Engineered vs solid hardwood flooring

The boss and I are planning on ripping up 660 sf of carpet and replacing it with hardwood. The advantage of engineered is virtually no movement. The a dvantage of solid is multiple refinishing opportunities. Any other thoughts as to which you prefer and why?

Thanks,

Larry

Reply to
Gramps' shop
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They make engineered that has a thick enough finish ply that it can be sanded and refinished. Look into that for the best of both worlds.

Reply to
-MIKE-

Your home's temperature & humidity conditions might be the main factor - big swings are bad. Eventual re-finishing - I would not consider this a big factor. Our recent hardwood flooring jobs - same installer but different suppliers - had quite different results. Both were solid hickory - main floor is quite stable but a few pieces were infested with powder post beetles - upper floor had more & larger cracks ... can't win for losing.

Our home is a poor candidate for hardwood floors - - no air conditioning - hot humid summers - Canadian winters = dry.

Aclimatize the flooring before install. Buy extra - waste the sapwood pieces - and other poor pieces - put them in a closet if necessary. better yet - in the burn pile. John T.

Reply to
hubops

I agree - I think the engineered stuff that we saw was about 3/16 on the top layer - careful sanding for touch-ups ... I wouldn't take a big floor sander to it .. John T.

Reply to
hubops

Engineered for on slab or below grade. solid hardwood for well conditioned above ground flooring.

Reply to
clare

That would be my take as well. The factory finishes are great if you buy a good material to begin with and should last 15 - 20 years with good care. Then refinish.

And realistically,what are the odds that you will refinish?

Robert

Reply to
nailshooter41

In 15 years, I will be happy just to be able to stand on a floor.

Reply to
Gramps' shop

It'll definitely be a bonus if I'm still standing on the SAME floor -

- -. I put in solid ash hardwood in both living and dining rooms about

10 years ago.
Reply to
clare

That's my opinion to any client who asks every time it comes up and it comes up all the time. The big fad around here (historic area) is going back to original architecture and design and people always do it all without asking the whys or hows.

The factory finishes on these products are amazing and (like you said) by the time it wears out, the client (or more likely: new owner) has moved on to another fad or changed the flooring to a different material. How many times have we seen flooring go from oak, to rough pine, to light maple, to teak, etc etc etc.

People who wants "real hardwood" floors are doing it for nostalgia or some ignorant belief that it is better than newer technologies and for many, once that's in their head, there's no convincing them otherwise.

Reply to
-MIKE-

a good material to begin with and should last 15 - 20 years with good care . Then refinish.

15-20 years??? I've lived in several houses that had real hardwood floors, oak, that were 50-75 years old when we were there. I would very happily u se my rip claw to beat to death any fool who bragged about a floor lasting 15-20 years. The carpet in my house is 20 years old and it doesn't look al l that bad.
Reply to
russellseaton1

About 15 years ago I put engineered wood in my family room. Looks as good today as it did 15 years ago. It has a very hard factory finish. I put some in another bedroom. Little used, it is still perfect.

Just be sure to buy a decent grade with a good finish. I'd not bother with the cheapo stuff unless it was a short term deal or in a closet.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

Under "normal residential" use an aluminum oxide fortified catalyzed urethane varnish finish on a hardwood floor should last closer to

50-75 years. It generally carries a 15 or 20 year warranty - and it should outlast the warranty by a factor of 3. That said, wear damage on this new high-tech finish WILL show up differently than an older phenolic varnish or oil finished hardwood.
Reply to
clare

If you'll be lying on said floor, you'll want it to look good close up. ;-)

Reply to
DerbyDad03

Surprizing how much low quality manufactured hardwood and inferior laminate you find in resale homes - flippers.I'd give a few thousand more for the house without it because it would save me tearing it out and disposing of it.

Reply to
clare

If he loses his glasses it won't realy matter how good it looks - but he may want a "softwood" floor - mabee even "cottonwood"

Reply to
clare

We're not talking about the actual flooring, we're talking about the finish. Anyone who has had their solid wood floors refinished can attest to how incredible they look when they are redone. You don't notice how dull they get because it happened so slowly over those decades. Once it's as good as new, you realize how dull they were.

The other point we're making is that no consumer actually expects finish flooring to last more than 20 years because people remodel so often, now. It's a different consumer market than it was when our grandparents were deciding on flooring material.

Reply to
-MIKE-

The range of "hardwood*" flooring products is so vast that it really hurts the industry as a whole to have such a wide array of products discussed in the same conversations.

When you have people comparing the low end "laminate" products, which are basically cardboard with a photograph of wood glued to the top, with engineered hardwood that has a very thick, solid top veneer, it's like comparing a Ford Fiesta to a Bugatti Veyron.

The high end engineered (plywood) hardwood flooring products are leaps and bounds above solid hardwood in terms of quality, reliability, and longevity in overall performance and finish.

*Using the term "hardwood" as a generic term to describe all flooring that looks wood-like should be outlawed.
Reply to
-MIKE-

s, oak, that were 50-75 years old when we were there. I would very happily use my rip claw to beat to death any fool who bragged about a floor lastin g 15-20 years. The carpet in my house is 20 years old and it doesn't look all that bad.

Hmmmmm.... maybe you should turn that claw hammer on your own foolish ass u ntil you learn to read for comprehension. Save someone else the trouble.

Robert

Reply to
nailshooter41

Just as a counter-possibility, MY own boss and I put a hardwood Parquet in to our condo. Bottom floor (bottom above grade, that is) factory finished , 500 Sq. Ft. Solid oak, but just 1/4" thick.

I liked the factory finish, but I wanted to seal the floor a little better AND I wanted to fill all those voids between the little parquet pieces. Wit h a reasonable amount of care and caution, I was able to scruff up that fac tory finish (320-grit) and drop another 4 coats of HARCO High gloss poly on top.

We moved out, kept the condo and rented to new tenants 11 years later (by t his time, the damned Low VOC coats had run through the stores.) Regardless , I was able to, once again, refinish the floors, this time with a Satin.

I'm a hardwood guy, myself, BUT if refinishing later is the only fear keepi ng you from going engineered, then I wouldn't think twice about finding a c ompatible poly or varnish-- it might take a little bit of trial and error. Buy more flooring now, put three or six 2x2' squares of the stuff in your mud room or shop-- someplace with traffic & durability issues. Beat them up over the winter, and then wash & sand lightly to test a few different QUA LITY products for compatibility over the next winter. Quality products-- li ke, NOT Minwax. (HARCO, ZAR, General, are my go-to polys; Unfortunately, B en Moore's Oil Poly is now nearly impossible to find. Point is, look for t he good stuff.)

Once you find your match(es) then you will be confident that you don't hav e to sand ALL THE WAY DOWN to the lumber to be assured of your new coat sti cking.

Definitely also make sure you try a couple of high gloss coats on your test samples-- even if that's not the look you want, the high glosses are "pure poly" where the semis & satins include other chemicals that act as deadene rs and therefore can have a harder time gripping onto anything "other." If you wind up refinishing, it's nothing to coat the first time in gloss for the bite, and the second & third coats in the same company's satin for comp atibility.

I think this final point goes without saying, but just in case: AVOID the Water based polys at ALL COSTS if you're going over an already factory fini shed floor. Their coats aren't water based. Compatibility will be diffic ult at BEST, and durability is trash. (6 coats water to three oil, general ly speaking.) I hate Water based polys, period... but I won't talk anyone out of them. Just understand that they're neither as HARD nor as DURABLE (Two very different things) as an Oil, and that for a floor, those are the two most important qualities in a coat.

Hope that helps someone, someday.

S
Reply to
Steve

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