4 Things You Must Know Before You Buy an Engineered Wood Floor

There are many reasons you may be searching for a wide plank engineered wood floor for your upcoming
project — cost, ease of installation, and stability. While much of this is true, not all engineered flooring is designed and crafted to meet the same standards.

Many people do not know what those standards are, but they do know they want their floor to:

• Be more beautiful
• Be of the highest quality
• Be more stable
• Provide enhanced performance in their environment
• Last a long time
• Be easy to maintain

We’ll review four of the most important design elements in engineered hardwood flooring so you can look below the surface of pretty flooring samples. Instead, you want to consider the intrinsic differences that will help you find the highest-quality engineered floor. We’ll also provide some shopping tools and tips to help you.

Construction & Manufacturing

1. Wear Layer: A 4mm wear layer, compared to an industry standard of 2mm or 3mm, offers the same thickness of sanding as a solid floor without sacrificing stability in an engineered platform.

2. Stability: 9-11 layers of a suitable plywood substrate backing enhance stability and flooring longevity.

Engineered hardwood flooring consists of a decorative hardwood veneer top-ply bonded to an underlying core comprised of multiple backing layers. The thickness of the veneer and the core varies depending on the design and the manufacturer. This construction detail will play the biggest role in how your floor looks, how stable it will be, and how long it will last.

As you consider durable engineered wood flooring, you want to select products that meet certain criteria:

• Overall Thickness: 5/8” or ¾” thick
• Thickness of the veneer: 4mm
• Thickness of the core: 9-ply or 11-ply

The dimensional stability of your engineered floor can be further improved by the manufacturer if they:

• Design the board so that the core is thicker than the veneer layer.
• Layer each ply of the core so that the grain runs at a 90° angle to the grain pattern of the previous ply. (We adhere to design and manufacturing details with Carlisle engineered hardwood flooring).

Most engineered wood flooring on the market is mass-produced. Even if you order the flooring all at once, mass production methods result in flooring boards in varying widths, lengths, and thicknesses, which can make for a very difficult installation. Even the color and finish of the floor can be completely different because the flooring came from a large batch rather than made per order.

Shopping Tip: Samples can be a valuable tool during the selection process. They can compare the thickness of the overall board and the individual layers and help verify the number of layers and the relative thickness of the core and veneer.

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Dimensions

The average width of most engineered wood flooring is 3” wide; the average length is just 3’ long. Let that soak in for a moment. If you have a 20 x 20 room that is nearly 535 boards you need to install!

Standard manufacturing practices are designed to produce wood flooring as fast as possible and as much as possible — it’s all about efficiency and volume.

Unfortunately, the appearance and quality of this type of flooring won’t work for the client who wants a wide plank floor. Luckily, you don’t have to settle for strip flooring anymore — check out this gorgeous All 8″ wide plank engineered Walnut floor from Carlisle!

When considering engineered wood flooring, you want to work with a manufacturer that can provide more options like:

• All 6” Wide
• All 8” Wide
• All 10” Wide
• 6-10” Wide
• All one width, or random widths, depending on the look you want.

In addition to achieving wider widths in your floor, you also want longer lengths. Carlisle floors are made in random lengths from 18 – 7′, 2′ – 10′, or 2 -12’ long, depending on the collection, and longer for some custom options; each floor is graded to achieve a certain average length within the range. This gives you peace of mind that you will receive the longer, most revered boards. This combination of widths and lengths creates fewer seams and far more beauty because you can reduce the number of seams in your floor by up to 500% when you use a wide plank floor instead of a traditional 3” floorboard.

Shopping Tip: As you shop for engineered wood flooring, verify width and length specifications on any quotes you receive and your final order documents. Don’t just rely on “word of mouth” specification details.

Aesthetic Appearance

When you install your new wide plank floor you want it to look pretty and be stable, but you don’t need or want to know that it is an engineered floor. The only way to do this is to use a veneer layer that is cut in a very specific way…this is where we are going to get a little bit technical.

There are two ways to create the veneer layer of an engineered wood floor — use a dry sawn face that is cut with a saw blade or use a sliced and rotary peeled face that is cut with a knife blade. The first is like slicing a piece of bread and the second is like peeling a potato. They both produce different characteristics in terms of aesthetics and quality. Many people believe an engineered wood floor isn’t as beautiful as a solid wood floor, but you can eliminate that concern completely by understanding what type of engineered floor you are using.

The dry sawn face method creates the same visual as a solid floor. This is achieved by giving you the same beautiful heartwood, grain, and character while achieving wider widths and lengths. This method also lets you cut a thicker veneer layer, which becomes the floor’s wear layer. Using the ideal 3/16” wear layer, you now have the same wear layer as a solid wood floor. Your floor will last longer and can be sanded multiple times (if needed).

On the contrary, engineered flooring made from sliced and rotary peeled material will only produce thinner veneer layers (about 2 mm). These thinner layers don’t last as long, so you must repair or replace your floor sooner. This method also boils the wood before peeling it, which can cause moisture issues with the wood down the road. Lastly, this method creates floorboards that resemble plywood more than a real wood floor.

Shopping Tip: Ask the manufacturer (or supplier/retailer) if the flooring is made from dry sawn or rotary peeled wood. You should reevaluate your source if they don’t know the answer to this question. Order samples of the flooring and review photographs of the product to understand what the flooring will look like. Don’t just look at the color; also consider the grain, heartwood, character, and richness of the natural color (if your samples are already finished, you can sometimes see this on the back of the sample).

Environmental Concerns — Internal & External

When selecting a wide plank floor for a residential or commercial space, you shouldn’t worry about how the floor might impact the indoor air quality.

But, we live in a global economy, and most of the flooring sold in North America today is made overseas where manufacturing practices and environmental standards may not mimic those of US manufacturers. This is where concerns about VOCs and formaldehyde can become real and impact the indoor air.

The engineered floor covering you choose should be CARB2 compliant — one of the world’s most stringent indoor air quality guidelines.  If you selected a prefinished wood floor, you want to ensure it meets or exceeds the guidelines for volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which can impact indoor air quality.

If you are concerned about the environment, consider that the flooring you purchase from a “local retailer” may be made outside North America, creating a more negative ecological footprint on our dear Mother Earth. Can you say you are shopping locally if it’s not American-made? If you want to buy locally, shop with a company that manufactures their flooring in the USA. (American craftsmen proudly make Carlisle floors in New Hampshire; our wood comes from sustainably harvested American forests.)

Shopping Tip: Ask the manufacturer (or supplier/retailer) where the flooring is manufactured or what brand it is. Then, you can research where their floors are made. You also want to verify if the flooring meets CARB2 and VOC content guidelines.

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Here are a few projects where Carlisle engineered hardwood flooring was installed from Washington to Miami:

Walnut Flooring in a Seattle Waterfront Home

Sincerity Flooring Adds Warmth to Modern Home in Zionsville VIllage

White Oak is a Natural Choice for a Luxury Villa in Miami

Modern Australian Design With A Beachy Vibe in California Home

Weekend Cottage Hardwood Floor is the Natural Choice for this Manhattan Loft

Walnut Flooring in Award-Winning Lake Home

Looking for more information on engineered wood flooring? Download our Engineered Wood Flooring Shopping Guide.