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0 Many homeowners who are remodeling or renovating a house are to make a decision whether they want carpeted floors or hardwood flooring such as engineered wood flooring. Installing wood flooring is not an easy DIY project to take on so it is best to have professional installers inspect the house and prepare the installation. The best type of hardwood flooring is engineered wood flooring. Many people prefer the look of laminate floors but the truth is that those are not real wood and they are not made to be durable and last a long time. On the other hand, engineered wood flooring is very high quality and is completely real wood through all the layers. The way that engineered wood floorings works it that they are built with multiple layers of plywood that are cross paired and they are tightly pressed together to create one solid piece which makes a high quality and long lasting product.
Engineered Wood Flooring Benefits
There are many benefits to having engineered wood flooring. The main benefit is that it is very resistant to humidity and levels of high moisture. This benefit makes this type of wood flooring very beneficial for damp basements or levels where there is naturally a higher humidity.
Another great benefit for engineered wood flooring is that the resale value is much higher compared to other types of woods in households. Generally, when a house is being sold, a wooden flooring design that is standard will have a lower resale value but engineered wood flooring systems are much better in regards to resale value.
Different Qualities of Engineered Wood Flooring
It is important to understand that like all products in the marketplace, not all products are designed equally. Interested buyers of wood floorings generally will believe that a standard ¾ inch or 1 inch piece of wood flooring is better than engineered flooring but that is far from the truth. Manufacturers make a variety of engineered wood flooring products from both ends of the price spectrum for every type of budget. Not all engineered wood flooring products are made equally and a lower price may not mean it is a bargain, but it is just a cheaply built setup. Many of these lower qualities builds are 3/8 inch thick and have paper thin layers which make them very weak and unstable. On the other end of the spectrum is thicker wood floorings pieces and these are generally solid pieces of plywood to create a study foundation.
The top layer is known as the “wear layer” in wood flooring and is used to track how much wood is taken off when it is sanded. A standard solid wood flooring wear layer is 5/15 inches. For an engineered flooring design, the wear layer is slightly less at 5/25 inches and can be sanded 4-6 times over the course of the life of the floor, which is on average 50-90 years. The wear layer may vary from one type of wood flooring to another and it is important as a deciding factor on what flooring you decide to go with. If you are installing these in a room with heavy foot traffic you may want to opt for a thicker wear layer otherwise you could stay with a standard thinner layer.
Engineered wood flooring systems are very good choices over a thick cheap solid wood flooring system for the many benefits. Whether it is a high humidity environment or there is a large amount of foot traffic, you will make the better choice going with engineered wood floors as they are also very long lasting and high quality.
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