Thread: Engineered floor vs solid timber

Cam ,
could you elaborate on what you mean by engineered floor .
Pine timber with hardwood veneer , full thickness ply or composite wood fiber with ply veneer or laminated bamboo ? or some other type.
And what are you laying the floor on ?

The biggest advantage of solid wood is the ability to refinish it a few times. When the engineered flooring wears out, you generally won't be able to refinish it. Depending on the finish, you can expect between 10 and 30 years of service before it needs to be replaced (engineered) or refinished (solid).
If the flooring is properly installed the warping, buckling etc. isn't an issue. If it isn't installed properly it could happen.

ron

i have been laying every type of timber floor available for 20 years.

i recommend a solid timber floor over an engineered floor or floating floor any day of the week.

by the way, 14mm is not a normal thickness of solid timber flooring.
you should be looking at 20mm thickness, which is the industry standard.

you should not have any dramas with moisture coming through a concrete slab with a solid timber floor as it is standard to coat the slab with 2 part epoxy which is the moisture barrier between slab and timber.

of course the salesman selling engineered flooring is going to say his product is better, he wants your money! (and his commission.)

justin.

As all the others say , go with the solid timber and and as Justin says 20mm is better .You will get some timber movement with the solid timber over the years ( small gaps between the boards ) . You could consider parquet flooring which will be a bit more expensive than the solid timber but gaps caused by shrinkage will be random rather than in straight lines and therefore not as noticeable .

Engineered I think was pine timber with a 4mm of spotted gum veneer.

Both Engineered and Solid Hardwood Flooring are made with REAL Hardwood. The most important difference between Solid Floors and Engineered Floors is within their manufacturing process. Solid Hardwood is manufactured from a solid piece of wood, which results in a solid piece of hardwood plank – one solid piece of material all the way through the Hardwood floor, from sawing the wood until installing the floors; it is all one “Solid” piece. On the other hand, Engineered Hardwood contains only one thin layer of real hardwood – which is the visible layer at the top of the plank. Engineered Flooring is made from multiple layers of softwood such as plywood or High Density Fibers (HDF), all glue down together with pressure, which results in a multi-layer plank with a top layer of pure Hardwood. So you would probably think that Solid Hardwood is a better choice because it contains a larger amount of real, pure hardwood.