Engineered vs Solid wood flooring

[HSV_V8]

Hi,

I am after some advice off fellow pistonheads people with experiences with both types of flooring or recommendations. At the moment I currently have a slate effect laminate flooring in my kitchen/dining extension but I'm not overly happy with it anymore as I don't think the colour looks right and appears to show up dirt and marks quite easily.

I'm after some opinions on going down engineered wood flooring or solid flooring route, after speaking with a vinyl & carpet flooring bloke yesterday he said better to save up and put some real wood floor down (although he doesn't deal with wood flooring). I have around 35m area to fill which includes kitchen, dining and also hallway and don't particularly want to spend more than £1000 or so on materials. Also it has to be fairly low maintenance and be good for the dog to slide around and scratch about on too.
Any reasons why not to use engineered flooring based on your experiences....do you have any good recommendations where to buy from?

[barryrs]

Is this type of engineered floor you are looking at?



This tends to be more expensive than a typical 22mm solid oak from the big DIY sheds but it moves an awful lot less once down. In hindsight this is the flooring i would have used myself as the solid oak i have has opened up on some of the joints and i have resorted to an oak silicone to make them less obvious.

[whoami]

I'm going through the same process at the moment.

Interestingly, every flooring retailer I've spoken to (who all sell both) advised against solid wood.

[anonymous-user]

When we put wooden flooring down in our previous house, both the people who quoted recommended engineered over solid.

We installed engineered and were very happy with it. Once it's down you can't tell the difference, and good quality stuff can be sanded up to 3 times if required, so should last for a looong time.

[dojo]

I always feel that engineered wood is a lot to pay for plywood with a veneer... Thats prob just my lack of ignorance though to be fair!

You will have the same labour costs and only an extra 20%-30% on the material I'd prefer to have real wood.

I think you can have underfloor heating with engineered though which might sway you??:

[Pheo]

Engineered is very easy to deal with. Iirc solid needs a lot more work to ensure it doesn't warp, cup, bow etc.

[HSV_V8]

Thanks for the responses, seems to be quite positive comments coming from the engineered wood, I have no requirement for it to be underfloored heated either which probably frees up the options a little more. I have to say a classic wide oak board finish would be ideal for me, I have gloss grey kitchen units so with the current slate effect flooring it needs something different to set it off a bit.

[KrazyIvan]

Pheo said:

Engineered is very easy to deal with. Iirc solid needs a lot more work to ensure it doesn't warp, cup, bow etc.

This, fitted correctly, you shouldn't have any issues with a solid wood floor (farther in law, carpenter for 40 years says one of the common mistakes is to take it straight from the cold often damp shop and then fit it straight away in your warm dry house), but it is more work to fit it.

That said, when their both down you'd be hard pushed to tell one from the other.

[Gtom]

I refuse to fit solid wood flooring, I did it once with bamboo (yes I know it's grass not wood) and I will never do it again. Engineered flooring has come a long way since it first came out (thicker veneer on top). It's easier to fit, more stable, can be sanded and overall cost wise cheaper.

[guindilias]

We had Junckers solid maple flooring in the hallway of our last house - brilliant stuff, was down for 10 years and still looked nearly as good when we moved out as when it was newly installed.
No issues with warping or anything, but it was fitted by a fella who specialised in Junckers and only installed that, so I wouldn't expect any!

[furtive]

I'm having engineered oak put down in my lounge, hall and study in a couple of weeks. Glued down rather than floating.

A useful comparison between the two here:

http://www.woodandbeyond.com/blog/engineered-or-so...

[Bluebarge]

Don't think solid wood is a good idea in a kitchen - it will warp with temperature/moisture fluctuations. Kahrs flooring is very good and we got ours from this lot (cheaper than John Lewis).
http://www.1926woodflooring.co.uk/acatalog/kahrs-e...

[B17NNS]

Engineered tends to be more stable than solid. Can also be laid as a floating floor so it goes down nice and quick.

[bigdom]

Engineered is more stable, and once either board is down to the tongue, they're both fked!

I've ordered ours a couple of weeks back, being made this week in Farnborough. I'm about to lay another 50 sqm or so of engineered oak in our new kitchen extension, what the board is coated in is the clincher here for kitchen use.

Board widths & oak layer (mm) play a major part in price, if you're down to say 125mm width or so, you maybe able to get this in Oak within budget, although the wear layer is likely to only be 3mm.

[fergus]

Bluebarge said:

Don't think solid wood is a good idea in a kitchen - it will warp with temperature/moisture fluctuations. Kahrs flooring is very good and we got ours from this lot (cheaper than John Lewis).
http://www.1926woodflooring.co.uk/acatalog/kahrs-e...

We learned the hard way with this. Our "wide plank" solid oak has cupped really badly in the kitchen meaning the tongues now squeak badly against their neighbouring grooves when you walk on it. This was after secret nailing it down to a solid sub-floor.....

I'd only ever go engineered if I went down the wood floor route again

[HSV_V8]

Thanks for your views on this, I have already ordered some samples of the engineered oak flooring to have a good look at it, i'm not in a massive rush to get it done as I have other work going off at the moment and want to get that finished but it's certainly making me consider this option, seems to be the best all rounder considering where it will go.

[otolith]

If I pay someone to fit engineered wooden flooring, what sort of costs am I looking at for labour?

[Bluebarge]

bigdom said:

Engineered is more stable, and once either board is down to the tongue, they're both fked!

This. The difference in depth that can be sanded off between solid and engineered is a couple of millimetres at most.

[furtive]

otolith said:

If I pay someone to fit engineered wooden flooring, what sort of costs am I looking at for labour?

I'm paying £87.50+VAT per sq.m for supply and fit, excluding beading, thresholds. I don't know how that breaks down between supply and labour

[toohuge]

That's odd..... Over here in the states, Engineered flooring is significantly cheaper than hardwoods... I guess it's because they can!