Engineered vs Solid Floors
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Types Of Hardwood Flooring
There are 2 basic types of wood flooring: solid flooring and engineered flooring.
Solid Hardwood Floors
Solid Flooring is one piece of wood from top to bottom. In most cases, solid flooring is nailed down to a subfloor. It is excellent for most areas of a home on the ground level or above. Solid flooring lets you customize your floor with borders, patterns and corner treatments.
Engineered Hardwood Floors
Engineered Flooring is a product that consists of layers of wood laminated together. It is ideal for glue-down installation or float-in installation above grade, on grade, or below grade—including basements and humid climates. Because the layers run in different directions, engineered flooring is more dimensionally stable than solid wood.
Engineered hardwoods look exactly the same as solid wood. But there are important differences:
Engineered flooring is composed of multiple cross-stacked layers. This makes it impervious to humidity and moisture, unlike a strip of solid wood. It also allows for the use of longer planks–providing not only a more desirable look, but also resistance to bending or bowing, as can happen with longer solid planks.
Solid planks can also suffer from expansion and contraction in changing seasons, leaving unsightly gaps, as well as “cupping” from moisture and shrinkage over a long period of time.
Engineered flooring is more flexible in application as well. It can be directly glued down on a concrete slab, or stapled to a wood sub-floor. And, it can be installed on any grade level.
As a result, engineered floors are well suited to almost every room in the house, including kitchens and dry basements, and offer superior durability in addition to uncompromised beauty.
Hardwood Floor vs. Carpet, Vinyl or Laminate Floor
Flooring comes in four main varieties: hardwood flooring, carpeting, sheet vinyl flooring and laminate flooring. For many reasons, hardwood flooring makes the best choice:
Superior Value of Hardwood Flooring
Of the four flooring choices, only hardwood flooring will add value to your home,substantial value. If you sell your house someday, you probably won’t recoup any money you’ve spent on carpeting, laminate or vinyl flooring. Here is why.
Carpeting
Carpeting can easily be more expensive in the long run than hardwood flooring. Carpets wear out and must be replaced, especially in high traffic areas like stairs, hallways, doorways and children’s rooms. They also get dirty and stained. Over time, the cost of installing two sets of wall-to-wall carpet will equal the cost of a one-time quality hardwood floor installation.
Laminate flooring
Laminate flooring is not much different. It’s a multi-layer synthetic flooring product, fused together with a lamination process. Laminate flooring simulates wood or stone, with a photographic applique layer under a clear protective layer. Laminates add no value to a home. They can also fade in direct light, warp in heat or when exposed to moisture, and, like carpeting, they have to be replaced.