Flooring Types
Hardwood Flooring in New Orleans
We install, repair and refinish hardwood flooring in homes across New Orleans, including heart pine and new oak, in raised and slab homes. Hardwood can last here when the boards are brought to the right moisture level before they go down and the space underneath stays dry.
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Solid or engineered hardwood for your house?
This page is for homeowners asking how well hardwood holds up in New Orleans. It covers solid against engineered wood, how our humidity moves wood, what raised houses and slabs need, and what changes the cost and timeline.
Both have a real wood surface. They differ in what's underneath and where they can go.
Solid hardwood
Each board is one piece of wood, nailed to a wood subfloor or to joists. It's the traditional floor in raised homes and can be sanded and refinished over its life.
Engineered hardwood
A hardwood top layer bonded to a cross-layered core. The USDA Wood Handbook says wood bonded in crossing directions swells and shrinks much less with humidity changes, which is why engineered boards are the usual answer on a slab. See our engineered wood flooring page.
Original heart pine
A New Orleans installer interviewed by the NWFA's Hardwood Floors magazine says heart pine is what they see most in older homes here. Before you replace it, ask about hardwood floor refinishing.
Built for New Orleans
How does hardwood hold up in New Orleans humidity?
Wood takes on and gives off moisture with the air around it, so the numbers below decide when boards are ready.
Moisture content
The USDA Wood Handbook lists outdoor equilibrium moisture content in New Orleans at 13.7% to 15.0% depending on the month, and says to install wood at the moisture content it'll see in service to avoid problems like buckling. The installer in Hardwood Floors magazine puts the target for wood here at 10% to 12%.
Acclimation and air conditioning
Hallmark's solid hardwood instructions give a relative humidity range of 30% to 55%. Boards sit in the house until they reach the right moisture level, then go down.
Keeping it steady
Once the floor is in, keep the AC and humidity steady year round. Boards that cup or gap are an early sign that moisture has changed.
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How it works
Hardwood in raised houses, on slabs and in flood-prone rooms
What's under the floor matters as much as the wood you pick.
- 01
Raised and pier homes
Hallmark's instructions call for the crawl space earth to be fully covered by a black polyethylene vapor retarder of at least 6 mil, and warn that uncontrolled crawl space humidity damages the structure and the floor. The Hardwood Floors magazine installer notes that many older houses here have no subfloor, with flooring nailed directly to the joists.
- 02
Slab homes
Hallmark calls slab moisture emissions a common cause of damage to hardwood floors, and Bruce warns that a slab that tests dry can be wet at other times of the year. That's why we test every slab and may suggest engineered wood there.
- 03
Rooms that can flood
FEMA rates wood floor coverings, solid and engineered, as unacceptable for flood exposure. In a ground-floor room that can flood, choose h