Engineered Hardwood

The methods for installing engineered hardwood flooring vary from a click floating install similar to how laminate is installed, to glue down which is often used over concrete, to nail down over a wood subfloor just like solid hardwood flooring is installed.

A lot of this will depend on the quality of the product. There are many different ways to get the veneer needed for engineered flooring. The lower end products use a peeling method and someone with a good eye for hardwood flooring can tell the product isn’t solid. Many of the better products use the same sawing technique used in the manufacturing of solid hardwood flooring. These products are almost impossible for even an expert to tell apart from a solid. You tell me, one of the floors in the picture is a solid and the other is engineered. Can you tell which is which?

Engineered hardwood flooring comes with many different thicknesses of the hardwood veneer. Generally speaking, you can refinish an engineered floor if the surface veneer is at least 2MM thick. Many thicker veneer products can be refinished just as many times as a ¾” solid product. Always check with your Millworks salesperson or manufacturer before refinishing any engineered hardwood floor.

The main advantage of engineered hardwood flooring is that it is much more dimensionally stable than solid hardwood. Instability issues in hardwood are typically caused by heat or moisture. High heat and moisture can cause cupping where the outside edges of the floor curl up. Low heat or moisture can cause the floor to shrink resulting in gaps between the boards. It’s important to remember that both issues are considered environmental and are not covered under warranty. While engineered flooring isn’t completely immune to these issues it is much more tolerant of them. Another advantage of engineered flooring is that many of them can be installed below grade such as in a basement where solid hardwood cannot be installed.