DO I NEED ENGINEERED WOOD FLOORING?

What is Engineered wood flooring? 

In short, engineered wood flooring is made of multiple layers of timber rather than a single piece like solid wood flooring. These are set at right angles to one another to add stability, with one layer pulling the other flat if it starts to move. This means engineered flooring will stay flat when installed in ways or places that traditional solid boards might not.

The top layer of an engineered wood floor is made from timber that will be seen – most commonly Oak. It is normally 3mm – 6mm thick (products with thinner top layers than this are known as laminates). The layers beneath are often plywood or layers of less expensive timber. The quality of these can vary considerably affecting both price and stability.

Our award-winning all-oak strata

Broadleaf Strata Oak is a new generation engineered oak flooring whose lower layers are made from Oak. It is more stable than conventional engineered flooring, and gives the boards the same luxury feel, insulation and acoustics as solid wood.

Broadleaf Strata Oak boards are available in all of our beautiful flooring finishes.

How to choose between solid or engineered

Whether you need engineered wood flooring or not depends on how / where you’re planning to fit your floor, and whether additional stability is necessary.

It will also depend on where you buy your floors. One manufacturer might advise you need engineered flooring for a room, whilst another would be happy to supply solid wood flooring for the same space. Both manufacturers will be right for their flooring, as what will work where isn’t as simple as the basic construction of the flooring, it’s about how the timber is dried and machined, the size of the flooring, it’s design, which glue is used to bond any layers and how the floors are manufactured. There isn’t a one size fits all answer, so always ask the manufacturer what you can do with their floor and take their advice.

When it comes to Broadleaf wood flooring, we recommend our engineered oak in situations where:

• You need to float your floor (fix each plank to itself rather than the subfloor beneath)
• You want to install a wider boards (200mm +) and cannot face fix them
• You want fit wider boards (200mm+) over under-floor heating

We are happy for our solid oak plank (up to 150mm) and parquet floors to be fitted over underfloor heating, subject to our installation guidance.

If you have any queries or need any further advice, please get in touch with one of our showrooms. Our expert team with be happy to help, and specialise in simple, jargon free advice!