It doesn’t matter where you live in the Bay Area. It could be Piedmont, Berkeley, San Pablo or Alamo. Everyone has an opinion about hardwood floors. So now it’s time to get a new floor in your home and you’re not sure which to have installed: hardwood floors or carpets. There are so many things to be said about each, yet hardwood floors wins the contest. Here is why:

• It takes no chemicals to make wood floors. If domestically harvested, the wood is legal and comes from a sustained forest. The wood is logged, milled and shipped to a local lumber yard. Every new carpet has a harsh smell. The smell is a sure sign the carpet is releasing toxic volatile organic compounds (VOCs) into your home’s air. VOCs can include highly toxic chemicals and no, we don’t want to start naming them. You can probably look it up on Google and experience the shock all by yourself.

• Even when you think carpets are clean they are not. Carpets can become reservoirs of dust, hair, skin and other tiny particles that may cause allergies and other health issues. We remove carpets every week to install new hardwood floors. I can’t tell you how many times the owners are shocked to see how much dust there is under their carpets. Yes, even in the cleanest homes. The fact is that wood floors can’t hold anything inside them, just on top. If you regularly clean your wood floors you will be just fine. If you regularly clean your carpet, it will still hold dust and other particles underneath it.

• Cost and value: wood floors cost more than a carpet but they can be refinished when it’s time for a change. Unlike carpets that need to be replaced. Installation of hardwood floors in your home is an investment, your property will be worth more. With carpet, not so much. Every house that goes on the market for sale is recommended to have wood floors. It is a fact. Homes with wood floors are more beautiful and are valued more by the buyers.

• Wood floors last longer than carpets. We are still refinishing hardwood floors in Berkeley and Oakland hills that had been there for more than a hundred years. Carpets usually last a few years before they start looking really dirty or really worn. Why bother spending money every few years on a new unhealthy carpet when you have to install wood floors only once?

So, next time you’re looking at your child playing on the carpet and/or thinking about saving money on your floors, think again. Hardwood floors have always been the smart choice and will always be.