Gimmee a Moment To Tell You About Engineered Wood Flooring
After we all spent the last year in our homes, many of us may be looking around and thinking things need an update. Putting new flooring in can be one of the best ways to breathe new life into your home, but what do you do if you can’t afford the expense of hardwood floors? Can you get the beautiful look you want without breaking the bank?
Engineered hardwood floors give you the best of both worlds, providing the look of hardwood and durability. Read on to learn more about this flooring material and the amazing benefits it can bring your home.
What Is Engineered Hardwood Flooring?
Engineered hardwood floors are one of the best alternatives to traditional wood flooring available on the market. This option blends the best of moisture-resistant floors and genuine wood floors. It provides the affordability and moisture resistance while preserving the genuine wood look of real wood floors.
Engineered hardwood planks are made up of layers of plywood overlapping in different directions. This layering gives the planks extra strength and resistance to bowing and cracking that solid hardwood planks don’t have. The plank is topped with a thin veneer of genuine hardwood to give it the gorgeous finish we all love from wood floors.
How Is It Made? It Has The Appearance of Plywood
There are a few different ways manufacturers can get the hardwood veneer they top their engineered wood floors with. These different techniques produce planks with varying appearances and levels of durability.
Some manufacturers use rotary-peeled veneer, in which a log is rotated on a lathe while a blade slices off a very thin layer of the outside with every turn (think unrolling a scroll). This produces a grain pattern with more movement, stripes, and zigzags.
Sliced veneer begins with a log that has been cut into a square. A thin piece of veneer gets sliced off the top of the square, creating a more natural-looking grain pattern.
Quartersawn veneer gets cut from a log that has been cut lengthwise into long wedges. Veneer gets cut off the side of the sedge, across the direction the grain runs, to create a long, straight grain looks.
Feels Like A Genuine Hardwood Floor....Because It Is
One of the primary benefits of engineered hardwood is that it feels like genuine wood. There’s nothing like having real wood underfoot, and if you’ve ever walked on cheap laminate or luxury vinyl plank, you’ll know how big a difference this can make. While some nicer laminates approximate the feel of genuine wood, none of them get it spot-on.
However, when you’re walking on engineered hardwood, you do have real wood under your feet all the way down to the subfloor. You don’t get any of the clickiness or plastic sounds that cheaper luxury vinyl floors generate. In fact, unless you know what you were walking on, you’d likely never be able to tell a difference between these planks and solid hardwood floors.
Sustainable
As weather patterns have worsened over the past several years and climate scientists have issued ever-more-dire warnings, many of us have started to pay more attention to how our lifestyles impact the planet. We’re all looking for ways to reduce our carbon footprint and find more sustainable ways to live.
As beautiful as hardwood is, it doesn’t make very efficient use of the trees it consumes. However, engineered hardwood floors use plywood, which can be made with trees that grow much faster, as well as with scraps of recycled wood that would otherwise be unusable. Some companies are even beginning to use a material comprised of stone and wood fibers for the underlayment, reducing the number of solid wood pieces needed to make these floors.
Easy to Install
If you’ve ever looked at installing solid hardwood floors, you’ll know that one of the biggest expenses in that process is the actual installation itself. In fact, material costs only make up about half the cost of your hardwood floor installation. And unfortunately, the process of installing solid hardwood is complex enough that most people can’t manage it on their own.
Luckily, engineered flooringisn’t as complex, and you may be able to install it yourself. Engineered hardwood planks have tongue and groove edges, making them easy to snap together like solid hardwood. You can choose to glue them down, staple them, nail them, or even float them over a concrete subfloor or existing smooth flooring.
Moisture Resistant Characteristics
One of the biggest challenges of hardwood floors is that, like all wood, they can warp and change with exposure to moisture. Of course, if your water heater breaks and floods your house, your floors may warp and buckle beyond repair. But even something as simple as higher humidity levels in the summertime can cause your floors to expand.
While engineered flooring is made with genuine wood all the way down, its multidirectional layering makes it more resistant to warping due to moisture. Because all the layers pull in different directions from each other, they help to hold each other in line. This means you can even use engineered flooring in high-moisture areas, such as bathrooms and basements.
Temperature Resistant
The other factor that can cause wood to warp and expand is changes in temperature. As temperatures go up, wood expands, which can cause it to buckle in the summertime. In the winter, solid hardwood floors contract, leaving gaps between the boards and potentially even causing cracks.
Engineered hardwood, however, isn’t as prone to these problems, thanks once more to its layered design. When engineered hardwood is created, the layers get bonded together in such a way that helps them resist the expansion and contraction that normally comes with temperature changes. The layers also prevent the wood from moving too much in any one direction, which keeps your floor more stable through all seasons.
Range of Styles, Species and Options
One of the concerns many people have when working with solid hardwood alternatives is whether they’ll be able to get the look they want. In the past, engineered flooring finish options have been very limited and often cheap-looking. You may not have been able to get the specific wood look or finish you were going for without paying for genuine hardwood.
However, engineered hardwood offers the best of all worlds, providing the extra features we’ve already discussed, as well as the look you’re wanting. You can get engineered hardwood planks in a variety of styles and with a number of different wood veneer options. You can get different finishes, including matte, glossy, and even whitewashed. With species such as Red Oak, Maple, Hickory and White Oak you are sure to get enough options in appearance and surface texture that you love. With every manufacturer working on new products with various properties and colors, the selection of wood flooring product is huge.
More Affordable
When your home needs a refresh, trying to find an option that works for both your style and your budget can be challenging. Solid hardwood floors can cost anywhere between $12 and $20 a square foot, and potentially even more depending on what type of wood you choose. This means that to put a new floor in a room that’s just 10 by 20 feet, you could be looking at as much as $4,000 or more just for materials.
Engineered hardwood is much more affordable, allowing more people to get the floor of their dreams for less. High-quality engineered hardwood costs around $8 to $12 a square foot, and you can save a ton on installation costs. That same 10 by 20 room could cost you just $1,600 all-in if you handle the installation yourself.
Long-Lasting
No matter what sort of material you choose, putting in new flooring is a serious investment. You want to make sure your investment will be worthwhile and that it will last for years to come. Of course, there are a number of factors, including thickness and maintenance, that can affect how long your floors last.
When well-cared for, engineered wood flooring can last for decades without showing serious wear and tear. Depending on the thickness of your veneer, you may even be able to refinish your floors. Only consider refinishing a floor when they start to show wear in high-traffic areas. If you plan to go this route, plan to get a veneer that’s at least 6 mm thick.
Easy to Maintain
Even once you get solid hardwood floors installed, your hard work is far from done. Hardwood floors can be demanding to maintain, even on a daily or weekly basis. You may have to use a specialized cleaner on them. You’ll want to polish them quarterly and refinish them every few years as well.
The good news is that engineered hardwood is much easier and less demanding to maintain. You don’t need to worry as much about getting them wet during mopping. You can clean them with a mild soap and some water. It’s also a good idea to keep pet nails trimmed to avoid scratches in your veneer.
Learn More About Engineered Hardwood Flooring
Engineered wood flooring is one of the best alternatives to solid hardwood floors on the market. You get all the durability, beauty, and warmth of genuine wood floors without the cost and hassle. You can enjoy your floors for decades to come without worrying about warping, buckling, or other such damage.
If you’d like to discover the benefits of engineered hardwood floors for yourself read our engineered hardwood guide here. We offer everything from engineered hardwood and luxury vinyl plank to prefinished solid hardwood and even ceramic floors. Shop our engineered hardwood today and start breathing new life into your home decor.
