Hardwood Floors: Getting the best bang for the buck

[Alex M.]

I love hardwood floors and prefer them over vinyl and laminate, but wood is very expensive.

Does anybody have experience with either utility oak or reclaimed hardwood?

Utility oak is commonly a low grade hard wood, usually comes in 1-2 foot lengths and is very imperfect to say the least. For example, www.Hardwoods4less.com sells for $1.70/sq foot, but since the peices are short length the install time goes up along with labor cost.

Reclaimed hardwood seems to be more common in the midwest when factories, houses, schools or old buildings in general are gutted and the contractors re-sell old material. The concerns with this are they typically are well used but have tons of life. If stored incorrectly the wood can become warped and difficult to install. 

Are there any folks here that have a lot of experience with either of these? I'm thinking about installing either of these two materials in a duplex in Ohio.