Glossary

A

• AcclimationThe period during which flooring material equalises to the conditions of the room it will be installed in — a minimum of 72 hours, in the actual conditioned space.
• AnisotropicDescribes a material whose properties differ by direction — in wood, movement across the grain is significant while movement along it is minimal.

B

• Belt floor sanderalso drum sander, the big machineThe primary material-removal machine in a refinish: a continuous abrasive belt over a drum roughly 200 mm wide, handling around 80% of total removal.
• Bucklingalso tentingA floor that lifts off its substrate because it expanded and had nowhere to go.
• Bufferalso screening machineA single-disc rotary machine, typically 400–500 mm, fitted with fine screens around 100–150 grit — it removes microns, not wood.

C

• Change orderA mid-project price increase — on a hardwood job, most often for substrate conditions that a proper assessment would have found before quoting.
• Clear-face yieldThe proportion of a board’s face that will produce clear cuttings of a stated minimum size — the measurement an NHLA lumber grade is built on.
• Cross-ply coreThe layered substructure of engineered flooring, with each layer oriented at 90° to the one beside it.
• CrowningA board whose centre sits higher than its edges — the inverse of cupping.
• CuppingA board whose edges sit higher than its centre — the visible record of moisture entering the floor from below.

E

• Edge peakingRaised board edges with associated finish failure along the seams, following movement the finish could not accommodate.
• Emerald ash boreralso EAB, Agrilus planipennisAn invasive beetle first detected near Detroit and Windsor in 2002 that kills up to 99% of ash trees within eight to ten years of establishing.
• Engineered hardwoodFlooring that pairs a real hardwood wear layer with a 90° cross-ply core, which is what gives it dimensional stability over concrete, in condominiums and above radiant heat.
• Expansion gapDeliberate clearance left at walls and at every fixed object so the floor has somewhere to go when it expands.

F

• Fixed priceA price written in the estimate that is the price paid, with no open-ended change-order language for conditions that should have been tested on day one.
• FloatingInstalling flooring so it rests on the substrate without being fastened or bonded to it — correct over radiant heat, or where acoustic separation is required.
• Floor edgerA compact high-speed rotating disc, typically 150–178 mm, that reaches walls, baseboards, closets, stairs and under cabinets — everywhere the belt sander physically cannot go.
• Flooring gradealso NWFA grade, NOFMA grade, Clear, Select, No. 1 Common, No. 2 CommonAn appearance classification for finished flooring. The standard states outright that all grades are equally strong and serviceable in any application.
• Forest certificationalso FSC, SFI, PEFCThird-party verification that a forest is managed to a published standard — a claim about management practice, not about legality and not about the wood itself.

G

• Glue-downBonding flooring directly to the substrate with adhesive — correct for engineered flooring over concrete, and in condominiums.
• Growing stockThe volume of wood standing in a forest — what exists, as distinct from what is harvested.

H

• HeartwoodThe darker, denser inner wood of a tree, no longer conducting sap — the part most flooring grades are written around.
• HEPA dust containmentalso dust-free sandingHigh-efficiency extraction maintained throughout the sanding and finishing process, not only at final cleanup.
• HygroscopicDescribes a material that exchanges moisture with the surrounding air continuously, rather than reaching a fixed state.

I

• Intercoat screeningLight abrasion with the buffer between finish coats, to create the scratch pattern the next coat bonds to.

J

• Janka hardnessA rating of a wood species’ resistance to denting, used as one input among several in species selection.

K

• Kiln dryingControlled drying of sawn boards to a target moisture content before they are milled into flooring.

M

• Moisture contentalso MCThe proportion of water in wood or in a subfloor, measured before installation and used to decide whether the two are compatible.
• Moisture differentialalso moisture delta, MC differentialThe difference between the moisture content of the flooring material and that of the subfloor, which must sit inside an acceptable range before installation.

N

• Nail-downFastening flooring mechanically to a wood subfloor — correct for solid hardwood over plywood.
• NHLA gradealso Lumber grade, FAS, No. 1 CommonA hardwood lumber grade set at the sawmill by how much clear material a board will yield when cut up — not a statement about a finished floor.

P

• Planetary sanderalso multi-disc sanderA refining machine with three or more counter-rotating discs on a rotating head, producing a random multi-directional scratch pattern that blends field into edges.
• Progressive gritsWorking through abrasives from coarse to fine in sequence, with the perimeter matching the field at every step.

R

• Radiant heatAn in-floor heating assembly that imposes a thermal cycle on the flooring above it, in addition to the seasonal humidity cycle.
• Relative humidityalso RHThe amount of water vapour in the air relative to what that air could hold at its temperature — the environmental variable a hardwood floor actually responds to.

S

• SapwoodThe paler outer wood of a tree, still conducting sap when the tree was standing. Permitted, limited or required depending on the grade.
• Seasonal gappingVisible gaps that open between boards as the floor contracts, typically in a dry Toronto winter.
• Selection systemalso Single-tree selection, Selection harvestA silvicultural system of periodic partial harvests that keeps mature forest cover in place permanently, rather than removing and replacing a stand.
• Solid hardwoodFlooring milled from a single piece of wood, typically 3/4" (19 mm), with a generational wear layer and high sensitivity to humidity swings.
• Strip, plank and wide plankBoard-width categories defined by the flooring standard, not descriptive terms a showroom is free to apply as it likes.
• Subflooralso substrateWhat the finished floor is installed onto — plywood over joists, a concrete slab, or a radiant assembly — and the thing that determines the installation method.

T

• Tolerant hardwoodalso Shade-tolerant hardwoodA hardwood species that regenerates and grows under a closed forest canopy, and can therefore be harvested without opening the stand.

W

• Wear layerThe thickness of real hardwood above the core — what determines how many times a floor can be refinished.
• White oakalso European oakThe species currently dominant in both aesthetics and resale signalling across the Greater Toronto Area, at a Janka of roughly 1360.

Provenance

Why every entry cites a paper

A glossary is only worth reading if it is right, and the only way to keep one right at scale is to make every entry a view onto something that was already reviewed. When a term needs substance no paper covers, the paper gets written first.