There is no wonder why this type of flooring gains more and more popularity and becomes the best alternative for more and more households and commercial premises. The reason so many people opt for engineered wood floors nowadays is the reason people get tired of the classic timber floor option — real wood, in the case of solid wood flooring, can be way too sensitive to moisture, humidity, and temperature fluctuations and prone to damages.
Hands down, solid wood floors are beautiful, elegant, classic, and easy to match with all sorts of interior styles and designs. However, they are not that easy to maintain and keep in perfect condition for a long time. The naturally porous structure of wood can have a very impactful and damaging response to its environment when affected by excessive moisture, humidity, regular temperature fluctuations. Therefore, solid wood floors are generally not installed in bathrooms and kitchens, basements and conservatories, and anywhere where indoor moisture can turn them in the subject of issues.
Timber floors also require a very specific cleaning and maintenance routine. And people want that changed, so this is how engineered wood flooring was designed and common choice for many nowadays. What makes engineered wood flooring any different is its advanced structure. Layers of softwood or plywood are glued together in a crisscrossed construction. What differentiates solid hardwood most from engineered hardwood floors is that solid hardwood can be sanded and refinished multiple times throughout its lifetime.
Illustration showing multiple layers of Engineered hardwood. In quality engineered flooring, the top layer consists of sliced or sawn hardwood veneer that looks like solid hardwood; in lesser quality products, the top layer consists of rotary cut veneer which has more of a plywood look. The end result is dimensionally stable and better able to deal with moisture, temperature changes, and humidity, making it perfect for below-grade spaces such as basements with a protective moisture barrier installed, concrete slab installations, and radiant heating systems.
Note that you won't find solid hardwood planks over 5" wide whereas you will in engineered wood where that dimensional stability makes a big difference in performance. Most engineered hardwood will be factory-finished where it receives multiple coats of highly durable finish matte, high-gloss, and semi-gloss. You may even opt for surface effects such as hand-scraped, distressed, or wire-brushed. When it comes to installation, you have more options available than with solid hardwood.
Engineered wood of any width can be stapled and nailed down, as well as glued or even floated. The biggest difference between solid and engineered hardwood has to do with sanding and finishing; e ngineered wood can be sanded but only once or twice lightly before the top veneer layer wears away. Depending on the quality of the engineered hardwood you select, the top layer may be thicker or thinner, determining how much it can be refinished.
For that reason, you'll want to consider the following factors when selecting an engineered floor:. Let's recap what you need to consider if you're deciding between solid hardwood floors and engineering hardwood flooring.
If you're looking for a floor that you can have sanded and refinished many times and last 50 to years , you'll want to select a solid hardwood floor or an engineered floor with a thick wear layer rather than a thinner one that you can only sand down and refinish one to two times before needing to replace it. Also, see our Hardwood Floor Refinishing Guide. Engineered hardwood is better suited to be installed in basements below grade , areas that are subject to a lot of humidity or dryness e.
Solid hardwood can be installed over concrete but not without substantial work to the sub-floor. When it comes to dimensional stability, your better choice is engineered hardwood since the cross-grain layered construction means that the floor can better resist expansion and contraction from temperature and moisture variation.
I've already mentioned how solid hardwood can be re-sanded and finished. Beyond that, if ever you needed to replace a board, it's relatively easy to replace it and then refinish it to match the rest of the floor. For an engineered hardwood floor, that's a bit more challenging as it may be difficult to match the exact look of the existing floor color and wood grain.
For larger repairs, solid hardwood and engineered will be similar in difficulty because the sheen will always be different. I should also preface my question by first sharing the following. We are the second owners of our home, so unfortunately I do not know the brand of our floors, so I am unable to check specs with the manufacturer to see if, in fact, they can be refinished. If you want to see my stories showing our floors and the full list of responses I received from others, you can see them in my Instagram Highlights.
I did some further research, and here is what I found. The first critical piece of information in answering this question is how thick your layer of veneer is. There are some engineered hardwood floors that cannot be refinished because the layer of veneer is too thin. However, with most engineered hardwood floors, you should be able to refinish them x max. However, if your engineered floors are also hand scraped, like ours are, that adds in another layer of complication.
At most, you will likely only be able to refinish your hand scraped engineered hardwood floors once. And if the veneer is on the thinner side, not at all.
After posing the question on Instagram, I received some direct messages with a few success stories. It shows there is hope! The first transformation is pretty crazy! She started with darker, red-toned hand scraped engineered hardwood floors. They had them sanded down smooth and then did a matte finish with a white topcoat to achieve this beautiful light wood shown below! This next success story is another beautiful option.
In this situation, the followers floors were more red than she wanted. Her floors were not hand scraped and she opted to take the color darker. The images below are very helpful to see the original engineered hardwood floor color, the sanded color and then on the right the beautiful outcome!
I also included a bit about her story in the image as well. Essentially, three different flooring companies told her it cannot be done and that she would need to replace her floors entirely. She then met with a professional refurbisher in her area who had tackled similar projects multiple times.
This job was completed over three years ago, and she said they have help up really well! I also want to point out that many others sent me messages directly. If this is something you want to try to do yourself and achieve perfection I would suggest you think again. Some pros can do very well at matching the colour but thats it, it will never look exactly the same. Hi we currently have really dark brown engineered wood flooring and has a lot of scratches.
We are wondering if we can sand and polish it to get the stain off and have a lighter color and also to remove the scratches. Is it possible to get the stain off?? And how do we go about it? Yes its possible. Click around on this website and you should learn everything you need to know. Id give you a link but its pretty much this whole website lol.
Hi this website is awesome! Is it possible to replace the carpet and sand and refinish the new and existing floors and achieve a uniform look? Finish terrible, scratches very , very easily. Do you know anyone in Dallas,tx who can assit. Great article. We have hickory engineered hardwood. They are about 11 years old. They have yellowed and would love to change the color.
The top layer is only about a fingernail thick. I have a 5 year old engineered oak flooring finished in wax. We have a birch block random length boards in the sitting room, originally light oiled but 20 years plus on scratched and stained.
It good idea to spill red wine and there are a few burn marks where sparks fro me the fire jumped out. I intend to buy a Festool Rotex after such strong recommendations, probably 90 as there are lots of other sanding jobs to do.
So aim to sand the floor from grit 40 upwards and put on light oil rather than lacquer. The hall has 80 year old Canadian oak where stain previously used has worn away. We could not match the oak but have birch boards as before, so plan to sand, put light stain or coloured oil or similar. Oak door too. Very lucky. A bit tired ,no patina to speak of. Am a novice at this so any suggestions would be great. After that, engineered floors upstairs.
Will look great. Hello Camilla, I know you may have other jobs to do that might mean that you need a smaller head, but for the floor, I would really recommend the The idea of sanding a floor with a 90mm rotex is just pure hell, it would take such a long time.
Also, the smaller head will make it more difficult to keep it smooth and flat. The head will be sanding with a flat surface over a larger areas keeping it flatter. Oops thought I had read through my post. Missed out the essential word, not, when mentioning spilt red wine on the floor. Also other typos, sorry about that. Hello i have a Tarkett enginered floor in red oak natural.
It has aluminum oxide finish and has many scratches. It has been down proably 15 years and I wanted to know how to sand and refinish. Also could we do polyurethane finish.
What grit do we need to sand with and should we do with belt sander? I would like to go to a buttersctch colr which is just little darker than they are now. Can you give me some advice on this. You certainly can use Poly, though, you might not get the darker effect you want, unless maybe you use an amber primer. Oils will achieve that colour a little more easily. Red oak is literally that though, red. I see very little red Oak in the UK and I absolutely love it, the grain and the colour is beautiful and I would be trying to keep the natural colour as much as possible.
I have a ten year old distressed hardwood cherry floor that has a factory applied Ultrawear finish on it. Every footprint or shoe print shows on it and it never actually looked clean and nice. I eventually put a dressing on it to perk it up and over the years have a buildup that I am not happy with either.
Recently I was cleaning around the stool area with a cleaning solution and it removed the finish down to the original factory finish. So now I am working very hard to remove the shine refresher over all of the floor. I know the original floor says it has a polyurethane seven step factory finish and am not interested in sanding it or staining it but would love to put a satin finish on that would bring out the beautiful wood…is that advisable?
I have some extra pieces that I could practice on but would like to know the hardest and most durable finish out there. Please give me your opinion. Cherry is gorgeous, do the floor justice and bring it back to its former glory! I am not experienced in any of this being a female not that is limiting.. I considered maybe cleaning it well although cant really get it wet as all the finish is gone in spots and then trying to apply some finish to the area and see i that alone will darken it to the original butterscotch color or do I need to rent a sander and sand the whole room first?
Is the butterscotch color in the varnish that was applied or just the color of the wood itself? Also what grit sandpaper would i use as some areas have no finish on them at all and what type of varnish would i put on it? They look like bugs. Is there any way to lighten these knots???? My house has this hideous orangey oak engineered flooring. Is this at all possible? If so what is the best way to tackle it?
I really recommend getting my video course and ebook if you want to stain. It is very very easy to do a bad job with stain. My husband spilled a pot of boiling water on our engineered hardwood floor Brazilian cherry leaving white stains. I sprayed Bona floor cleaner on it but I fear the water removed the finish.
What now? Floors are 5 years old and in otherwise good condition. Apart from resanding of course. Have a google, maybe contact the manufacturer. We are about to purchase a home in southern california. How do we repair these damage? Do we need to rip out all of the flooring and replace it? Im not sure about the wave pattern, that could be cupping caused by damp beneath. Hope you can help me with this.
Bought a house with fairly new Mannington Hickory engineered wood floor. The wood layer is 1. Where it bevels around the edges the wood layer goes down to 0.
The manufacturer says it can be rescreened, but not sanded. I have no budget to hire professionals, but I hate the color enough to try to tackle this on my own. I have ordered a floor sample to experiment on. My hope is to change the color from an orange brown with glossy finish to a dark brown with a satin finish. To do so, I was thinking I should: 1. If staining fails, then maybe paint the floor solid white using a marine paint.
Do you think any of this might work or do you have any other techniques I could try? We are buying a house with a lovely but fairly tatty wooden fingerblock floor. A small section has come loose. Also, to sand down once all glued firmly back down , do I go diagonally across the check pattern? Do you have a guide for fingerblock floor? Hi, We have Mannington Proseries advanced ceramic finish 2.
They are 18 years old and have scratches from dog and kids. We would like to sand and refinish in a gray wash coastal tone. We live in Northwest Indiana Chicago suburb.
Do you have any recommendations for contractors in our area? Thanks for all this information! Hello Megan, I have emailed you with some recommendations, I know quite a few guys in Chicago.
Chicago has some of the best hardwood flooring talent in the world! I am working on a directory so people can find local professionals themselves, should be open soon! Hello Patti, 1. I would say, short of putting a solid colour over the top, you dont have much choice other than rip out and replace.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news! I know it can be sanded, but what grit progression is recommended or should it be sanded only once and at what grit level? Is the floor very flat? I normally start with a 60 grit on floors like this. The wear depth on the oak is 3mm. There is no cupping or warping but the lacquer has worn off in places and also some water damage after a leak. Can I lightly sand the whole thing to take the lacquer off then use a stain on the bleached areas to get a closer colour match across the whole floor before then applying a further stain to the whole floor do you think?
Very helpful website, thank you. Hello Ricky. Sun bleaching is a common problem and in my opinion, an absolute nightmare! It sounds like this floor can be sanded and improved greatly, but not completely. That UV damage is deep in the wood and where the lacquer is worn off, that damage will be quite deep too.
As its only 3mm wear layer, I cant recommend sanding it yourself as you may go through the wear layer into the ply. You may not, but I would hate to have encouraged you if that happens. I would hire some local professionals if you can. I hope it turns out well and I wish you the best of luck Ricky! Hi Ben, I recently moved into a house that has Engineered hard wood that is six years old, But has lot of pet scratches and dents and wear and tear.
I am trying to a hire a pro to sand and refinish this. One contractor gave me an expensive quote to sand and refinish with 3 coats of polyurethane and other one gave me a cheaper quote to do a light sanding and finish with two quotes. Both have good yelp reviews but not sure which way to go.
Light sanding or complete sanding? Please note this floor was never sand before. Sometimes it can actually exaggerate them. Overcoating is great for floors that have very fine scratches and surface-level damage, this means floors that are only 1 to 6 years old. If your floor is a bit more worn and grubby, you probably need a full resand and finish.
Be sure to get 2 or 3 more quotes so that you can be more sure of your decision. Hi Ben: I have light oak manufactured hardwood floors and I love the color.
The house is 11 years old and I live in the south. I am seeing areas where it looks like the finish is starting to wear down. I do not want to have the floor sanded.
My question is there any type of finish or wax to bring life back in to the floor. It is more on the areas that there is more traffic. Thanks for any help you can offer. I have engineered oak flooring 18mm thick planks — possibly Kahrs in my small, open-plan living-diner-kitchen 30 sqm.
I inherited the floor when I purchased the house, and its dark stain finish is not of my choosing. The solid wood layer is 5mm. And all the guidance I can find on grit types is for real-wood solid floors. As this is a 5mm wood layer, do you know which grit level I use, which direction I sand, and how many passes I make? Hello Lizzie, 5mm is plenty, you could start on any grit but engineered is usually fairly flat and you may be able to start at a 60 to get the finish and stain off.
I would use a drum sander. Tbh its all the same standard sanding techniques I explain everywhere. Your email address will not be published.
Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Pin Products from Amazon. Hi there Im looking for some pretty urgent advice. Thanks a lot! Was so looking forward to the floor at the end if a long flat renovation… Thanks! Also, what to use to coat it after the sanding?
Ben, I am looking to refinish my engineered maple hardwood floors after having had a large dog stay with me a few months which resulted in many dog nail scratches on my floors.
Cheers, Bill. Hello Ben We are soon to move into a lovely Eco bungalow in Oxfordshire and the house has lovely hardwood bamboo floors throughout. Many thanks. Crona ps. Fantastic blog. Hi Ben, I have a Hickory engineered wood floor.
Thanks so much for your help and availability. It is very kind of you! Thanks in advance, Lynne. Duct Tape is known for solving lacquer and pulling it up, i understand your pain. B and K. Hi Ben Great, informative website. Any advice is greatly appreciated Many thanks in advance.
I would be nervous about resanding it if it was uneven. Make sure they get it flat! Any help sincerely appreciated. Great site too BTW. Best Lawrence. Hi Ben I forgot to mention in my previous post, the floor sits on a Haro 2mm underlay silent eco , Thanks again Lawrence. As long as it has atleast 5mm wear layer, I would sand it! Hi Ben, Recently had rug removed in living room and matched up engineered hardwood to adjacent dinning room.
Quite a thread you got going here! Hi We have a fairly new engineered wood floor in our kitchen. Hi Ben: I have engineered maple floors. A lot of my friends in the states can do this very well, it has never been great for me.
You can strip it and sand it lightly or just sand the floor back.
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