Article by Emily Flanders
Considering buying engineered wooden flooring for your home? If not, you definitely should. Engineered wooden flooring is a little bit of everything: durable, attractive, and inexpensive. Check out the competing products before you buy engineered wood floors, or any flooring, though. Those competitors would be laminate wooden flooring, and solid wooden floors.
Comparing Looks
Comparing how engineered wooden flooring and solid wood floors look is actually sort of goofy. In fact, the top layer, which is what you actually see, will be identical, dependent on the types of woods, not the types of floors. After all, the top layer of engineered wood flooring consists of a thin piece of solid wood. Laminate, though, can look very different from engineered. You can find a laminate wood floor that looks extremely fake, and then turn around and find on that a flooring expert has to get down on hands and knees to tell that it’s not a solid or engineered wood floor. Since they’re the same thing, it’s an easy decision to say engineered wooden flooring looks just as good as solid, at least at first.
Sounds
Strange as it may seem, sound does play a factor in choosing your wooden flooring. After all, the thing one does most with their floor is walk on it, and that will create a sound with every step. This is where all three options can vastly differ, both from each other, and from different brands. Laminate wooden floors are associated with hollow sounds. Some manufacturers claim that their newer models don’t have this problem. A solid wooden floor will typically not produce any sound other than the noise your foot makes when it hits the surface. That is, of course, until it gets a bit older. Then it may start to creak, a problem that laminate does not share. Engineered wooden floors can run the gambit from one to the other; some may sound hollow, some may not. They’re also less likely to creak as they age, but it is feasible. As far as desirability and sound goes, engineered wooden flooring would come in second best, just after solid wooden floors.
Engineered Wooden Flooring Is Durable
When it comes to durability, the solid wooden floor is king. Even if it becomes damaged, simply buff and refinish. It’s really that simple. Engineered wooden flooring shares this trait, but only to a degree. Because the top layer is rather thin, it can only be sanded a few times. This means that regular, deep gouges or scuffing may end up causing you to have to replace boards. This is still better than laminate, though, which cannot be sanded at all.
Comparing Prices
You’ll find, when pricing engineered wooden flooring, as well as solid wooden floors, that there’s no telling what the prices are going to be from month to month. Wood is a natural product, so availability plays a huge role in prices. Solid wooden floors are worse about this than engineered since engineered uses some processed materials, and laminate is generally more stable than the other two, unless a factory explodes or something. All other things being equal, solid wood floors are usually a lot more expensive than either of the other two, and engineered wooden flooring is generally a touch pricier than laminate.
To learn more, check out Wooden Flooring Info.
About the Author
Emily writes articles about home improvement, including wooden flooring.
This short video shows how to install solid wood flooring onto a concrete base using Rewmar MS Polymer flexible adhesive. This adhesive is so easy to use and contains no solvents. Perfect for sticking down both solid hardwood flooring and engineered hardwood flooring. For more information please vist the website www.rewmar.co.uk This product can be bought online from: www.wood2u.co.uk
Video Rating: 3 / 5
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