Is that a PROBLEM if engineered wood flooring looks different in color?

Color different of engineered wood flooring is mainly because of the lamella differences in wood species, origin, grain and so on. Color difference is a natural situation for every engineered wood flooring. We will talk about these.

Cause 1: Color difference happens in root and top

Some lamalle are cut from root while some are from treetop. Influenced by growth time and sunshine duration, the wood root material is darker than top material. As a result, the wood flooring that made of root is diverse as the treetop wood flooring in color.

Cause 2: Color difference in heartwood and sapwood

The outer ring of wood root and stem has live cells, and perform a function to reserve substances, conduct water and inorganic salt, which is called sapwood. And the part inside secondary xylem that stop reserving and conducting is heartwood. A piece of lamella will use for engineered that could be more darker if it is more nearer heartwood part, meanwhile, the density is higher.

Cause 3: Different sawing methods result in color difference

According to different sawing methods, the sections of plank are typically crosscut, plain-sawing and quarter-sawing, and the last two methods are more frequent used in flooring industry. The sawing patterns of wooden boards can affect the color that they show.

Plain-sawing is perhaps the most straightforward way to cut rectangular-profiled boards out of a round log. The annular rings are generally 30 degrees or less to the face of the board; this is often referred to as tangential grain. The resulting wood displays a cathedral pattern on the face of the board. But depending on where they were cut out of the log, plain-sawing boards can have substantially different grain patterns, which can cause it to expand and contract in different ways.

Quarter-sawing wood is created by cutting a log lengthwise into quarters, then creating a series of parallel cuts, with the middle cut being perpendicular to the tree's rings. Quarter-sawing wood has an amazing straight grain pattern that lends itself to design.

In quarter-sawing wood, the grain patterns are relatively consistent, so the end product is stable, which makes it preferred by many woodworkers. It might include medullary rays and wavy grain patterns that some people prefer over the patterns that are revealed through the other sawing methods.

Cause 4: Color separation process is necessary

Unfinished veneer has no color grade and the color difference could be more distinct after finishing, thus, a regular flooring supplier would separate flooring products on basis of color grades, usually 2-5 levels.

Cause 5: Pay attention in flooring installation

Because of the above reasons, color difference is an inevitable nature of wood flooring, you need to do color separation again as your own like in installation if you don’t want widely color contrast. For example, to install the similar colors together, and put the high disparities in shaded place.

Generally, flooring that directly made from natural plants, such as wood log, bamboo, is quite acceptable to have color difference, which is decided by characteristics and structure of plants. Different density, different light-absorbing capacity and different finishing performance are all determined that even for the same one plank, color and grain could be various, however, color difference is also one of the nature features of engineered wood flooring.