Many consumers are under the impact that solid hard wood floors are superior in order to engineered hardwood floor coverings and may perhaps refuse to consider manufactured flooring for their very own home. Having spent 25 years like a flooring contractor and the past 4 yrs as a merchant of both designed and solid hard wood flooring, I possess found that presently there are a great deal of beliefs about both varieties of floors. I would really like to share the following information and my experience therefore that you can make an knowledgeable decision about the best floor regarding your project.
Just before I begin my comparison of designed and solid flooring surfaces, let us very first get rid of the belief that engineered floor is the similar as laminate floor coverings (ie-Pergo. ) More than a several people walk into my showroom with this concept, which is not necessarily true. Laminate floors is not true wood, engineered floors is. The area layer of layered floors are a photo of wood feed on paper impregnated with melamine, not necessarily real wood. The very best layer (also known as wear layer) of engineered wood floor consists of (real! ) high-quality wood. Engineered hardwood flooring surfaces are comprised associated with multiple layers associated with wood, that happen to be cross-banded for stability plus glued onto some sort of plywood base.
Solid Flooring: Pro's
Stable wood floor is precisely that--a solid piece of wood from leading to bottom. The thickness can vary, normally ranges by 3/4" to 5/16". Solid hardwood will be certainly hardwearing and resilient, and its particular primary advantage is it can be re-sanded many times. However, it is usually not necessarily exceptional to engineered floor coverings in this respect. Solid wood flooring, like engineered floor coverings, has a "wear layer" or coating of wood that will can be sanded, and it is definitely only a fraction of the density of the ground. Even though reliable floors are wider compared to the wear level of engineered flooring, you could only fine sand down so significantly before you would hit a toenail with solid flooring. You may get one, possibly 2, additional sandings using a solid ground compared to a good engineered floor. This is the just possible advantage in order to solid flooring, for me, and it does indeed not apply found in every case and usually does not outweigh the benefits of engineered flooring.
Engineered Flooring: Pro's
Engineered floors have got several advantages. Whereas solid floors are usually not a good choice within situations where generally there are high humidity levels or sparkling heat systems, typically the construction of designed floors makes these people stable enough to be able to withstand certain alterations in temperature in addition to moisture that may well produce a solid floors warp. Engineered hardwood floors are designed to be able to resist wood's normal tendency to modify dimensionally over time. The grain of every single layer runs found in opposite directions, which usually makes engineered floors very stable. This means that the wood may expand and agreement less than stable wood flooring throughout fluctuations in humidness and temperature. With Check out this site to this reason manufactured floors are some sort of better choice for applications such as more than radiant heat installation, in kitchens, bath rooms, and basements, or even where a ground is needed to be able to span two differing sub-floors like plywood and concrete.
Another advantage of engineered floors is more flexibility of unit installation types. Whereas sturdy floors can simply be nailed down, most engineered floors can be pinned or stapled to some wood sub ground, or glued along to a real wood sub floor or perhaps concrete slab. Just engineered floors can be floated, the just option when wood flooring cannot always be attached to typically the sub-floor.
Lastly, when compared with solid wood floor coverings, engineered flooring will be a more ecologically sustainable choice, as it can yield up to be able to four times the amount of floors using the same amount of premium quality wood.
Having explained all of this, solid wood floors usually are certainly a good choice for most apps. They just will be not necessarily the superior choice in every case, as a lot of people believe. Whenever in doubt, some sort of flooring contractor can easily evaluate your web site conditions and counsel you while to the perfect flooring type regarding your home.