SOLID, ENGINEERED, AND LAMINATED WOOD FLOORS: THE DIFFERENCES
With the variety of wood floor products available today, consumers are challenged to sift through the many choices and obtain the wood floor with the appearance, longevity, and price that best suit their
situation. One way to organize your thinking about wood floors is to consider whether to use raw, solid wood that is finished at the site, or flooring that is manufactured and finished at the factory.
SOLID, SITE-FINISHED FLOORING
The traditional wood floor, and the reference point for all wood floors, is made of solid (not laminated) wood that is finished at the job site after installation. Within this category are a great many options. For example, there is no restriction on which species of wood is used, from domestic oak, cherry, walnut, fir, etc., to eucalyptus, bamboo, and other less well-known exotics from the international market. We have over 60 different species of wood on display in our shop. Because they range widely in terms of color, grain, hardness, availability, and price, there is almost always a species that fits the specifications of your job.
Unlike many engineered products, the solid wood floor can be sanded numerous times. With a longevity far surpassing that of most engineered products, in the long run solid wood often makes the most economical of all floors. Also, the site-finished solid wood floor is customized to your specifications with respect to stain and finish.
Moreover, the sited-finished floor, employing real, solid wood with naturally varying lengths and grain, enjoys a subtle but specially unique natural appearance unavailable in the manufactured products -- but certainly apparent to the most discriminating customer. Also, solid wood floors permit the inlays and patterns that distinguish fine hand-crafted products from those that are machine mass-produced. Finally, site-finished floors are not priced much differently from many engineered floors. The labor to assemble and finish your floor at the site is roughly the same as the cost to laminate and prefinish the flooring at a factory--except that when the floor is made at the site, you know the product is made in America and not overseas.
ENGINEERED FLOORING
The term "engineered" is a recent wood flooring industry euphemism for laminated (i.e. layered). The vocabulary unfortunately can be confusing to consumers. Although laminated means layered (e.g. plywood), in current usage "laminated" refers to flooring which is an image of wood on a particle-board backing (e.g. Pergo brand). The factory-made flooring of multiple layers with a veneer of hardwood on top, although in fact a lamination, is what today is called engineered.
So engineered flooring, like plywood, consists of thin layers of wood glued together to form a base for a veneer of real hardwood on the surface. The surface layer (also called "wear layer") varies from 1/16 inch to 1/4 inch thick, depending on the manufacturer. The thickest veneers may be sanded almost as much as solid flooring, but the thinner veneers only once or twice if at all. In addition, much currently popular engineered flooring is textured or sculpted to suggest an aged or distressed quality. The consumer may consider for himself whether such a faux effect serves his decorating scheme, but should know that such a floor cannot be sanded; and because of limited manufacturing runs, replacement of the whole floor may be the only option in the event of wear or damage.
Most so-called engineered flooring is made with an "eased edge" or "micro-bevel" along both sides of each board, so that the elevation differences between boards are less noticeable. Of course, the bevels visually define a prefinished floor very clearly, and distinguish it from a job-site finished floor which hasn't any bevels or v-grooves. (The sanding of the solid flooring evens out the minute elevation differences in those floors, so that there is no need for beveled edges in the site-finished floor.)
The lengths of prefinished flooring planks tend to be more uniform than those of solid flooring, so that despite a veneer of real wood, the prefinished manufactured floor boards sometimes have a more regular visual appearance than the floor of solid wood.
The finish on most prefinished flooring is quite good. However, advertised warranties of up to 25 years are very strictly defined and difficult to claim, and should be examined carefully.
Most engineered flooring may be nailed or glued down to the subfloor, or "floated" (attaching the planks to each other but not to the subfloor itself) -- making it more likely to succeed on a below-grade application where moisture may be present.
LAMINATED FLOORING
What is called laminated flooring today is realy an image or photograph of wood pasted to a particle-board or press-board backing. It cannot be sanded or refinished, because like manufactured products such as Formica, it is not real wood.
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