Hardwood flooring is a great way to add some style and elegance to your home, which may be lacking with your current flooring choice of carpeting. If you're looking to have hardwood flooring installed, you're likely debating between using a natural hardwood or engineered material. Here is what you need to know about these materials to make an informed decision.
The Composition
When you buy engineered hardwood, it is actually made of multiple wood composite layers that have been pressed tightly together to make a plank. A thin piece of real wood is placed on the top to give the flooring material the appearance of real wood, even though it is not. When you select natural hardwood, know that the entire plank of flooring material will be made from real wood.
The Lifespan
Each type of flooring material has its own lifespan, which is worth considering based on how long you'll be living in the home. When you use basic engineered hardwood, you can expect to get between 20 and 30 years out of the material before you need to replace it. The overall lifespan depends on how much wear and tear the material sees over the years. Meanwhile, natural hardwood is capable of lasting over 100 years. This is due to being able to refinish natural hardwood multiple times so you can restore the floors when they start to not look so great.
The Advantages
Many homeowners love engineered hardwood due to it not warping from moisture, not scratching easily from pets or kids, and being possible to use it with radiant heat. For natural hardwood, it's used because of how durable the wood can be, how easy it is to keep it clean, and it's love lifespan. Natural hardwood floors are often a selling point for homes when the time comes to put it on the real estate market.
The Disadvantages
A problem with engineered hardwood is that the material has a limited lifespan due to that thin piece of wood on the top layer. You simply cannot refinish the floors over and over again before the wood will wear out and expose the composite material underneath. Natural hardwood is also an expensive material, and can potentially warp from humidity and moisture. It makes hardwood a bad choice for homes with radiant heating because of this.
Speak to flooring companies like Century Custom Hardwood Floor for more information about selecting hardwood flooring material for your home.
After tearing out all of the old carpet from our home, I realized that we needed something a little better. I began looking around at alternatives, and I found a really nice laminate that worked well with our budget and that looked really nice. I talked with the installers about putting it in, and they were more than happy to work with us. Within a few weeks, we had a new floor, and it made all the difference in the world. I decided that it would be fun to start an entire blog about flooring, so read more here if you have questions.