WHAT ARE ENGINEERED WOOD FLOORS?

Many people get confused between Engineered floors and Laminate floors but they are not the same. Engineered floors are constructed from several layers of wood that are glued together generally in different directions to make them stronger and more stable. The centre core is generally a softer wood and is used to make the tongue and groove. The top layer is glued to the core and can be made out of almost any wood specie and another softer wood is glued to the bottom of the core. This allows you to be able to sand and reseal as a normal wood floor.

Wood always wants to expand in a certain direction. In the presence of moisture solid wood will always expand across the width of the boards as it is a natural product. To stop this happening, manufacturers designed an engineered board where the ply is placed in different directions to each other which is called ‘cross ply construction’. When the layers are glued together the plies will work together and counteract each other which then prevents the plank from expanding and decreasing in size with the changes in moisture.

Underfoot it is very hard to tell if the product is solid or engineered.

Bausen, Junckers, Grundorf, Xylo, Atkinson & Kirby, Boen, Tuscan, Kahrs, L M Flooring.

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