Whether engineered wood flooring competes with solid hardwood flooring is an interesting question. Many people dismiss engineered wood flooring as it is not the ‘real thing’ but others say it is a better solution to hardwood flooring.
They look the same, and you can get engineered wood floors in the same range of woods as with solid woods. You can get natural oak flooring, such as oak parquet, oiled oak flooring, and walnut flooring. Which is better depends on what you mean by a better solution. On the one hand, solid wood flooring is just what it says it is: planks of solid wood that are laid to form a floor. The good thing is that it is very durable, and so long as you get grade A, B and C grade wood, it is of good quality. If it gets marked, it is easy to clean it up, and dents do not show much.
There is one situation where solid wood flooring may not be the best solution. This is if your house gets damp as solid hardwood flooring, swells up when damp and contracts when dry, so it may creak and may have other problems.
If you choose solid hardwood flooring which one should you choose? There is a very wide choice but the most popular woods and oak and walnut.
Engineered wood flooring is made from a layer of good quality wood, which is 6 mm thick (0.25 inches) on top of a wooden substrate of 17mm (0.67 inches) thickness. This substrate is made from chippings, chipboard, or other bits of wood bonded together. The advantage of the engineered woods is that the material is more stable, it should not have knots, and it does not swell when damp and shrink when dry, like solid wood flooring.
You might think that engineered wood would be cheaper than solid wood, but you would be mistaken. It actually costs more than solid wood, owing to the labour involved in manufacture, so this is not a cheap solution ,whereas laminate floors are.













