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Engineered Wooden Flooring: Comparing To Alternative Preferred Non-Carpet Choices
Considering buying engineered wooden flooring for your home? If not, you definitely should. Engineered wooden flooring is a little bit of everything: durable, attractive, and inexpensive. Check out the competing products before you buy engineered wood floors, or any flooring, though. Those competitors would be laminate wooden flooring, and solid wooden floors.
Aesthetics
Comparing the looks of engineered wooden flooring to solid wood floors is actually kind of silly. This is because, as far as the top layer goes, they’re the exact same thing. The visible layer of engineered wood flooring is nothing but a thin layer of solid wood. Laminate, however, can look quite different, depending on the brand. A laminate wood floor can go from being very obviously artificial, to forcing even an expert to use other methods of telling it apart from a solid or engineered wood floor. It’s fair to say that engineered wooden flooring would tie for best when it comes to initial looks.
Sounds
Strange as it may seem, sound does play a factor in choosing your wooden flooring. After all, the thing one does most with their floor is walk on it, and that will create a sound with every step. This is where all three options can vastly differ, both from each other, and from different brands. Laminate wooden floors are associated with hollow sounds. Some manufacturers claim that their newer models don’t have this problem. A solid wooden floor will typically not produce any sound other than the noise your foot makes when it hits the surface. That is, of course, until it gets a bit older. Then it may start to creak, a problem that laminate does not share. Engineered wooden floors can run the gambit from one to the other; some may sound hollow, some may not. They’re also less likely to creak as they age, but it is feasible. As far as desirability and sound goes, engineered wooden flooring would come in second best, just after solid wooden floors.
Damage Control
With the exception of concrete, a solid wooden floor is about as durable as it gets. Even when damaged, it can generally be refinished. Yes, it is that simple, although it’s not hard for it to get pretty scratched up before you get around to it. You can also buff and refinish engineered wooden flooring, but not very many times. Depending on the brand and type, you may be able to sand it a few times, but that top layer is generally thin enough that it’s very limited. As such, like laminate, deep damage can quickly force you to replace boards to keep a quality look. Laminate, being nothing more than a resin covered picture, can’t be refinished.
Comparing Prices
You’ll find, when pricing engineered wooden flooring, as well as solid wooden floors, that there’s no telling what the prices are going to be from month to month. Wood is a natural product, so availability plays a huge role in prices. Solid wooden floors are worse about this than engineered since engineered uses some processed materials, and laminate is generally more stable than the other two, unless a factory explodes or something. All other things being equal, solid wood floors are usually a lot more expensive than either of the other two, and engineered wooden flooring is generally a touch pricier than laminate.
Want to learn more about engineered wood flooring? Check out Wooden Flooring Info.
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Filed under ergonomics by on Feb 15th, 2010. 
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