Engineered Wood Flooring

Engineered wood flooring is a man made product, constructed from multiple layers of wood with a hardwood top. Below the engineering wood flooring top layer, cross layers of plywood are compressed and bonded together to create a strong, stable core that is additionally reinforced by a layer of hardwood backing on the bottom.

The top layer of the engineered wood floor is called the lamella or and it’s thanks to this solid wood finish that engineered wood looks so convincingly like solid wood.

The multi-layered engineered wood flooring system traditionally gives engineered wood the flexibility to be installed in basements, over concrete subfloors and over radiant heating systems. No wood product can tolerate water laying on it, the increased moisture levels over concrete aren’t a problem for most high quality engineered wood floors.

Engineered wood flooring has one main advantage over solid wood that its stable multi-layered structure means that it is much more resistant to expansion and contraction than solid wood. This means is that it can safely installed in rooms where temperature and moisture fluctuations are significant, like bathrooms and kitchens or over under floor heating.

In very general terms when you buy a wooden floor, you can expect a life expectancy of between 5 – 100 years, with a high quality engineered wood floor lasting for up to 75 years.