Solid or Engineered Flooring

In looking at these pictures, what's your first reaction? Like a lot of people, you probably said to yourself, "the solid wood must be better because it's twice as thick". Well, guess what, you're not correct. Before I go into why, let me explain the black line drawn on an angle on the picture of the solid wood. This represents where a nail would be driven into the floor during installation. Now allow me to explain.

When comparing solid wood to engineered wood, we tend to think about resurfacing or "refinishing" the floor years down the road. This of course is directly related to the longevity of the flooring. Thinking about resurfacing the floor sometimes is the reason we may be misled into believing that the solid floor is better or will absolutely last longer. This is not so. Let's refer back to the pictures above. While there is no question that the solid wood floor is much thicker, take a look at where the nail is. When doing your resurfacing, maybe on the second or third resurfacing about 60 to 80 years from now, you are going to run into (literally) one of two things. It will be the nails with the solid wood floor, or the plywood core on the engineered floor. So, with that statement, now do you believe that the solid wood will really last longer?

There are also other important factors to consider. A solid wood floor is usually less stable than an engineered wood floor. When I say less stable, I am referring to moisture and expansion related to that moisture. When you get climate changes in your home, which you absolutely will, wood flooring expands and contracts. With solid wood flooring, it generally expands and contracts a lot more than the engineered wood. Engineered wood flooring is constructed to be dimensionally stable, while most solid wood floors are simply cut pieces of wood from a tree.

SOLID WOODEN FLOORS

No other flooring offers the warmth, natural beauty, durability, practicality and value of wooden floors. If that’s not enough, on top of this, solid wood flooring is a healthy option for you, your family and it is healthy for the environment too.

These are usually 18 - 20mm thick of solid hardwood in a variety of species oak, maple, walnut etc - produced in random lengths and tongue and groove all round. Generally narrower strips are more stable. Up to 83mm is described as strip flooring and above 83mm as plank flooring. Pre finished or pre lacquered saves considerable installing expense and inconvenience.

The higher the selection the less colour variation and less knotting, however mixed grades are often requested so one can see the full character of the wood as was naturally grown, with the colour variations. Solid Floors can be expected to last many lifetimes with appropriate care and attention.

ENGINEERED FLOORING

Although Suntups Wooden Flooring have traditionally only been SOLID wooden flooring suppliers, now Suntups have entered into the ENGINEERED market.
 
With technology advancing engineered floors are becoming more accepted in the market and now very often is requested above a solid. The reason for this is that the engineered boards also have a solid top of solid wood and from the tongue and below is a plywood. This give a huge amount of extra stability and even engineered floors can be sanded like a solid. It is the thickness of the solid to that determines how many sandings one can do and this is the same for a solid. Due to the increased stability engineered flooring can now be machined with a click lock system making installation much more simple however some traditionalists still want T&G (tongue & groove) so Suntups wooden flooring offer both options. Some would even say that an engineered solid wooden floor is superior to a full solid due to the stability.

Suntups Engineered flooring is not a two strip or a three strip like other ordinary engineered floors, but each board is an individual plank in random lengths, just like a solid, from 300mm up to 1200mm, and 120mm wide, and even do wide boards up to 240mm wide and long lengths up to 2 meters. Now with the increased stability one can go wide with safety.

All Pre-finished Suntups flooring has 6 coats of Aluminum Oxide UV cured and the hand brushed antique ranges have an AD48 finish, which is 6 coats of an air dried matt sealer to give the natural look of an oiled floor.

Click here to see more info on the .

CLIC FLOORING