difference between solid wood floor and engineered?

happyhero

We are thinking of doing our ground floor, ie kitchen, lounge, dinning room and hall in solid wood and I am assuming solid wood is the best but I am wondering about the engineered stuff as you do get a few mm on top of solid wood and it is cheaper.

I can't see us wearing away through the top layer of the engineered unless you can tell me different, so I am assuming it will look and perform identically on top to solid wood. I sort of fancy the solid wood but not sure if its wasting money when engineered would do possibly?

I looked at the B&Q solid wood which looked really nice to me (I'm no expert) but some reviews said that people had gaps appearing after a while, trouble is, is this because they laid it incorrectly or didn't climatise it first or something else like that or is it a problem with the actual floor?

Looking at the B&Q stuff you can get it for about an average of £50/m but I looked in a proper flooring shop and the average seemed to jump to £100/m, so don't know what to make of the differences here and the quality. Is the B&Q stuff ok?

Would it be so much better stuff from a proper floor shop?

Are the problems people had with the B&Q stuff likely to be the materials or the installers fault?

I have heard that the engineered will not create gaps as easily as solid wood, is this true?

What are the pros and cons comparing the solid wood against the engineered?

Is solid the best or are there benefits getting the engineered?

What about installing, anything to consider between the two?

Any help/advice appreciated.

Doozergirl

Solid wood is made from one layer and has a very distinct grain running through it in one direction. It breathes and will expand and contract with heat and moisture. It will always move to some degree and so gaps will appear, even with expansion gaps at the sides of the room. Because of its thickness, it will last indefinitely with sanding.

There is less movement in engineered wood because the bulk of it is made from layers of wood, set crossways. The thicker the top 'show' layer of wood, the longer it will last and the more you will be able to sand it in future.

The expense in wood flooring is in the solid layer of oak (or whatever) - the size of each piece of wood in length, depth and thickness. The smaller you buy in any of those dimensions, the cheaper the flooring. So, with engineered wood you can buy wide and longe planks which look more expensive, but with a shallower depth, you pay less than you would for the same solid plank.

A decent engineered floor will look no different to the eye than a solid floor.

Far_Thinking_Horse

Having used wooden flooring my entire life and have experience in the timber experience, here is my opinion:

Pros of solid floor:
- It can be sand down many times. However, if you get a good quality engineered floor, you should be able to sand it down a few times. Realistically, a good hard wood (high on Janka hardness scale) floor engineered or solid should withstand high traffic and it shouldn't require sanding more frequent than every 10 years.

Prof of engineered floor:
- Able to use with underfloor heating. Be carefully, look for the ones that are have as many layers of plywood as possible for expansion. You sometimes find a solid plywood for engineered floor and that will not work well with underfloor heating. For the high expansion capacity engineered floor, they are more experience but still 20% cheaper than solid wood.

Installation is the same for both.

My experience is that the wood quality you find in B&Q tends to be below average. Go to a specialist like Natural Wood Flooring or a small timber floor shop. They would explain the different options, lacquered, wax or oil, prime or characteristic wood, different wood grain etc. A good quality wood floor is very durable, an apartment that I rent out to a family of 4 has the same wood floor for 20 years without need of sanding and still looks incredibly new. It is worth investing a bit more.

andrewf75

There is a company on ebay called Kensington Flooring which sells engineered for 20-25 per sqm. They do samples for a pound so I'm going to send off for some but does anyone have any experience of them?