"Again you are talking about super inexpensive engineered product from HD or IKEA. Are you sure you're not talking about laminate? Big difference.

Most 'nice' homes around here are on a slab foundation and go with a top quality engineered product. YMMV."
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Engineered wood flooring has a substrate that is made of a product that resembles plywood. That is why it is more stable than real wood. The high quality engineered products have a substantial layer of real wood laminated on top of this stable substrate. The real wood layer is then sanded and finished in a factory so that they can achieve a very consistent high quality product. The problem, is that the finished panels are not random sizes, so the human eye will see the pattern. There is also pre finished real wood, that looks better but still has the little grooves. The laminate from HD or IKEA that you speak of is a PHOTO of wood, not even worth thinking about.

The only time you fill the joints of real wood is when you have noticeable gaps between the boards. A high quality wood should only have minimal cracks that need to be filled, and it is purely cosmetic. Once finished sanded in place wood will have the smallest gaps that that will be "better" at keeping water out. A small spill on either product is not a problem if you clean it up quickly. A long term leaky pipe or a overzealous mop job will be a problem for any wood floor.

+1

I recently installed laminate through my kitchen and den. That was a few months ago. Now, its one of my biggest regrets. It looked great for about the first two weeks. Now it looks like s#!t. Scratches WAY too easy, seams hold dirt and open up. Dont let any liquid sit on it for few then a few minutes.

Im ready to rip it out, and put it engineered.

I wouldn't say that about all engineered wood. The substrate on mine is plywood (i.e. laminated wood).

In addition, one can purchase engineered wood in a variety of widths as well as random lengths, just like real wood strips. Yes, one can also purchase an engineered wood product that is a single sheet containing 3-4 strips, but all butt ending at the same point - not staggered.

The term "engineered wood" is the same as "kitchen cabinets". There's a wide range of product out there - some cheap and inexpensive, some beautifully crafted and very expensive and lots of stuff in-between.

Sherwood

Hassle to re-sand a floor: Moving all the furniture out; moving yourself to not use that room for a week or more; and you should remove all baseboard trim (they may tell you they can get right up to it with their special, magic sanders... but); getting ALL fireplace ashes, dog hair, child debris removed...; and then deal with the fumes for quite a while

and a re-sand is about 1/3 or so of a new eng. wood floor, BUT...

no fumes when they put in a new floor.

Having gone thru it a few times, it is not quite a toss-up, but close.

Some laminate is easy to get scratched but rare. Solid wood would experience this the most. Someone say Engineering wood should be the same as wood on this matter but I think engineering wood is a little better. Laminate should be the best in this area. Of course some brands make better than others, but if your laminate is easy to scratch, you are very unlucky. Didn't you try to scratch it before purchase?

I'm surprised no one's mentioned bamboo. It's become increasingly popular and there's a lot available, varying from cheap, Home Depot junk to very high quality.

I did a LOT of research (pretty interesting grass, bamboo) and went with $3.99 sq. Ft., natural, pre-finished, fossilized strand bamboo, 5000 lbs + on the Janka hardness scale (nothing harder) for living room, loft and stair treads and risers. Had it installed by a top notch flooring guy a couple years ago and couldn't be happier with it's beauty and durability.

Cali Bamboo Flooring - Natural Fossilized™ Strand

A recent Consumer Reports mag. had an article on different flooring types and ratings. Might be worth a look.

Sherwood

ENGINEERED WOOD!

Solid wood will swell up the first time there is any humidity. If there is a flood and your floor gets wet, forget it, you will replace all of it. A slight moisturization is enough to buckle real-wood floors! I own several rentals in Fort Liquordale, and my own home and the ONE wood floor of all of them is an engineered wood floor with real wood venir. Pergo is for cheap homes!

engineered wood, even the good Kahrs stuff, also buckles if it gets wet (in between the join areas)

My house was built in 1936 with oak hardwood floors over 3/4" tongue-in-groove subfloor. When we added onto the house over 5 years ago, I installed 1100 sq ft of oak strips and had them sanded and finished in the house to match the old floor and it worked out well. If I was installing an entirely new wood floor, I would go with the pre-finished wood.

Bullcrap. Try again. Wood can get wet and will then relax back to original shape once the moisture is pulled out. That wont happen with engineered. There's a reason that hardwood floors that went into houses 100+ years ago are still there. In 20+ years, real wood is still going to look like real wood. Engineered flooring is going to look a formica countertop on your floor.

Well made engineered flooring is a very good, warm, durable product, as is 3/4 hardwood. Using pre-finished and engineered flooring do have some challenges. Staircases and other design elements are much more of a hassle because incorporating nosings,in-lays, etc are much more difficult than with using straight, unfinished hardwood and sanding/staining in situ. Humidity swings are a big problem with flooring, we usually "sticker" stack the wood for at least three weeks on site for the material to acclimatize to the ambient moisture level of the site. Good luck