Hardwood Floor Solid or Engineered?
 

The ground floor of my house is solid hardwood, finished in place. But now I'm looking at doing the upstairs rooms.

Looking at the products available it seems to me that the engineered wood products are probably superior to solid hardwood, I don't see a downside. The flooring is basically 'plywood' with a solid layer of hardwood about 1/16" thick on top.

My preference would be 3/4" hardwood, unfinished, then sand and finish, but my wife does not want the mess (and admittedly it will take a while to do four bedrooms and a hallway).

So now I'm looking at a pre-finished floor, at which point engineered wood seems to be a bit cheaper (cost isn't really in the equation) and probably superior dimensionally.

Any reason not to use this stuff?

Engineered wood is far more stable. Solid wood is more susceptible to humidity levels and temperature changes. I have solid oak flooring that moves with the seasons. Solid floors can be sanded and refinished many times. Engineered floors maybe once.

At my age refinishing won't happen in my lifetime....plus, a prefinished floor is more durable than a DIY finish in place (in general).

Also, I would consider wear a factor on the main floor, but not on the second floor.

Just did over 500 sq/ft of prefinished flooring in our living room and dining room, no mess and easy to put down. Way cheaper than anything else we could have done.

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Solid hardwood?

My entire main floor has engineered, really happy with the product and how well it has held up. The only advantage of a true hardwood in my opinion is the ability to refinish, but even little nicks can still be touched up with engineered. My family isn’t hard enough on our house to really worry about a full refinish.

Most of our house has oak flooring. I bought the 2.9K s.f. of it in 1978 for $1,800 and carried it around with me until I built the house. If I didn't already have it, I would have chosen engineered flooring. I'm hoping the stuff I have doesn't ever need any parts replaced. I found out ten years ago it was quarter sawn oak & had to be special ordered at $11/s.f. at that time.

I'm a traditionalist. I went with solid wood.

I just went through the same thing, went with engineered, more stable, wide planks available. How stable is your humidity in the house?

Was looking at finishing on site, doing it myself and after speaking with a supplier realized it was going to be way too much added work and time, can only sand a couple hundred square feet in a day if you want really good finish, then add three or four coats of 2 part urethane top coat, cost and time add up. With good quality engineered the top layer above the groove is almost the same thickness as solid T&G about 3/16, so up to 4 refinishes. You can also get unfinished engineered product, if you want to stain and finish on site. I can look for my quote on materials and rentals for finishing to give you an idea on price if you want.

One thing to look for is average length of planks in the box, the longest I found were up to 84" in engineered in solid you can order much longer, wide solid should be full glue down, ended up with 7" wide maple and I did a full glue down, glue down adds some cost and harder to work with but is a really nice floor, you can do nail down with partial glue out of a tube. The proper glue turns into soft rubber.

One advantage to finish on site is no micro bevel on edges, and if going solid the long random lengths that are available.

I just went through this.
Solid only went up to around 3" wide.
We went with engineered around 6" wide.
Much nicer floor in our opinion.
Not cheap! Solid was less money.

engineered

That's a good point. We have very cold very dry winters and hot humid summers.

Another reason to lean towards engineered.

Our installer made a call and had a humidifier installed on our furnace.
He said it was mandatory.

I have a humidifier, and we run the AC most of the summer, but the wood will still see varying humidity.

My living room has real oak floor in a mix of 10", 12" and 14" widths and rustic grade timber so plenty of character

Wanted the 200 year old look, anything narrower or engineered wouldn't have looked right. It's been down for 15yrs suffered a real beating from dogs, kids, furniture and open fire embers but just looks better and better for it

Installed it myself, stored the planks in the room for a couple of months to acclimatize to the room humidity, nailed sheets of high quality plywood to the concrete floor and then glued and nailed the planks. Used traditional rose head nails so the heads are slightly proud. Only treatment was a wipe with a hard wax oil

If I owned a modern North American style home think I'd go with an engineered oak flooring as the style needs to fit in with the general decor

Engineered gets killed if you have proper dogs. We had some of that guaranteed for 50 year stuff in the last house. It lasted 18 months.

This house has solid oak. We put it down in 2007. It hasn’t needed refinishing in 13 years.

Solid or engineered they can both have surface finish problems, if you have a soft wood like cherry and large dogs it does not matter what coating is on it, better quality engineered will have tougher cores and thicker top layer. From what I can tell, an aged wood floor also gets harder, or just start with a wood that is hard.

We installed floors about 8 years ago. We went with engineered because it is wood over concrete. We tested the concrete for moisture and found 95% of the floor was fine, and fixed the drainage issue next to the bedroom. Real hardwood does not work well over concrete. We used the same floor up our stairs in the front hall so everything matched.

If we were in a conventional house with wood-subflooring, I would have gone with standard hardwood flooring.

About the only thing man has improved on nature is plywood. Engineered flooring is true and consistent. If you go with the sixteenth inch veneer pre finished stuff make sure it has an aluminum oxide finish. 1/16" can't be sanded and re-finished. Aluminum oxide wil give you 30 years and hold up to dog claws. A good test: if you can't make a mark with your fingernail it's a hard finish. And I always use aqua bar paper under all wood flooring as a vapor barrier. I'm a flooring contractor, been doing it since '69

I used that aqua bar on my floor... prefinished 3/4" Hickory (much harder than oak), nailed to floor over a crawl space. Holding up nicely... dawg proof :D.