Engineered Flooring or Solid HW?

My Mannington engineered wood has been down for about 18 months.  Over
concrete it was by far the best solution for me.  It is a floating floor and
seems to have excellent wear capabilities.  I'd not be concerned about hte
2mm tip thickness.

I decided to go for engineered flooring in my last house, very easy to
put down. It was a 3.6 mm veneer and wasn't any cheaper than solid wood
but I thought it was likely to be more stable over concrete. I reckon
2mm would be fine if you don't intend to do too much agressive
refinishing.

How flat are your concrete floors? In the lounge I had to rescreed the
floor to get it flat as there were dips of up to 1.5 inches!!!, I
hadn't noticed the dips when it was carpet but a wooden floor is going
to be a bit bouncy if it is not supported. Something to bear in mind.

Geoff

I put down engineered maple in our master bath about 4 years ago.  It floats
on top of a 1/8"  closed foam padding layer with that on top of  a 4 mil
vapor barrier.  So far so good.

I have an Engineered Floating Maple floor (destroyed by flood) and next door
has a Glued down 3/8 Solid Oak.... When the glue separates from the sub or
from the wood it makes noise.... so they have 3 spots that you can tell
something happened underneath.

As long as you don't drop anything real heavy with sharp edges, the
Engineered Floor will hang in there. ( the oak would get screwed too) but
that was the only problem I had when I dropped a piece of granite and it
made a dig not through the veneer, but I'm afraid to patch it because I'm
unsure of the clear coating and it's small enough to ignore.


My whole lower floor was Engineered The Kitchen was destroyed in the flood.
So we're thinking of Bamboo through out the lower floors with or without a
Ceramic tile in the Kitchen??? Still going back and forth! But the
Engineered floor as much as a pain as it is, is also easy to change and also
take with you. So in 10 years you get tired of it, out down something
different with MUCH less work. What I'm doing is taking the good flooring
downstairs and redoing the carpeted hallway and bedrooms!!!

Engineered are much more stable... Most have a plywood
substrate and the finish is tough as nails.

**** Beware of slab floors that are NOT flat *****

Wood floors do NOT like uneven surfaces.


James "Cubby" Culbertson wrote:

I have heard of using a 3/4" floating subfloor over concrete by
laminating two layers of 3/8" plywood.  Has anyone tried this?

Cheers, Wayne

Home Depot advertises a interlocking sub-floor (particle board) that
interlocks. Haven't tried it simply because I cant deal with the height of
it. Would cause me to much work!... If I was starting from scratch, I might
have!