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WWYD Engineered vs Hardwood
Hello all, I'm new to the nest. DH and I are currently in the process of a new home construction.
Recently we were asked about our flooring selection, and I am having a very hard time deciding between engineered wood and hardwood floors. I absolutely love the look of both of them. I've tried to educate myself and ask as many questions as possible from our supplier, but at the end of the day it all seems like it comes down to personal preference.
The engineered wood that we love is definately easier on our pockets, and would save us about 2,000 dollars. The hardwood that we love is very similar, but thicker, has the ability to be resanded years later, and is shiny. It also busts our budget over 2,000 dollars. We would have to pay slightly out of pocket and use our savings. No big deal, but something we would prefer not to do.
If it were you, which would you choose and why? Anyone with children have any input?
Thanks!
Re: WWYD Engineered vs Hardwood
We have engineered in our house and I won't miss it when we move. It dents and scratches way too easily, and not in a "adds character" kind of way. The dog drops her bone off of the couch=instant dent. DD drops a toy=instant dent. At the last party that we had, someone had a little stone or something stuck on the bottom of their shoe and our dining room floor is covered in scratches.
I personally would either splurge for the hardwood or do a completely different type of flooring.
I would do hardwood. IMO, it looks nicer. You can re-sand and refinish it if it gets beat up, but I imagine you would need to replace they engineered wood (I would think that would be tricky).
We have hardwood now in our apt and in the house we are buying. We've only had our son for 15 months, but he has spilled TONS of milk (cow and BM), food, etc on the hardwood and it has cleaned up fine with water and a rag (I use vinegar and water to clean the floor usually).
The only thing that ever really bothered the hardwood was when DS vomited on the hardwood floor as a newborn and we didn't realize it until a day or two had passed (don't even ask-DH was in charge that day). That one spot on the floor looks less shiny than the rest.
And I would think that would improve resale value. Hardwood floors was a big selling point for us.
Good point, I really never thought of the resale value. Although we plan to keep this house as our "forever" home, we cannot tell the future. This is a good point that we should really be considering just "in case"
It sounds like perhaps the compared engineered flooring here is either a poor quality or the hardwood being compared to it is high quality - throwing off the cost difference.
I have seen recommended advice on engineered for it to have at least 1/8 inch wear layer along with being solid sawn. Most engineered has a peeled veneer wear layer which means it is cheap and porous - you'll want to replace it after 5 years or before depending on how hard you are on floors.
Floors are one of the areas in which I would make sure of the quality you are getting - of course compromises always have to be made - but floors are an area that you will be the hardest on - you don't want it to look like crap in a few years and the need to replace it sooner than you would have thought. It's just wasted money over the long term. That isn't to say that you should go with hardwood over engineered but that you should make sure of the quality of both that you are comparing.
In my personal experience along with a vast many other people's experience - a cheaply made engineered flooring won't last you long and will look like crap pretty quickly. Just moving into our previous rental home (while we constructed a new home) we damaged the engineered flooring - a scoot of a box and the floor is scratched - add a little boy with little cars/trucks - and it looked pretty awful.
On the other hand, you will have people tell you that hardwood floors scratch easy and start looking like crap quickly. The story here is that they have softwood not hardwood. The softer the wood used the more likely they will scratch.
We have only ever had a medium hardwood and never had an issue with the flooring looking dinged or scratched up and we are hard on our floors from toys to heels to a clutz who drops everything.
So know what you are compared exactly. What type of hardwood - what is the hardness of that wood. What type of engineered - how is it constructed.
The details more important than the titles. And I do completely agree that if you should have the need to resale hardwood regardless of the 'hardness' of it will sound better/upgraded than an engineered flooring. Kind of the same with granite - you might have a high quality other product but people are obsessed with the buzz words.
I'm glad you posted this, I was wondering about how easy engineered was to scratch vs hardwood. When your engineered scatches does it show a different color below the finish on top?
Sorry to hear about the dining room. Ugh
Thanks for the info.
I can tell you that the hardwood we are looking at is made by BRUCE, and it is a Hickory. The engineered wood is also made by BRUCE it is also hickory but a thin layer of course (I'de have to get up and look at the spec sheet to see exact measurements & right now I'm lazy lol) From what I gathered from our supplier the engineered wood is the "cheaper out" but by no means a cheaper engineered wood, it runs about 6.50 per sq ft. The hardwood runs about 10.00 per sq foot but because he is ordering for another local home he could potentially order it at a deeper discount fromt he manufacturer making it about 8.50 per sq ft for us.
I feel the hardwood is a good quality of hardwood, so like you said,, it is very hard to compare "apples to apples"
I would go with the hardwood. Our flooring guy highly recommended it.
OP - are you writing a blog about your home building process? We are just starting to build and I am really interested in the process that others took.
Consider joining the bone marrow registry
Thanks for your advice, sounds like Hardwood is the most suggested here
I'm not writing a blog, it is something I have pondered a bit, but sadly no. I would be willing to answer any questions you might have though.
That isn't true. We have engineered hardwood flooring in our upstairs, and it can be refinished at least a couple of times, according to the information from the manufacturer.
Our flooring hasn't dented or scratched any more than my business partner's pricey hardwood floor. We do have some dents that would have happened with any wood, (klutzy people), but nothing horrible. Granted, we don't use the upstairs as much as we do the downstairs, but we had a large dog who spent a lot of time upstairs in his old age, and he didn't cause any damage....it has held up well.
Oh! That would be great. Are you building in a development or just on a plot that you found somewhere (like, are you making decisions through a company or are you piecing together all of the parts yourself?) Do you have a General Contractor or are you gathering your own subs? Where are you in the process so far?
Consider joining the bone marrow registry
We are building on our own plot, we purchased the land from my FIL at a great price. LOVE it, as it is on a river & No neighbors lol.
We thought long and hard about doing alot of the construction ourselves and subbing out what we could not do. In the end we decided to go with a general contractor who owns his own construction company. We have been really happy with him. He basically sub contracts everything out, which is fine. He keeps everything on track for us, watches the budget, does all of the ordering of supplies such as lumber, and siding. Before he contracts anything jobs out we have always had a chance to meet with the crew & ask questions. Our contractor is on the job site everyday and keeps in touch with us daily. All in all we have been thrilled having him as our "middle man" and feel like he has really made the process smooth for us. As far as selections go, he gives us an allowance based on our budget so for flooring we got an 18,000 dollar budget allowance. Anything over, we have to pay OOP. Same goes for electrical fixtures, cabinetry and all the good stuff. I would highly reccommend looking into a general contractor. The price is higher, but the assurance of having an advocate for you in the process is worth it.
Also, I feel like the sub contractors he uses are great. We had a full Amish crew do all the framing, and I have never seen a house built so fast and sturdy. Amazing to watch these guys work.
Right now we are about 50% through the construction. All of our framing is up, electrical wiring is in, duct work is finished, and pluming is almost done. Today the Amish crew is back working on siding!! (eek!)
No kidding?! We have br-111 braz cherry and the veneer is too thin to sand down. It's a hard wood so it doesn't dent easily but I know for sure we can't refinish it.
I don't know if it helps, but we have an engineered hardwood in our t.v. room (we had to because of the concrete subfloor) and we really like it. We've had it over a year, and even with a toddler and a long-toenailed dog we haven't had any issues with scratching or denting. We've had more problems with the actual hardwood in the rest of the downstairs getting scratched-up looking or stained, but we probably need to refinish it. We picked something with a good amount of pattern, and that probably helped. We will be extending it into our kitchen when we renovate.
Denting and scratching has NOTHING to do with engineered vs. hardwood and everything to do with the type and hardness of the wood layer on the surface.
We have engineered, not because of price, but because the floor we both loved happened to be engineered. It was actually more expensive than some other wood floors but it is hickory, the composite layer is much harder than just regular wood, it can be refinished twice (so a nice, thick layer of the finished wood on top), is truly hand-scraped (not machine-scraped), and is grown and produced entirely in the U.S. It's been 3 years at this point since we had it installed and there is not a single scratch on it and no furniture dents or any other dents that I've found. We have 2 dogs (we do keep their nails trimmed) who have free reign of the rooms with the wood floors and we do not baby it in any way.
We have a concrete subfloor but that didn't have any bearing on our decision. We opted to float the floors (I like the give of it) but we didn't have to. Concrete subfloors are the norm here.
Have you asked the opinion of the actual floor guy? Ours was very helpful and honest (my dad is a contractor/builder and uses him regularly so that always helps).
Consider joining the bone marrow registry
We had Brazilian Cherry Engineered wood floors installed in 2006 and they still look great. Very few scratches and nothing major even after one large dog and two kids. We can refinish ours once if needed but at the rate we are going, we will not need to do it for a while.
I agree with others that it depends on the wood AND the quality of the floors you buy.