We want to install new wood flooring in our cottage but the place isn’t climate controlled, what would be the best flooring to use?

Q:
We want to install new wood flooring in our cottage but the place isn’t climate controlled, what would be the best flooring to use?

A:

There are several choices that you can choose. It will depend on your budget.

The cheaper flooring to buy and install is the laminates. Laminate floors come in a wide range of grades, colours, textures, widths and our made so that they have very limited movement in them as the climate inside the cottage changes. Most laminates can be installed without actually nailing or gluing them down. This allows your floor to float. Also long as you have the ability to leave room around the outside edges and you do not fasten the floor at any point then the floor will have the ability to move. Laminates do not move as much as a solid wood floor when the climate changes inside.

If you do not like the look of laminates and you want a more natural look and a more natural product then you want flooring that is real wood. But you do not want to get a full bed wood floor, you want to buy what is called an engineered wood floor. Engineered wood flooring is real wood on the top but glued to a plywood backer. The plywood backer stiffens the floor and does not move as much as a full bed wood floor would when the climate changes inside.

The way plywood is manufactured does not shrink and expand like a full natural wood so changing climates in the home do not bother it as much, high humidity or extreme low temperatures have little affect on the floor. Since engineered flooring haves real wood on top of the plywood backing will make your floor look like a solid wood floor and most people will never be able to tell the difference. Engineered flooring should resist most cupping or warping due to high humidity or direct sunlight.

If you do buy a full natural wood floor you run the risk of the high humidity and changing climates in the home causing the wood to swell, shrink and even buckle. This could cause serious damage to the floor in a very short amount of time.

Stick to the manufactured stuff and you will not be disappointed.

Rob Abbott
Operations Manager
Village Builders Inc.

What's the difference between engineered wood flooring and solid wood flooring?

Q:

What's the difference between engineered wood flooring and solid wood flooring?
A:

Unlike solid wood planks, engineered wood flooring features a substrate (or main section) made from thin sections of solid wood that are set in a cross-hatched pattern and laminated together. A thin veneer of solid wood (oak, maple, etc.) on top of the substrate provides the appearance of a solid wood floor. Because of its substrate, engineered wood flooring does not react as dramatically to changes in temperature or humidity, and requires less maintenance than solid wood.

That’s the official version of what engineered flooring is, the simply answer is that engineered flooring is plywood that has a thin veneer of whatever species of wood you want on the top.

There are many advantages to engineered flooring, here are a few:

• You use less wood then conventional flooring.
• It resists the natural process of shrinking and expending that normal hardwood floors go through     depending on the season.
• It will resist moisture, making it better suited for concrete floors in basements.

There are some downsides to it as well:

• It is more expensive to buy then normal hardwood.
• It is usually a thinner product overall, in some renovation scenarios you could have problems with transitions to other existing thicker material.
• A lot of engineered floorings top veneer is so thin that you can only refinish the floor once before you have to completely remove it and install a new floor.

Every year there are more and more choices in the engineered flooring market, allowing for greater choice and ease of installation. As a home owner you have to do your homework on what product will work for you.

Rob Abbott
Operations Manager
Village Builders Inc.