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Many homeowners prefer the warmth of real wood flooring even though it can be challenging to install. Those who are replacing their floors and planning to do the work themselves may feel drawn to the easier installation of engineered wood. But it's not a choice you should make lightly, particularly if you have lots of kids traipsing through your house.
Solid-wood flooring typically gets nailed down to a subfloor at grade level (your entry floor above the basement) or higher. By contrast engineered-wood flooring, which is composed of a finished veneer over crisscrossed layers of substrate, can be stapled or glued without any nailing. The boards of some even interlock for a floating floor that skips the fasteners or glue altogether.
Look at our flooring Ratings, however, and you'll see an important difference. The better solid-wood products did significantly better at resisting wear than even the best engineered woods. Solid-wood flooring can be refinished multiple times but should the finish of an engineered-wood flooring wear off—perhaps in a high-traffic area—you may only be able to refinish it once before breaking through to the substrate.
Our new flooring Ratings include one recommended vinyl-plank product that mimics wood without any worry over wear. Sure, it lacks the warmth of wood but you'll never have to sweat through a refinishing project either.
—Ed Perratore
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