hey guys,

im trying to pick out my hardwood floors and my wife and i really like tigerwood. after looking around on the net, we really like bellawood brazilian koa from lumber liquidators. so i decided to do a lil research on it and read some reviews. after a lengthy night of horror stories i stumbled across this site and what i read here i took as the honest truth (thank god i found this place before i ordered). i have a buddy that installs hardwood i called him and he said pretty much the same that it was not quality to put it lightly. so here are my questions.
1) is there any good tigerwood at or around $6?
2) what brands do you have experience with or reccomend like br111 or brazilianhardwood.com?
3) another flooring guy had made the statement that all of the brazilian wood wasnt very good. true not true?

sorry for semi-vague kind of bland questions i just need all/any input and your time/opinions are very much appreciated

Good advice to stay away from Bellawood Koa, I'm very familiar with that product.

RE: "Brazilian woods are no good". I disagree, sounds like someone has had some bad experiences. Brazilian woods can be great, depending on the Manuf. and the products in their line. And as long as their installed properly , acclimated, & the homeowner maintains the right site conditions, ( that's for any woods).
I think BR-111 has a great quality "Solid"Tigerwood ( Braz. Koa ), but I would stay away from their engineered products. A lot of installers dont like Armstrong, I happen to like them. They make a great Engineered Tigerwood in their Global Exotics line.

ha ha yeah that seems to be the general census.
thanks for the suggestion. we will defintely take a look at some br111 wood. i dont mind splurging a bit but dont want to break the bank or get screwed. i forgot to mention that we are going with solid 3/4 inch. we have plywood sub-floor. im just not very educated about stuff like this so thank you for your time and opinions.

The MIRAGE Tigerwood is a beautiful and precisely milled product. There can be issues with material that is milled in Brazil and finished up here, but most of the quality manufacturers do their own milling; so thats perhaps where your friends comment about poor quality originates.

I think a great bang for you buck as far as exotics go are both ARK and Nature Floors. I am working with a customer on a Tigerwood project as we speak. Mirage is beautiful if you can get by the price, and you can't go wrong with BR-111 with the price in between the others.

thanks guys for all the info. we are pulling the trigger on some br111 tigerwood. lowes has it for $7.98 sq ft and they are running a sale starting tomorrow on special order hardwood for 20% off. so we cant pass that up (mainly because we agreed with our contractor in writing that he would pay $3 sq ft plus pay for the installation.) so with all that going for us i think it was kind of obvious. we are really excited! you guys are awesome and i very much appreciate it!

Exotics are iffy and problematic IMHO. Not to mention you just cannot tell if it originated from a clear cutting operation in the rain forest. I'd stay with a native hardwood if your looking for a lifetime floor. How bout Mesquite?