Outback Flooring Brings its Engineered Australian Flooring to the U.S.

Outback Flooring's Australian Native in spotted gum.Outback Flooring, a brand owned by longtime Australian hardwood company Hurford Hardwoods, is introducing four hardwood flooring lines into the American market. The brand is helmed by Chris Coates and Malcolm Johnston, who previously worked together for years importing Boral Timber into the U.S. Coates will manage the U.S. distribution of Outback Flooring's products while Johnston leads operations in Australia.

Three of the flooring products, HM Walk, Australian Native and First Floors, are engineered prefinished lines, while the fourth line, Tradition, is solid unfinished hardwood flooring.

The solid and engineered lines are available in Australian species including brushbox, which was once only used for fence posts but became the star material inside the Sydney Opera House; Sydney blue, a red wood named after the blue aura that appears when the sun refracts off the tree’s leaves; and Australian beech, the American name for the Australian blackbutt tree. Other species include spotted gum and jarrah.

HM Walk features a 0.6-mm veneer protected with a 13-coat UV urethane finish. Australian Native, Outback’s middle-tier offering, comes with a 4-mm veneer finished with eight coats of UV urethane. The premier product, First Floors, is a 4-mm veneer finished with UV oil.

The flooring is available in lengths up to 6 or 7 feet and in widths between 3¼–7 3/8 inches.

Coates said she expects to develop partnerships with distributors in markets where customers are interested in a unique floor, including the New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco metro areas, for starters. The products should be in all major markets by the end of 2017. Interested distributors can contact Coates via email or at (844) 312-0002.

Editor's Note: The article was updated Feb. 8.