Grading of hardwood flooring

GRADING AND PACKAGING
© 1999 NATIONAL WOOD FLOORING ASSOCIATION 3
Grades were developed to bring a degree of consistency to wood floors.


Introduction: Why We Have Grades
People have been using hardwood floors for hundreds of years — examples can be found in some of the oldest castles and palaces in Europe. In the era when those floors were laid, hardwood floors were constructed by hand in every aspect, from cutting down the lumber to applying the wax.
With the advent of hardwood floor manufacturing machinery, however, an entire industry was born.
While installing, sanding and finishing a floor remained a specialised skill, creating the floors themselves was no longer a painstaking process. Around the turn of the century, mills were established specifically for the production of hardwood floors. Not long after, the burgeoning wood flooring industry saw the need to implement standards, or grades.
Today, nearly a century later, grading is an essential part of doing business in the hardwood floor industry. Grades group flooring with similar qualities, bringing a degree of consistency to products from different mills. Grades tell the purchaser the minimum to expect when buying product, including surface characteristics, required lengths and milling tolerances. Grades also help ensure that money isn’t wasted either by consumers or producers — buyers can confidently expect to get the quality of product they pay for, and manufacturers know they aren’t wasting money by selling high-quality product at a lower-quality price.
In some cases, industry associations, such as the National Oak Flooring Manufacturers Association and the Maple Flooring Manufacturers Association establish grades. The development of hardwood flooring grades was the main impetus in the formation of those groups. In addition to creating grades, the associations provide an impartial party to settle disputes about grading and perform grading inspections.
Manufacturers must be members of such associations to qualify for their grading dispute service. In other cases, hardwood-flooring manufacturers determine their own classifications and create their own grades, or “proprietary grades,” by which they sell their flooring.
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4 © 1999 NATIONAL WOOD FLOORING ASSOCIATION
N AT I O N A L W O D F L O R I N G A S O C I A T I O N T E C H N I C A L P U B L I C A T I O N A 5 0
NATIONAL OAK FLOORING
MANUFACTURERS ASSOCIATION

WHO IS NOFMA

The National Oak Flooring Manufacturers Association traces its beginnings to Detroit in 1909, with the formation of the Oak Flooring Manufacturers of the United States. The organisation had several goals: to administer and promote industry-grading rules, to provide statistical data and to act as a general spokesman for the industry.
After being located in Chicago and Cincinnati, the headquarters were moved to Memphis in 1930 and in 1933 the group joined with the Southern Oak Flooring Industries organisation to form NOFMA.
The association was to act as an agency of the Lumber Code authority for the administration of a Code of Fair Competition under provisions of the National Industrial Recovery Act. In 1935, the association’s charter was amended to authorise the organisation to operate as a trade association for the benefit of the producers of oak flooring.
Membership and production through the years peaked in 1955, with 85 member manufacturers and 1.2 billion board feet shipped, and subsequently nose-dived in the 1960s with the popularity of carpeting.
By 1979, membership was less than 10 percent of the 1955 peak. Since 1980, however, it has steadily increased, with shipments in 1997 hitting 416.6 million board feet — the most since 1969.
Today, NOFMA continues its purpose of administering standards, performing quarterly mill inspections, promoting the industry and gathering statistical information. Inspectors check for grade compliance, including milling, packaging length and acceptable moisture levels. NOFMA also strives to educate installers with semi-annual installation schools held in Memphis in conjunction with the National Wood Flooring Association and the Maple Flooring Manufacturers Association. The association provides technical assistance, such as advice on installation, as well. NOFMA’s grades are now accepted so widely that even non-member mills often separate their production of flooring along NOFMA guidelines. In addition to unfinished oak, beech, birch, maple, ash and hickory/pecan, NOFMA has grades for pre-finished oak flooring.
Member mills pledge to support the NOFMA standards to ensure that a NOFMA grade from any member mill will be roughly the equivalent of the same grade from another member mill.


HANDLING OF GRADING DISPUTES
The NOFMA inspection department has the responsibility of rendering complaint inspection reports for member mills. According to NOFMA Rules & Regulations, an impartial opinion will be rendered on matters of controversy between users and member manufacturers. Complaint inspections can be made only on NOFMA member flooring, and can be authorised only by a NOFMA member mill in good standing. The authorisation must be received from the manufacturer whose product is in question. When making inspections,
NOFMA inspectors review pertinent information and inspect job site conditions, installation procedures and the condition of the flooring at the designated site and warehouse, if necessary. They also may provide direction for the removal of sample flooring from the inspection site. Payment to NOFMA for expenses of the complaint inspection is the responsibility of the manufacturer whose flooring is involved. The parties involved determine settlement of the cost of the complaint. Complaint inspection reports are sent to the member manufacturer involved, unless the member has authorised other distribution. When a complaint on grade involves a shipment or installation, if the complaint inspection results in a difference in favour of the purchaser of more than five percent in feet, then the shipper will be considered as being in the wrong. If the difference is only five percent or less in feet, then the party making the complaint is considered as being in the wrong. The quality and condition of the hardwood flooring as it leaves the manufacturer governs the inspection.
NOFMA does not accept any responsibility for:
• The arbitration of claims
• Financial losses to anyone as a result of complaint inspections
• Enforcement of agreements between buyer and seller
• Collection of complaint inspection fees unpaid by flooring users to the manufacturer
• The future performance of flooring when suggestions for correction prove ineffective

PROPRIETARY GRADES

In addition to using standard flooring grades such as those developed by NOFMA, MFMA and CLA, many manufacturers may have their own, or proprietary, grades. There are various reasons for doing this — some producers pick names that are more marketing friendly and further compare them to NOFMA or other grades. Others wish to be either more specific or more general than the industry standards. In other cases, manufacturer standards have been created in response to a void of general standards for specific products. For example, a 3/8- inch engineered floor could be sold as “Vintage” or “Cabin” grades. Because proprietary grades are created by the manufacturer, written descriptions of the grades may not be available to the consumer.

PLANK
Wide-width flooring is usually sold under proprietary grade names; however, NOFMA does have grades for plank flooring. Many U.S. manufacturers have chosen to name their grades using the same terms that are familiar to us from the NOFMA or MFMA standards, such as saying that a product “has some No. 2 Common characteristics.” However, these grades are not certified or verified. If plank producers are NOFMA member mills, they may register their own grade names and detailed descriptions (including average length) with the NOFMA office to qualify for complaint inspection services.

PREFINISHED SOLID
NOFMA does have grading rules for pre-finished solid products, but most manufacturers also create their own proprietary grade names, as well.
Other manufacturers may describe the product by the grade of flooring it was before it was finished, i.e., No. 1 Common, etc. Still others may have brand names such as “Classic” or “Rustic.”
PREFINISHED ENGINEERED
NOFMA now covers engineered flooring under its certification program. Contact NOFMA (contact information is on page 14) for the current information. Also, the Hardwood Plywood & Veneer Association, along with the American National Standards Institute, adopted standards in 1996.
Most manufacturers of engineered product do not create “grades” per se. Instead, they create product names. The products are categorised according to veneer, finish and milling.
While most solid wood flooring products have average length requirements, most engineered floors do not. Generally, many manufacturers’ product names reflect three levels or more of quality ranging from a premium level down to what is generically referred to as cabin grade. At the top level, or premium, the flooring has almost no milling defects and minimal character marks such as knots, mineral streaks or pin worm holes. The next grade, typically a character grade, allows more natural character marks and some minor milling defects that may cause overwood, small finish skips and shorter average lengths. Wood with character marks such as mineral streaks may be used for darker-coloured floors. Cabin-grade floors allow unlimited character marks and milling defects.
Because the industry does not have established grades for engineered floors (aside from the ANSI/ HPVA standards), many purchasers make their decisions about product quality based on the value and the warranty offered. The scope of the warranties decreases accordingly with the quality of the flooring.
Oftentimes, cabin-grade floors offer no warranty.
Complaint Resolution
Most pre-finished engineered flooring manufacturers have a set process for dealing with complaints about the flooring. If a problem cannot be settled between the contractor and consumer, complaint forms are usually routed to the distributor of the product. If they are not settled there, they are sent to the manufacturer, where the flooring — either actual samples from the job site or photographs, along with a written description — is analysed and a final determination is made.
PARQUET
There also are no standard grades in the United States for parquet flooring, although the now-inactive American Parquet Association used to have grades for that segment of the industry. Some parquet manufacturers may still use the names of the APA grades. For unfinished parquet flooring, in ascending order of quality, they are Rustic, Select and Better, and Premium. For pre-finished parquet, they are Cabin, Natural and Better, and Choice. In Canada, CLA grading includes rules for grading the face surface of parquet flooring.

IMPORTED WOOD
Other countries that produce large amounts of hardwood flooring may have their own grades for hardwood floors. In Australia, for example, grades are developed by the Standards Association of Australia and are the same as those used for any hardwood milled products in the country. Australian grades are determined primarily by the face appearance of the products and include, from highest to lowest: clear, select, standard and utility grades. common, etc., the flooring is a mix of grades. Because individual pieces do not have to be cut to divide them into different grades, mill run flooring is typically longer than other flooring. The only flooring sometimes rejected is that with either a manufacturing defect or an unsound board. Due to its mix of grades, mill run flooring is more economical — for both the manufacturer and the consumer.