Wood Flooring Overview


What is the difference between solid wood, engineered wood, and laminate?

  • Solid wood is made from a single piece of natural wood, it can be oak, maple, ash or any other number of tree species. The main benefit of a solid wood floor being that it can be sanded and refinished multiple times over the course of the lifetime of the floor.

  • Engineered wood is made from natural wood, but rather than being a single piece of wood from top to bottom, engineered wood is made by joining layers of material together. Engineered wood is typically made up of two or three layers – the surface or ‘wear-layer’ is often made from hardwood, with the base layers being made from other raw materials, commonly pine / spruce / douglas fir. This process of clever manufacturing creates a product that is both more environmentally friendly and more mechanically stable than solid wood, without compromising on the beauty of a natural hardwood floor. Engineered wood can typically be sanded and refinished just like a solid floor, but the number of times that this is possible is dependent on the thickness of the surface or ‘wear layer’ of the floor.

  • Solid engineered wood is a variant of engineered wood flooring. Like engineered wood, solid engineered wood is also made from natural wood, but rather than having hardwood on the surface and layers of softwood below – solid engineered wood is comprised of three layers of the surface material, most commonly Oak. This process of clever manufacturing creates a product that is more mechanically stable than solid wood, without compromising on the beauty and longevity of a solid wood floor. Solid engineered wood floors can typically be sanded the same number of times as a solid wood floor.

  • Laminate flooring is also comprised of multiple layers. Laminate flooring has a highly resistant, transparent wear layer on the surface, a design layer below which creates the pattern of the floor i.e. grain, colour etc. and a base layer made of sturdy HDF (High Density Fibreboard).