By Anonymous September 15, 2010
VInce at Cal Floors is a true hardwood floor artist! He has been in the business all his life and it shows. He took a hardwood floor that I thought was not worth saving and made it look brand new. Cal Floors was very competitive in price too and worth every penny. If you want great hardwood floors at a great price give this company a call first! ...read more
Aren't hardwood floors the very enemy of being green?! Absolutely not. It's actually exactly the opposite. It's hard to accept, though, after decades of "tree hugging" and being influenced into believing that logging and use of timber to sustain our ways of life is tantamount to killing baby seals or dumping barrels of toxic waste into the oceans. Oh, how good intentions can go so astray… The fact is that when compared to the use of fossil-fuels, using wood for fuel, furniture, packaging, and flooring (in their vast number of variations) is actually a positive step toward environmental responsibility and sustainability. Think about it…wood is the world's most prolific, versatile renewable raw material. If you go in and log and area, leaving stumps and tire tracks in your wake, nature will aggressively and persistently (and effectively) repopulate the area with foliage until you could never tell it had ever been stripped of its trees. And burning wood for fuel does not contribute to the carbon dioxide problem we're warned against, whereas, oil or coal-based materials do. Let's look at a simple example: you go to your neighborhood family restaurant, but of course your eyes are bigger than your stomach, so you ask for a doggie bag. The server promptly brings out a little plastic container with a plastic lid to put your leftover hot wings in. That little package is most likely petroleum-based plastic. What if it were cardboard? Immediately you think, "No! We need to save trees!" (We're so conditioned, right?) But the reality is that the nonrenewable nature of plastic as well as the high demands for energy of the factories to produce the plastic does much more damage to the environment than using paper products, which are more and more frequently being grown and harvested in a sustainable and environmentally-friendly manner. Deforestation is really when an area is stripped and then replaced with something else, like shopping malls or subdivisions. Reforestation happens naturally, and reputable companies that manufacture products such as hardwood flooring make certain that the trees they use are replaced. So you can actually feel fine about using hardwood flooring because it's really the lesser of evils when talking about sustainability.Cal Floors - Custom Hardwood Floors Since 1984 ...read more
By CAL FLOORS March 06, 2012
You've probably seen it happen…a once beautiful hardwood floor is suddenly reminiscent of a wagon-worn trail. This creation of dips and divots in wood is called dry cupping. But even if the effect of cupping is not so visually disastrous, even slight cupping can cause installation problems for newhardwood flooring, especially when working with borders and feature strips. Cupping is just one of many ways wood can deform, and most, including cupping, are related to — you guessed it — moisture. As we all know, every living thing (or once living, in this case) is made up of cells. They come in many different shapes and sizes and are made up of various elements, compounds, polymers, and proteins, but the cell walls of wood are comprised mainly of cellulose, a super strong substance that water molecules like to bond to. Swelling happens when the humidity around the wood increases, and the moisture in the air causes lots of this H2O/cellulose bonding. Wood then expands, likely causing some pre- or post-installation problems. The flip side of swelling is cupping, which is caused by the moisture levels of wood actuallydecreasing. The moisture content of a given plank of engineered flooring is at a certain level at the time of its production and storage. Then let's say the planks suddenly find themselves in a different, drier environment—trip to Phoenix, anyone? But the problem isn't the solid wood itself shrinking; cupping only happens because of the layered construction of engineered hardwood flooring. Typically, engineered flooring is made up of a thin strip of solid, sawn wood glued on top of a piece of plywood. Plywood is much more stable when it comes to moisture, so in cupping, the top layer, for all intents and purposes, shrinks, while the bottom layer stays quite possibly unchanged or at least significantly less affected, resulting in a pulling away or curling of the top layer. Major culprits are moves to arid climactic zones or colder regions where humidity levels drop significantly due to periodic artificial heating. So the takeaway here is that to avoid cupping, the humidity levels must be similar at the time the hardwood floors was manufactured to the driest point in the floor's daily life.Cal Floors - Custom Hardwood Floors Since 1984 ca lic # 457082Pleasanton (East Bay) 925-954-5012Marin County 415-706-7199www.calfloors.comwww.facebook.com.calfloors ...read more
By CAL FLOORS March 06, 2012
You've probably seen it happen…a once beautiful hardwood floor is suddenly reminiscent of a wagon-worn trail. This creation of dips and divots in wood is called dry cupping. But even if the effect of cupping is not so visually disastrous, even slight cupping can cause installation problems for newhardwood flooring, especially when working with borders and feature strips. Cupping is just one of many ways wood can deform, and most, including cupping, are related to — you guessed it — moisture. As we all know, every living thing (or once living, in this case) is made up of cells. They come in many different shapes and sizes and are made up of various elements, compounds, polymers, and proteins, but the cell walls of wood are comprised mainly of cellulose, a super strong substance that water molecules like to bond to. Swelling happens when the humidity around the wood increases, and the moisture in the air causes lots of this H2O/cellulose bonding. Wood then expands, likely causing some pre- or post-installation problems. The flip side of swelling is cupping, which is caused by the moisture levels of wood actuallydecreasing. The moisture content of a given plank of engineered flooring is at a certain level at the time of its production and storage. Then let's say the planks suddenly find themselves in a different, drier environment—trip to Phoenix, anyone? But the problem isn't the solid wood itself shrinking; cupping only happens because of the layered construction of engineered hardwood flooring. Typically, engineered flooring is made up of a thin strip of solid, sawn wood glued on top of a piece of plywood. Plywood is much more stable when it comes to moisture, so in cupping, the top layer, for all intents and purposes, shrinks, while the bottom layer stays quite possibly unchanged or at least significantly less affected, resulting in a pulling away or curling of the top layer. Major culprits are moves to arid climactic zones or colder regions where humidity levels drop significantly due to periodic artificial heating. So the takeaway here is that to avoid cupping, the humidity levels must be similar at the time th hardwood flooring was manufactured to the driest point in the floor's daily life.Cal Floors - Custom Hardwood Floors Since 1984Marin County 415-706-7199Pleasanton (East Bay) 925-954-5012www.calfloors.com www.facebook.com/calfloors ...read more
By CAL FLOORS March 06, 2012
The key roles of individuals who serve in construction management project positions include project management planning, cost management, contract administration, CM professional practice, and time management. If you are seeking a career in this field, keep in mind that there are several ways to train... ...read more
Construction managers are responsible for dealing with the various design, planning and execution of construction projects. In most situations hands-on experience is the best precursor for this position, however, a degree in construction management can greatly enhance your work performance. ...read more
