Many people are under the impression that solid hardwood flooring is superior in order to engineered hardwood floors and may also will not consider manufactured flooring for their own home. Having put in 25 years being a flooring contractor and the past 4 yrs as a merchant of both manufactured and solid hardwood flooring, I have got found that right now there are lots of myths about both types of floors. I want to share the following information and even my experience consequently that you can make an well-informed decision about the particular best floor intended for your project.

Just before Engineered Flooring Charlecote begin our comparison of built and solid flooring surfaces, let us initially clear up the misunderstanding that engineered floors is the similar as laminate floor (ie-Pergo. ) More than a few people walk into my personal showroom on this thought, which is certainly not true. Laminate floors is not true wood, engineered floor is. The surface layer of layered flooring is an image of wood wheat on paper impregnated with melamine, not really real wood. The best layer (also known as wear layer) involving engineered wood flooring consists of (real! ) high-quality real wood. Engineered hardwood floor surfaces are comprised associated with multiple layers regarding wood, which can be cross-banded for stability and even glued onto some sort of plywood base.

Solid Flooring: Plus

Sound wood floor is exactly that–a solid bit of wood from top rated to bottom. The thickness can change, normally ranges coming from 3/4″ to 5/16″. Solid hardwood is usually certainly hardwearing and even resilient, as well as its main advantage is that it can easily be re-sanded repeatedly. However, it is not necessarily outstanding to engineered floor coverings in this value. Solid wood floor, like engineered floor, has a “wear layer” or part of wood of which can be sanded, and it will be only a fraction of the thickness of the floors. Even though solid floors are thicker compared to wear part of engineered floor surfaces, you could only fine sand down so considerably before you might hit a nail with solid floors. You may get one, possibly only two, additional sandings together with a solid floor compared to an engineered floor. This kind of is the only possible advantage to be able to solid flooring, i think, and it does not apply inside every case and generally does not outweigh the benefits of engineered flooring.

Engineered Flooring: Plus

Engineered floors need several advantages. Whilst solid floors are usually not a good choice within situations where presently there are high wetness levels or radiant heat systems, typically the construction of engineered floors makes them stable enough to be able to withstand certain alterations in temperature and even moisture that may well come up with a solid floors warp. Engineered wood floors are designed to resist wood’s all-natural tendency to modify dimensionally over time. Typically the grain of every layer runs found in opposite directions, which often makes engineered floors very stable. Because of this the wood may expand and deal less than stable wood flooring throughout fluctuations in humidness and temperature. Regarding this reason designed floors are a better choice for applications for instance more than radiant heat installations, in kitchens, bathrooms, and basements, or where a flooring is needed to span two different type of sub-floors like particle board and concrete.

One other advantage of engineered floors is even more flexibility of installation types. Whereas sturdy floors can just be nailed down, most engineered flooring surfaces can be pinned or stapled to some wood sub flooring, or glued lower to a wooden sub floor or concrete slab. Only engineered floors may be floated, the simply option when wood flooring cannot end up being attached to typically the sub-floor.

Lastly, in comparison to solid wood flooring, engineered flooring is definitely a more environmentally sustainable choice, as it could yield up to be able to four times the particular amount of flooring using the same amount of high quality wood.

Having mentioned all of this specific, wood floors will be certainly an excellent choice for several programs. They just are usually not necessarily the particular superior choice in every case, as a lot of people believe. When in doubt, a new flooring contractor can evaluate your web site issues and inform you while to the best flooring type for your home.