Construction Types:
Solid hardwood flooring is prized  because it is a solid piece of hardwood from top to bottom; an extremely substantial product.  Solid hardwood has intact all the capillaries a tree uses to transmit sap and water to various parts of its body. Therefore solid hardwood flooring absorbs and sheds humidity easily, which makes it grow and shrink in size.  This growth can cause cupping at the surface when the planks have nowhere to grow but up at their joints.  Shrinking can cause gaps at the joints between the planks when they lose humidity. To perform properly and remain stable, it needs to be installed above grade where it will be separated from potential water sources, or with a water barrier over concrete sub-flooring in order to protect it from being affected by water transmitted through the concrete slab.  A bevel on the sides and ends of each plank helps to hide any potential cupping or shrinking that might occur alternately in climates with large seasonal humidity changes.   Hand scraping and distressing of the planks will also greatly mask any potential cupping or shrinking.  We use only properly kiln dried lumber in the manufacture of our hardwood flooring, which adds greatly to its stability.  Solid hardwood flooring is not recommended for installation over radiant heating systems.
Engineered hardwood Flooring is prized for its resistance to movement. This movement can be caused by the following stressors:

1. Changes in hardwood flooring temperatures (radiant heating systems) which dry out and shrink hardwood flooring, creating gaps between the planks. Cupping can also occur when the system is rapidly shut down and the wood flooring expands as it takes on normal humidity again.

2. Water intrusion through concrete sub-flooring. 

Engineered hardwood flooring’s stability is  accomplished by overlaying a hardwood top wear layer over a base of cross laminated wood sections. (Plywood)  This cross lamination process drastically decreases solid hardwoods’ tendency to grow or shrink due to changes in humidity or heat.  Since a thinner portion of the plank is solid hardwood, there is less force behind its tendency to change shape.  The plywood base has almost no tendency to change shape, since its wood plys are laid at a 45 degree angle to each other before gluing them together.   They therefore tend to change shape at differing directions, effectively cancelling each other out. We only offer our long length engineered hardwood flooring with a very thick hardwood top layer over its laminated wood base in order to make it more substantial like solid hardwood flooring, while  maintaining its resistance to movement that causes cupping and gapping.  Looking from above after installation, you cannot tell if one of our branded styles has been made from solid or engineered hardwood flooring.  Many people feel it is much better stewardship of the world’s hardwood resources to use just a top layer of hardwood in a flooringproduct, as opposed to using a solid piece of hardwood. Others feel that a solid hardwoood floor is a more substantial product, since it is solid all the way through.  In essence, the top wear layer above the tongue and groove is the only portion that truly matters. If it were not thick enough, and was worn down over the years by numerous resandings, the flooring  could no longer be used anyway since its interlocking connection could not be sanded further without altering the floors stability. So a top thick top wear layer in an engineered floor is what makes the floor a durable, lifetime product.

Manufacturing Bonuses with Zumaya
Our Long Length Collections (Classics, Early American, French Oak, Precious Metals, and Reclaimed American Barnwood) offer the following features and benefits: 

Long Length Plank Construction
Some companies hardwood flooring that comes in boxes or short bundles is called “random length flooring”.  This is a sizing arrived at in an attempt to completely cut out any supposed imperfections (knots, lighter colored sapwood) which makes the average plank length very short.  It also includes very short planks to utilize every inch of the wood flooring available.  We feel it makes for a much more stylish hardwood floor to use only long length planks which are over twice as long as random length planks.  We leave in any “imperfections” feeling that they are an integral part of a styles beauty and character.  And we refuse to offer any plank shorter than two feet long (except for wall fills), feeling that it cheapens the look, and makes the floor look more like a jigsaw puzzle than a sophisticated hardwood floor.

Unilock Plank Construction
Most long length flooring comes with its interconnecting “tongue and groove” construction only on the sides of the flooring planks.  We take this interlocking process one important step further; we add the same tongue and groove construction to the ends of each plank.  This processmakes for a completely interlocking installation, keeping your hardwood flooring completely stable for decades to come. It also makes the installation process simpler, since the ends arrive pre-squared, tongue and grooved, and interconnect to each other easily and permanently.

Tongue and Groove off-setting
On each solid hardwood flooring plank we manufacture in our Classics, Naturals, French Oak, and Metals Collections we set the tongue and groove connection between each plank 10% lower in the height of the plank.  This leaves a thicker usable top layer of hardwood to extend the useful life of the product.  This slight offsetting does not affect the stability of the flooring, but provides the opportunity to accomplish one more sanding of the layer above the tongue and groove connection points of the planks.  This makes our all of our solid styles truly lifetime items!  In our engineered construction, we accomplish a longer usable product life by using a much thicker top hardwood wear layer than is the norm.

Prefinishing
All of our long length styles come distressed and stained according to style, and initially finished.  They must be acclimated to their new environment for two weeks to stabilize them prior to installation. Then a qualified installer in your area must simply install the long length planks, hand sand them, and final coat them.  Our CLASSICS Series is finished with Water Based Polyurethane, and if requested can be finished on all four sides to completely seal the planks against humidity loss and gain.  This means that they can be immediately installed.  This process eliminates the need to acclimate the flooring.  It needs simply to be installed, hand sanded, and final finished on location