Solid vs Engineered Hardwood!

Michael here with gr flooring once again today's topic of conversation solid versus engineered hardwood flooring now I've said it before there's lots of questions but if solid wood versus engineered wood there's not only lots of questions there's lots of misinformation out there okay because there's such a range solid woods pretty simple but a lot of people build up this engineer stuff as being the best thing since sliced bread and a cannon it can't be so let's just address what they are Hollywood is just that solid wood got up from a tree kill and dry it down mill it finish it done and solid wood engineered wood is actually a thin layer now this is one of the thicker ones this is a five five thirty five sixteenths layer of wood on top of plywood but it's a thin layer wood on top of plywood or some kind of base now the point of engineered is the the plywood or the base used on the engineered floor is more stable than actual wood because wood will expand and contract depending on moisture so you know obviously in Saskatchewan here cold dry winters nice beautiful human summers we get gaps as these boards shrink they all get gaps engineered that woods trying to shrink but the crisscross layers of plywood help hold it into place so what actually happens and this is a great sample here is why I showed it now this sample here we can actually see a gap between these boards now you know give it another month or so this gap will fill right back in whereas this engineered has no gaps now the widest that we can go in southern Saskatchewan in a solid wood floor is three and a quarter inches wide reason for that because again as that would expand some tracks if you go wider than that it can actually move to the point where it crushes the cells if the cells of the would get crushed they will never return to the original shape so even my own home I have got solid wood throughout it here Regina winter gaps summer fields backhand winter gap summer fields back in and add Infinium it just can't keep going on now with an engineered floor as I had when I lived in Winnipeg because of that really strong stable plywood never got gaps again there tries to move can't move tries to move can't move now that being said I really shouldn't say can't move wood will move no matter what you know the story that I've heard many times is wood has moved so much with water that the ancient Romans used to use white oak plugs so what they do when they're trying to break into mountains and crush rocks that actually drill a small hole stick oh oak wood white oak plug in there and pour water on them until they actually expand it so far that they broke the rock that's how strong it is we're not going to stop it from moving but we minimize the movement and we change the movement so it actually happens if you get a nice wide like a five-inch wide board or a six and a half inch wide board as that floor tries to shrink the plywood saw trying to hold it in place which you actually might get is a little bit of cupping this again it's trying to pull in it but the base is all holding it so it doesn't completely move as it doesn't solve it just warps a little and again as soon as the humidity goes back up she goes nice and flat again now most of the products we have are available both in a solid as well as an engineered same colors same wood not necessarily all same species and of course again the widths the widest we're going to go three and a quarter the widest I have reign Helen are engineered is I believe seven and three quarters wide so really white boards so that's the big difference the engineer gives us stability more so than the solid now one of the things we hear a lot of though is that engineered is more or less durable and that just can't be true it's the same wood on the surface it's the same finish on top of that wood it's never the wood itself so what we're walking on is that layer of polyurethane that we have on the engineered how we have on the solid we have on all of our natural products we're never walking on the wood so this will scratch just as easy as the solid and vice versa also denting they'll both occur exactly the same it's the wood on top that's moving its not the plywood core it's the wood on top so if I drop a heavy thing on here heavy thing on here they both damp the same if they were the same species obviously oak and maple grand i10 different but they both mark the same they both wear the same they both have the same durability and a good quality engineer you can still recut you can still refinish maybe not as many times as you can with a good solid but it is still a possible so again no difference in durability the only difference is stability which allows us to go to these wider boards which are a little bit more in style these days but everything goes in cycles so right now it's wider who knows couple years from now be signed the little boards and then back again back again so then one would ask why would I use solid over-engineered or vice versa it's like I said I have got solid in my own home of course I sold the original floor probably about 1617 years ago I bought the house 11 years ago 10 years ago solid throughout solid is there forever okay it has been used for four decades if not centuries upon centuries engineered the new kid on the block in our market here in Regina solid is still King now as education occurs and products get better engineered is getting more and more popular solid is still King this will allow you to refinish as per than that as per the national would form Association they say that a three-quarter inch solid floor done by a professional can be refinished between five to seven times whereas we say a good quality engineered with that five 16 7 inch wear layer can be refinished two to three times so you get more resound out of this than you do on this now that being said buyer beware not all engineered is created equal there are some engineers out there where the layer wood is so thin it's 0.6 millimeters it's basically the thickness of a piece of paper now because that paper is wood it's not a picture of paper like a laminate floor you can actually call it engineered as well as if the core isn't stable enough it will still have movement he'll still have some issues in there so be very careful when you're looking at hardwood it's a very expensive it's a big investment in your home so make sure you're using the proper engineered or the proper solid any questions please don't hesitate to ask thank you very much

Channel: G.R. Flooring Inc.

Views: 22,123

Rating: 4.9078341 out of 5

Keywords: We Sell Flooring, Hardwood, Hardwood Flooring, Flooring, Solid Hardwood, Engineered Hardwood, Regina

Id: lBkki0zpRGQ

Length: 6min 24sec (384 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 05 2019