Appalachian history and highlights it in every product created while also recognizing the importance of sustainability by ensuring more than two trees are growing for every tree harvested for their flooring. Mullican offers hardwood flooring with a wide variety of installation options, from click-lock installation to staple down installation.

  • Bruce

Bruce was incorporated into Armstrong Flooring in 1998, and with Armstrong Flooring’s history and resources, Bruce now offers over 400 solid hardwood products to choose from. These products are predominantly available in red or white oak, but products are also made from ash, hickory, and maple. 

  • Anderson Tuftex

Anderson Tuftex creates high-quality floors that are crafted with care and timeless design principles. They offer some of the best hardwood flooring options that vary in color, texture, width, and installation method. They also pride themselves on their sustainability mission, having reduced their operational carbon footprint by 50% since 2010 and reinvesting $6.6 million in nonprofits in 2021.

We hope this provides a good starting point for finding top quality hardwood flooring. However, there are other great hardwood flooring options that we offer at Floor Concepts and are happy to provide more recommendations based on your needs and preferences. 

How Can You Tell If Hardwood Floors are Good Quality?

Flooring for your home is an investment, so you want to make sure you choose the best hardwood flooring that fits your budget and lifestyle. But how do you do that? 

A few things to avoid when choosing a hardwood floor is dented or scratched wood, rough edges, or splintered edges. You’ll also want to pay attention to the surface of the wood – noting if there are areas of dullness or a glossy surface that masks the wood grain.

High quality hardwood will have large, scattered wood grain and a natural scent – one that does not smell like laminate or veneer. You’ll also want to test the hardness of your samples. If your nail leaves an indent in the wood, it’s made of a softwood, like pine, and may not hold up as well as hardwoods such as oak. 

Can You Tell the Difference Between Hardwood and Engineered Hardwood?

At first glance, it’s hard to tell the difference between the two types of wood flooring – solid hardwood and engineered hardwood – as it looks and feels almost identical. The main way to identify solid hardwood vs engineered hardwood is when it’s not yet installed. Solid hardwood is a single wood plank while engineered hardwood is made up of a plywood core with a thin top layer of hardwood flooring.

The maintenance and care of solid hardwood and engineered hardwood is also similar. Both can be maintained by regular sweeping and vacuuming and occasional mopping with a wood cleaner, never water. However, solid hardwood floors can be refinished multiple times, extending the life of your flooring. Engineered hardwood can only be refinished once or twice before they need to be replaced.

An invisible difference between solid hardwood and engineered hardwood is the cost. Solid hardwood is one of the more expensive types of flooring. Engineered hardwood flooring gives you the style of solid hardwood flooring but on a smaller budget.

To see examples of the best hardwood flooring brands available, visit our Wexford, PA showroom or contact our team to learn more. Floor Concepts provides local flooring solutions to greater Pittsburgh, PA and the North Hills, free in-home measurements and estimates, and worry-free installations. Get in touch with our flooring experts today!