Are you planning to do some serious installing hardwood floors at home? Have you heard of engineered hardwood flooring? What is that, exactly?
The Facts About Engineered Hardwood Flooring:
Engineered hardwood flooring is when you install the flooring in your house with real hardwood. There are three (3) interesting facts regarding installing hardwood floors that way:
- Engineered hardwood flooring is created with several layers or plies. They are glued together in a certain way, which is a grain-cross construction. It is much stronger than a solid piece of wood. It will not buckle, gap, twist, or cup.
- How to install engineered hardwood flooring? It can be installed below grade and direct to concrete. This is not what solid wood floors can do.
- The finest Northern veneers are what craft the top face of engineered hardwood flooring. This provides the most uniform color. It is also resilient against the seasonal expansion.
Those three (3) facts above clarify the difference between engineered hardwood flooring to regular solid wood flooring.
The Benefits of Using Engineered Hardwood Flooring For Our Environment:
This method is also helpful from the environmental issue, because:
- Unlike a solid wood product, this method only uses half of the trees normally used for the solid wood product. Talk about going green, even a bit.
- Inner plies are made from faster, growing, and renewable wood. We are not just talking about recycled wood products, but also the high-quality ones—even from the choices of the used woods to the recycling process.
- Not only the used woods, but this method also reuses its mill waste energy.
- The finishes that this method uses is water-based. It does not contain any VOCs (Volatile Organic Compound).
- The system that this method uses is a formaldehyde-free adhesive one. This system meets or beats the best indoor air quality standards. What qualifies as the best is when the air quality standard is the most stringent.
The Process of Engineered Hardwood Flooring:
Engineered hardwood flooring is made from several different plies or layers of wood. They are fused together under heat and pressure. Many choose this type of method in order to add more warmth and value to their home. Are you one of them? Not only it makes your house looks more beautiful and sophisticated, but it is also an eco-friendly solution.
The Construction:
As mentioned earlier, engineered hardwood flooring is built from multiple layers of wood with the solid top layer. Below the top layer, there are cross layers of plywood. They are pressed together in order to create a core that is strong and stable. The bottom part is the hardwood backing. The thickness levels can vary, depending on what you need.
For example: you want to make sure that there will not be any awkward transitions between different flooring materials. From there, you get to decide how thick the materials should be and whether each of them is at the same level.
Engineered hardwood flooring can be more resistant to moisture and more stable than regular solid wood. (This is why this method gives more resilience to climate change.) Solid hardwood product tends to shrink or expand, depending on the humidity levels. In the long run, solid hardwood product requires more maintenance and is more costly than engineered hardwood flooring.
The plank sizes for this method also vary, depending on the size of your room or your whole house. (That, if you decide to use this method on the entire areas at home.) If you prefer urban room settings, wide planks are the perfect options.
So, what are you waiting for? It is time to go more eco-friendly with engineered hardwood flooring. Make your house look beautiful, feel like home, and environmentally-friendly.
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