From an environmental perspective, wood flooring manufacturers pride themselves on being responsible stewards. For that reason, they create flooring in both solid and engineered formats.
This slide captures some of those dynamics. A piece of high-grade lumber can become one piece of solid hardwood or the wear layer of several pieces of engineered flooring.
And although you have a more sandable surface in solid hardwood, yielding a longer product life, engineered hardwood makes use of other wood byproducts underneath the high-grade top wood layer.
Although not directly related to the evaluation of solid hardwood vs. Subfloors are the surfaces beneath your final flooring. It can be concrete, plywood, or another flooring surface. Regardless, it's critical to ensure the subfloor is smooth and level and has no moisture issues so no flaws or other unexpected surprises affect your hardwood floors.
This is something we will discuss with you. Let us know what your reaction is to this article. Does it answer all of your questions?
If not, let me know in the comments or contact us. When you visit one of our two showroom locations in Middletown or Orange , you'll be able to explore samples of both solid and engineered hardwood products. And, we can dive more deeply into what you're trying to achieve. We look forward to helping you. Floor Decor made the experience easy! This was my first time using them. I heard about them from a co-worker.
I went to the store to purchase some materials. The staff was very friendly and helpful. They helped me locate the materials and pick what would work best for me. They were knowledgeable and informative. They answered questions and got me in and out quickly as I was in a bit of a hurry. The pricing was very fair. They had a wide selection of products which made it a great shopping experience. Joanne A. Download the Floor Decor Project Checklist!
Get Checklist. Engineered Hardwood: Which is Better? This post contains affiliate links for your shopping convenience. Click here to read my full disclosure policy. You guys made it very clear after this post that we need to ditch the carpet in our upstairs hallway. We get it, and definitely know it needs to be fixed. And that it has needed it for several years.
But, I end up getting total analysis paralysis once I head down the path of searching for new options. Now that our floors are also about 13 years old, they have a lot of cuts, scratches, indentations, etc.
Then, add in five summers of salt water being tracked in from pool party guests. Aesthetically, I would love something lighter like the white oak floors we have in our office! And, as typically the case with the way my brain works, I wondered if it would be possibly to refinish our existing hand scraped engineered hardwood floors to be smooth and lighter!
As you can see in the image above, not only are our floors engineered hardwood floors, but they also have a hand scraped finish, which I know makes my question even more challenging! You can also see in the photo above how our upstairs hallway overlooks the lower hallway and vice versa. And the staircase wraps halfway to join the two floors together. Again, this is the reason I feel they would need to be similar.
If it meant our existing floors could be refinished, we would be fine with losing the hand scraped detail. However, engineered hardwood floors are actually made of a thin layer of real wood on top of high-quality plywood.
Depending on the brand and style, the level of real wood thickness varies. The cost of engineered hardwood floors tends to be slightly less than the cost of solid hardwood floors. It also tends to be slightly easier to install than solid wood. This might be the most popular topic of all time! I then received rather polarizing responses in terms of whether or not the floors could actually be refinished. 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! And what if it keeps happening down the road. Is this a horrible idea? And can it be done for relatively cheap? The flooring is shaw castlewood oak if you care to look it up. Color drawbridge. Thanks in advance for any help! Call and get a quote from a french polisher, they are magicians with this stuff, but they can be expensive, getting a quote would atleast get you some ideas.
Hi we moved into a house with a walnut finish engineered floor, which we find too dark. We have been told that we can sand it down and this will make it lighter then we can add a colour or varnish this — will this work? Also can you recommend a tool that we can we use to get into the joins as the edges are beveled?
Many thanks Maria. I am looking at buying a condo with engineered hardwood floor g, way to dark for my limo g. How do I lighten the colour it is about sf?
Hi Pam, you need to sand the old finish and stain off to get back to the clean bare wood. Then just lacquer it and that will be much lighter and more natural. We moved into our newly built home about 8 months ago.
We later noticed that the workers must have wiped some product to clean up on the floor and have left wipe marks in places. Also our cat has thrown up in a few places and once wiped up with wet rag and then dried the throw up spot is still on the floor. Is there anything we can put on the floor to reseal it? Or do you think we should do something else??
Thank you in advance! Personally I would sand it and lacquer it with PU. It may be dark because of a stain so you may want to stain it, depends on the wood. Hello Ben, Great website, thank you. I have just had a brand new engineered oak floor laid with a nude oak finish. The people who installed it also had plasterers, plumbers and various other services working on-site at the same time and did not protect the floor properly. It is now covered in smeary marks where dust and grime has been ground in as well as water marks and some nicks and scratches.
I am particularly concerned about losing any definition to the slight bevelled edges only about 1. Be grateful for any advice, thanks. The size of that bevel will definitely reduce, to say the very least. I have sanded floors that were very flat and I started on either a 60 or even an 80 grit and managed to preserve the bevel mostly.
However, usually floors are slightly uneven and need the usual 36 grit sanding to start. Engineered flooring can usually be sanded several times without issue. They can last 20 years no problem. The stripes are large light wood and dark wood. We feel it looks like a bowling alley and would like it to look more uniform. Would we be able to sand these and darken the lighter areas to match the darker ones?
They were expensive and I wondered if they could be sanded to be relatively smooth and then refinished?? I was wondering the same thing. Wow what a great informative and well laid out site! Ben I have eingeneerrd hardwood in my living room and the finish is peeling off on 3 of the boards, I called the builder but this type of flooring is now discontinued! Is it possible to only sand down and refinish the 3 boards where the finish is peeling? I would like to at the very least screen and recoat preferrably refinish the floor.
Can you give me any advice on how to sand or get the old finish out of the bevelled edges that sits in between the planks? Hello , I have a engineed hickory floor that has some scratches from moving the sofa and a few areas where the finish looks almost worn off. Nothing deep. And any sealer or just topcoat. Thinking of bona traffic hd. I would use a sealer for sure. Hi Ben, I have oak engineered white oak flooring and have some quire big scratches. I have sanded the area down and applied maintenance wocca oil to find out its not sorted it out.
Help required as now thinking of putting wocca master oil over the area to get the original finish as the floor was in wocca oil. Any help would be greatly appreciated as it looks awful now and trying to avoid replacing that section. If you have sanded back an area, you are probably going to have to sand down the whole area im afraid! Last thing I want to do is go to low thank you sir. Its extremely rare that I use higher than 60 on the first grit, and its usually because tis a newly fitted unfinished floor.
Hi Ben, Another Australian here. My builder has scratched my engineered floorboards a lot!!! There are areas of lippage in joins that the flooring company say are within tolerance 0.
My builder is sanding the floorboards although I am not pleased about them having been sanded before they have any use and reducing opportunities for future sanding. The sanding will remove the lipping. What sort of coating do you recommend? Do you consider sanded floorboards second hand floorboards in that their life span… future sanding possibilities are reduced?
Yes it does reduce the life of them and is a bit of a loss im afraid. As for what lacquers I recommend, I thoroughly hope you have downloaded my Free Ebook which will tell you just that!! I had the same problem as Kimlyn from the comment section, my dog scratched the floor a little bit and your advice helped me a lot. Awesome website!
I have fairly new engineered acacia wood flooring. Is there any way to make it less slippery. The floor is like an ice rink! Not sure if your floor will take just an over coat though, might need to sand off the old finish before applying added friction lacquer. Hi Ben, Great website and thanks for your help in advance. But I really like the gloss finish look. Is it possible to polish the pre-finished floor boards again to get the gloss finish after installation?
Any issues with applying a gloss polish on top of the existing mat finish? Please help. If possible, can you please recommend a product. Also I have Bruce hardwood floor butterscotch in my first floor and I would like to refinish it to a different color and also to a different finish to avoid footprints any suggestions on that also. Thanks in Advance. Thanks in advance for your reply. I have seen similar questions here already asked but I was not able to discern if the previous people asking have a new or old flooring.
My question is with regards to re-painting or re-staining pre-engineered hard wood flooring. Some background: we recently bought a pre-construction condo square feet. The unit is brand new and never lived in yet. According to the builder, what we have is; blue ridge oak shale pre-finished engineered hard wood flooring in the entire condo except for the bathroom. Problem is, the colour is much lighter than what we preferred. My wife is not pleased.
Question: it at all possible to paint over it with a much darker colour? If the answer is yes, do we need to sand it down or just painting over it is would be OK? Also, in terms of colour we prefer very dark but not quite ebony or black. What are your recommendations and what tools would you suggest? I believe we are quite handy and could do this ourselves as a DIY project before we move in at a cost of course. But if there are too many unknowns, we are certainly not opposed to getting a professional to take care of it.
How long do you think it would this take given the size of out unit? We are simply weighing all options before moving in 5 weeks from today. Appreciate your response and advice. Please keep up the great work. Hello Bee, great question and I really hope you take my advice. Do not do this yourself. A floor that is the wrong colour is better than a floor that has been done badly.
The faded areas now match a natural maple. Now i would like to extend the would flooring into the family room. I found a match but am concerned about spending the money on the new flooring and then not being able to fix the floors in the kitchen…i would like to avoid replacing the floors in the kitchen too.
On a budget. Fyi — not all the floors are faded only certain areas…. I have bamboo laminate flooring in my kitchen. The color is to light for my liking. I would like to stain it to a grayish color. Do I just stain it and then sand lightly and put on a top coat. Not sure what the process is or if it can be done. Hello and thank you in advance for your time and expertise.
I have engineered hard wood floors and would love to change the color of them. I have been told that I cannot refinish these floors but after reading all of the comments here, I was wondering if you might have a professional in my area that you could connect me with to get more answers. Thank you very much!! Great website! And given some factors specific to my family, i am willing to spend a little more to reduce hassle and time. My factors are: my husband is OCD and cannot stand any kind of mess i.
Thanks in advance! Lots of companies offer dust free sanding these days. I would recommend that. Get the floors refinished by a real pro, it will be the cheapest and best looking. Suffer short term for pleasure long term. Great, informative website. The hallway, however, is quite uneven as is the entranceway. Full site is about 45 sq mtrs.
Even if some slight unevenness remains, will it still be able to be sanded back when the time comes? Does a slightly uneven floor discount this whole idea? About 45 sq mtrs in living, hallway and entrance. Is it possible to sand floating floors that have these slight undulations? If so, it feels like a bit if a waste. The reason I invested in the floors in the first place was for their longevity. I have used drum sanders in the past but am wondering if its overkill on a product that seems relatively smooth to start with.
So many people spend a fortune on new flooring and sand it and finish it themselves. Baffled me, I would start with a finishing sander on 40g then 60, , Hand held orbital round the edges. Hi Ben, what an awesome website! I just installed sq ft of a beautiful engineered walnut. Im wondering if a drum sander would be too much since it feels not too rough as is, unfinished. Do you think an orbital sander with 3 grits, starting around 80 would be enough in this situation?
Looking forward to your opinion. Hi Ben, I am hoping you can help me with my hardwood dilemma. We had Bellawood Engineered bamboo flooring put in my home sq ft back in November. The floor installed shows every little smudge, handprint, butt-print, etc.
The beautiful hardwood floors I had been dreaming of are a nightmare. Lumber liquidators wants the installers who are contracted by lumber liquidators to take a look and assume it is a glue issue.
The floors were glued down to cement. It is going to do that. No one ever told me the floors would be so glossy as to show footprints. We all wear socks now and there are still smudges. We have tried shoes only and still smudges. What should I do? Can I fix this problem by doing ……. Please give me some suggestions. Ask them to abrade the floor and recoat it with a matt finish. The owners glued down engineered wood in , never did anything to care for it. In the worst places in the sf. No grooves in the floor.
The sun has done a lot of damage over the decades, as one side of the house is all windows. Should we replace it, or try to sand and resurface this old engineered wood? Thanks so much! You just need a good pair of hands coupled with a quality machine and patience. Hi Ben! I tried reading through some posts to find the answer to my question. Seems like most people are trying to make things darker.
I ordered engineered hardwood in a coffee color. BIG mistake for a family of five. It shows every little scratch and dust. Any suggestions? I had prefinished 4 inch maple floors installed. Some boards are narrow on the ends and some are split lengthwise. I have complained to the installer and they subsequently brought in the manufacturer.
Manufacturer says they will replace split boards but otherwise not their problem. Installer is willing to work to make me satisfied. I am considering pulling up this floor and having engineered install instead. Trying to do my homework about engineered so since this whole fiasco has been expensive. Not willing to make a second mistake and continue to be unhappy with the floor. Installer says they are having a hard time finding inch Select Maple engineered flooring. I found some by a manufacturer that has good customer reviews.
But their maple flooring is 4mm thick. Is this enough should I one day want is sanded and refinished? I am also reading that crosscut thickness is best for stability of the floor. I live in a pretty dry climate. Thanks for your advice. I know that the surface can crack on engineered boards too. I actually sanded a Maple engineered floor recently that had a 3. The waterbased poly can expand the thin wood and cause problems. Sounds like the floor might have needed a little more time to acclimatise before installation.
If the installer can get the replacement boards in neatly, I would have that done and live with it. If that is the case, is it even possible to sand them in the future and try to reduce the red tones to a darker brown? Before I put new cabinets on top of these floors I want to understand what my options are for sanding and if I should just replace them. Also, are there any easy ways to figure out if the flooring is floating vs. Should I try to replace it, stain it, or other?
Just knock on the floor, if its more hollow its floating, if its blunt, its stuck down. Floating also moves a lot more. We have pre engineer maple floors and while we were out of town our dog had three urine accidents and it was not discovered until a week later when the spots started getting dark, after tearing a couple of boards and finding it bone dry underneath we deduced that it was undiscovered urine.
It was done before the pet sitter pick our dog up and then sat while we were out of town. My question is, can you sand and poly just a section and expect it to match or does the whole room have to be sanded and polyurethaned? Pet urine contains amonia, which is the same chemical they use to smoke oak, because it travels right the way through the wood darkeningit all the way through. There is very little chance that, if this urine spot soaked without notice, you will be able to sand it out.
Best fix to get it perfect is to get the boards lifted and replaced, then sand the whole thing. Recently had rug removed in living room and matched up engineered hardwood to adjacent dinning room. New flooring looks great and matches well with old flooring, but installers used masking tape to hold wood while installing. When the tape was removed, one piece lifted the finish off 6 inches of the old adjacent flooring.
Unfortunately, the damaged wood is located in a very noticeable location. Can the damaged finish be replaced without major work? Try to get advice from a local refinishing pro not a hack. Hi Ben I have a similar problem as the guy before me. I put in a dark maple pre finished hardwood. Is there a way to lighten it a few shades,? Thanks Misty. Hello, Thanks for all of the good advice here. I have a question about an engineered floor and whether to replace or sand. It is a 10 year old Bella Wood light colored floor Maple, I think.
I am wondering if it is feasible to sand the floor 3 rooms, about s. I worked for a number of years as a flooring installer during college carpet, tile, soft goods , so I think I can handle the sanding and other work, but I worry about the finished job.
Have you ever done a job like this? Does it come out looking good? The current floor is beat up from kids and pets, so anything will be improvement. Thanks, Chuck.
But so long as its 4mm or more then it should be fine so long as its flat! Believe me, being a carpenter or a floor layer does not mean you will be good at sanding in anyway, I have seen a lot of floor fitters and carpenters try their hand and its rarely any good.
The biggest problem people have is assuming it will be easy and just trying their hand. Hello, we installed engineered hardwood bamboo in our home and in 5 months, it has cupped all over the house, including underneath beds and in closets. A third party inspector has reported that it was installed incorrectly. Would you recommend starting over completely? Thanks so much for any advice you can give! The reason wood floors cup is because there is moisture coming from beneath the floor.
There may be some solutions for fixing this without digging up the floor and putting a moisture barrier down. For example having a trench dug around the house so that water can escape out the sides before it gets to the level of the floor. Having a soak away on the drive.
I have also seen floors that have been damaged by damp because the drain for the guttering beside the house was cracked in the concrete and water was getting in above the moisture barrier. If you can identify the problem, fix it and let it dry out, you may find the cupping reversing on your floors and flattening out.
Entry and dining room had slight water damage. Hired someone who removed some pieces and replaced with less glue so uneven and one piece with 30 hammer marks.
They they applied a shiny varnish in a portion to part of the room and left. Remove all.. Or do I have to sand, stain, and varnish. I cannot find professional companies in town that fix engineered wood. I say sand and refinish. I am hearing more and more about companies not sanding engineered wood. Hello, I wonder if you can offer me some help. I have an Oak engineered flooring that is installed running through the downstairs of my home. I run a Doggy Hotel and the one room is ruined by dog urine so it shows very dark patches in places.
It was installed 9 years ago so I imagine through all of my scrubbing the lacquer has gone. Can I cover in a dark stain and maybe wax or oil it to make it look presentable again?
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