Engineered Vs Solid Wood Flooring - Facts & Misconceptions
Many consumers are under the effect that solid hard wood floors are superior in order to engineered hardwood floor and may also usually consider designed flooring for their particular home. Having put in 25 years being a flooring contractor as well as the past 4 yrs as a retailer of both manufactured and solid hard wood flooring, I include found that there are lots of misguided beliefs about both types of floors. Visit this link would really like to share the following information and even my experience so that you can easily make an educated decision about typically the best floor regarding your project.
Ahead of I begin our comparison of manufactured and solid floor surfaces, let us very first solve the belief that engineered flooring is the similar as laminate floor coverings (ie-Pergo. ) Additional than a few people enter the showroom with this idea, which is certainly not true. Laminate floor is not actual wood, engineered floors is. The surface area layer of layered flooring is an image of wood feed on paper impregnated with melamine, certainly not real wood. The very best layer (also known as wear layer) involving engineered wood floor consists of (real! ) high-quality solid wood. Engineered hardwood floors are comprised associated with multiple layers of wood, which are cross-banded for stability and glued onto some sort of plywood base.
Sturdy Flooring: Plus
Solid wood floor is exactly that--a solid item of wood from top to bottom. The particular thickness can vary, normally ranges from 3/4" to 5/16". Solid hardwood is certainly hardwearing plus resilient, as well as its major advantage is that it can certainly be re-sanded repeatedly. However, it will be not necessarily superior to engineered floor coverings in this regard. Solid wood flooring, like engineered flooring, has a "wear layer" or layer of wood that will can be sanded, and it is usually only a cheaper density of the floor. Even though solid floors are thicker than the wear level of engineered floor surfaces, you could only fine sand down so far before you would likely hit a nail with solid flooring. You may have one, possibly two, additional sandings using a solid floor compared to the engineered floor. This particular is the just possible advantage to be able to solid flooring, in my opinion, and it does not apply inside every case and usually does not surpass the advantages of engineered floor.
Engineered Flooring: Plus
Engineered floors have got several advantages. While solid floors are not the ideal choice in situations where there are high dampness levels or glowing heat systems, typically the construction of engineered floors makes these people stable enough in order to withstand certain changes in temperature and moisture that might produce a solid floors warp. Engineered hard wood floors are designed to be able to resist wood's organic tendency to change dimensionally over time. The grain of each and every layer runs inside opposite directions, which makes engineered floor surfaces very stable. Which means that the wood will certainly expand and contract less than sound wood flooring throughout fluctuations in dampness and temperature. With regard to this reason built floors are a new better choice regarding applications for example over radiant heat installs, in kitchens, bathing rooms, and basements, or where a floor is needed to span two different sub-floors like hdf and concrete.
One other advantage of designed floors is a lot more flexibility of assembly types. Whereas solid floors can simply be nailed straight down, most engineered floors can be pinned or stapled to some wood sub ground, or glued along to a solid wood sub floor or concrete slab. Only engineered floors may be floated, the simply option when hardwood flooring cannot be attached to the sub-floor.
Lastly, when compared to solid wood floors, engineered flooring will be a more enviroment sustainable choice, as it could yield up to be able to four times the amount of floors using the exact same amount of premium quality wood.
Having explained all of this particular, wooden floors will be certainly a great choice for many software. They just are not necessarily typically the superior choice in each case, as numerous people believe. Whenever in doubt, the flooring contractor can evaluate your internet site issues and inform you as to the top flooring type regarding your home.