Are you looking to install wood flooring in your home, and are you unsure whether to install hardwood or engineered flooring? Both types of flooring have many advantages. In this article, we present the characteristics of each type of floor and the conditions for their installation. We also show you the criteria to consider when choosing the solution that will enhance your floors!
Hardwood, for a 100% natural floor with exceptional durability. Hardwood flooring is one of the oldest floor coverings. Renowned for its beauty and nobility, it is still found in many homes today. It has the advantage of being very durable, but is not suitable for all rooms.
What is solid hardwood flooring?
Hardwood flooring, also known as solid hardwood flooring, is a 100% natural floor covering. Each plank is cut in one piece from a wooden board. To do this, the boards are dried beforehand, then planed and machined. This produces floorboards of the correct dimensions, with grooves and tongues on the sides and ends for installation.
Among the most commonly used species in Canada are oak and maple. These woods are selected both for their beauty and for their mechanical properties, which give the floor good stability. Depending on the quality of the hardwood floor, it may have knots of varying sizes.
What is special about hardwood flooring?
Solid wood is a living material, which works in accordance with the climatic conditions. Even if suitable installation techniques can limit the deformation of the boards, it is not possible to avoid it completely. This is part of the charm of a hardwood floor: it evolves over time. The boards are made of a single material throughout their thickness. It is therefore possible to renovate them by sanding off the surface layer to restore their beauty. This operation can be carried out many times, which gives the hardwood floor a very long service life. In addition, hardwood is scratch and impact resistant.
How should hardwood be installed?
The preferred installation method for hardwood flooring is nail-down installation. Pieces of wood called joists or joists are glued to the floor, and the floorboards are attached to these joists with nails. This installation technique requires a great deal of skill to achieve a uniform appearance and avoid squeaking. In addition, it is not compatible with underfloor heating.
The engineered floor, a solution for every situation
Engineered flooring has emerged much more recently than hardwood flooring. It has to be manufactured in a factory because of its complex structure. It has excellent dimensional stability, which makes it very resistant to temperature changes and humidity.
What is an engineered floor?
Engineered flooring, unlike hardwood flooring, is composed of several distinct layers. The top layer is a thin strip of solid wood, often white oak, red oak or maple. The bottom layers are made of plywood, usually Russian cherry wood. Depending on the thickness of the floor, there are three, five or seven layers. These layers are arranged in such a way that the grains cross each other, which makes the engineered floor very stable. The deformations of the different layers of wood compensate each other instead of accumulating.
What are the advantages of the engineered floor?
Good quality engineered floors have a wear layer of 3.5 or even 4mm thick, which allows them to be sanded two or three times to remove scratches that have appeared over time. Unfortunately, the floor then has to be replaced. However, a well-maintained engineered wood floor does not need to be sanded frequently, and retains its beauty for a long time.
Engineered flooring is available in a range of finishes, from light to dark. It is therefore perfectly suited to any decorating scheme. In addition, its mechanical properties allow it to be installed in any room of the house, whether on the floor, walls or ceiling.
How do you lay this type of floor?
Engineered flooring is suitable for all installation techniques. It can be nailed, glued or left floating. In the latter two cases, it is possible to install an intermediate material between the slab and the floor. This type of floor can therefore be laid on an insulating layer and is compatible with underfloor heating.
What are the advantages of the engineered floor?
Good quality engineered floors have a wear layer of 3.5 or even 4mm thick, which allows them to be sanded two or three times to remove scratches that have appeared over time. Unfortunately, the floor then has to be replaced. However, a well-maintained engineered wood floor does not need to be sanded frequently, and retains its beauty for a long time.
Engineered flooring is available in a range of finishes, from light to dark. It is therefore perfectly suited to any decorating scheme. In addition, its mechanical properties allow it to be installed in any room of the house, whether on the floor, walls or ceiling.
How do you lay this type of floor?
Engineered flooring is suitable for all installation techniques. It can be nailed, glued or left floating. In the latter two cases, it is possible to install an intermediate material between the slab and the floor. This type of floor can therefore be laid on an insulating layer and is compatible with underfloor heating. It is important to mention that a specific installation is required if the floor is to be sanded.
Hardwood or engineered flooring: criteria for choosing
Are you still hesitating about your choice of flooring? Let's summarise the different criteria to consider before making your decision. This will enable you to choose the type of floor that best suits your situation.
Temperature and humidity constraints
Hardwood is a material that does not cope well with temperature fluctuations and humidity. For this reason, it is not recommended for installation in damp rooms, such as kitchens, bathrooms and laundry rooms. A water leak can cause irreversible damage to this type of flooring. It is also advisable not to install a hardwood floor directly on a concrete slab. It is therefore best to avoid the basement and ground floor and reserve it for the upper floors.
Engineered wood, on the other hand, is not very sensitive to moisture. It can therefore be installed in wet rooms and on concrete slabs. It is also perfectly compatible with underfloor heating. In this case, it is advisable to lay it on a plywood sheet to distribute the heat evenly.
The installation support
Hardwood flooring is reserved for floor installation. Engineered flooring, on the other hand, can be used as a wall covering and even installed on the ceiling.
In addition, engineered flooring can be laid over a soundproofing membrane. It is therefore an ideal floor covering for condos, where soundproofing is essential. It is also possible to combine it with an insulating and soundproofing membrane.
The price
Engineered flooring is generally more expensive than hardwood flooring. This is because it requires many steps to manufacture.
However, whether it is hardwood or engineered flooring, prices can vary widely depending on certain criteria:
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the type of wood ;
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the quality of the blades ;
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the thickness of the blades ;
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the thickness of the wear layer for the engineered floor ;
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the width and length of the boards.
In both cases, a higher price usually means better quality. A low-priced hardwood floor is likely to have many defects in size and appearance, and knots that make it difficult to maintain and install. Similarly, to be sure of a durable floor, it is better to choose Canadian engineered wood, which is more expensive but of very good quality.
Aesthetics
Once installed, it is not possible to tell the difference between a hardwood floor and an engineered floor. The top layer of the latter is made of the same species of hardwood as the solid floor.
The advantage of engineered flooring is that it can be much longer and wider than hardwood flooring. We often refer to these types of flooring as : Long and wide. This is because the structure of the engineered floor greatly limits expansion and contraction. This avoids the appearance of cracks, or the need for large expansion distances between boards. Large planks are very popular today because of their particularly decorative appearance and their ability to visually enlarge the space.
It should also be noted that it is possible to use both types of flooring in the same house while maintaining harmony. Indeed, the wide choice of finishes generally makes it possible to find a hardwood floor and an engineered floor in very similar colours.
Do not hesitate to contact us if you have more questions about hardwood and engineered flooring. We will be happy to assist you in choosing the best solution for your project!