We just laid engineered bamboo and were told that it should be perpendicular to the largest windows. We have two sliders on the east wall of the house so we ran it east and west. Supposedly that makes the rooms look bigger.

Donna

Are you talking about solid hardwood or engineered? Solid hardwood is traditionally run perpendicular to the floor joists regardless of the direction that will be in relation to the front door. New subfloor materials have made that less of a necessity than it used to be but we just built a house and the installer we chose still works across the joists and says that's the way he prefers.

What DLM said-depends on the joists.

My house was built in 1983 with solid oak floors. I don't know which way the joists run, but the flooring in the entry is lengthwise from the front door to the glass door that closes off the entry to the rest of the house (single french door). Inside that door, the floors switch direction and run perpendicular to the entry floor. To the right hat takes them down the hallway to the bedrooms, running lengthwise to the end of the hall. It also runs into the kitchen lengthwise, which is left of the entry.

In the bedrooms it switches again and runs perpendicular to the hallway run. They are solid, no squeaking or separation anywhere. It was a custom built home (not by me) so maybe they shored thing up to do it that way, but there are no problems at all. I love how they look, too, as they are running in a direction for each room that leads you into the room instead of chopping it up sideways visually.

Hardwood floors should always be installed the way most traffic runs to avoid most of scratches!