Engineered Hardwood Flooring

Your guide to solid vs. engineered hardwood flooring.

When choosing high quality hardwood flooring for your home or business, one of the most important decisions is settling on solid or engineered hardwood flooring. This short introduction to engineered flooring is meant to provide information about your options and help you determine which kind of durable hardwood floors are right for your space.

What is engineered hardwood flooring?

Engineered flooring uses boards or planks that are manufactured with layers, rather than cut from solid hardwood. While the top layer of engineered floor is made of a thin layer of hardwood and is designed to be finished and to look like solid hardwood, the layers beneath this veneer are made of multiple layers of wood or plywood that have been glued together to form a highly stable core. Engineered hardwood flooring is designed tominimize expansion and contraction through a moderate fluctuations in relative humidity. As a result, engineered flooring is often used in locations like basements, over concrete or in environments that consistently experience higher levels of relative humidity.

What is wide plank engineered hardwood flooring?

Wide plank flooring is a kind of high end wood flooring that uses wider boards – often 8” to 20” in width – to create a more dramatic and distinctive appearance. Wide plank floors allow the personality of the wood to emerge and the grain patterns to be fully appreciated, while also creating a less busy and more harmonious look. Wide plank engineered hardwood flooring is simply an engineered floor that comes in wider widths

Choosing a wood for your engineered hardwood flooring.

Carlisle engineered hardwood flooring comes in a wide variety of hardwoods for the top wear layer. These include:

• Ash, a striking hardwood that is amazingly dense and durable.
• Birch, a wood that is renowned for its color tones and varying grain patterns.
• Brown Maple, which features rich hues of brown, gold and amber.
• Cherry, a hardwood with rich, deep red tones.
• Hickory, an incredibly strong hardwood with lighter blonde color tones.
• Red Oak a hardwood with deep, salmon-colored hues.
• Walnut, a dark wood flooring option with rich chocolate hues.
• White Maple, with lighter hues and strikingly beautiful grain patterns.
• White Oak, with nutty brown hues and dramatic grain features. Carlisle engineered flooring is available as unfinished or prefinished hardwood flooring.

Carlisle Weekend Cottage White Oak Flooring

Engineered flooring from Carlisle provides a superior flooring option. Our engineered floors are virtually indistinguishable from solid wood floors in appearance and feel. Additionally, Carlisle engineered floors are:
• More resilient. Because we use 11 layers of hardwood as a backing material rather than pressboard, fiberboard or other panel constructions that provide less stability (as is common in the industry) we create a more balanced product.
• Thicker. The industry standard for engineered floors is 1/4″ to 1/2″ thick, but Carlisle engineered wood flooring is 3/4″thick.
• Wider. Carlisle engineered hardwood flooring comes in width up to 10” and lengths up to 12’.
• Highly stable. While other engineered floors have only 3 to 5 sub layers or plies, Carlisle durable engineered wood flooring floors have 9 to 11 sub layers, depending on the overall thickness of the floor, making them far more stable.
• Durable. Carlisle engineered hardwood flooring has a thicker top layer, allowing our floors to last as long as solid hardwood floors.
• Guaranteed. Carlisle offers a Refinishing Warranty that guarantees your ability to sand and refinish your floor up to three times, just as you would a solid wood floor.

 

 

Frequently Asked Questions

Any suggestions for how to clean engineered hardwood flooring?

You can clean engineered flooring the same as you would clean any solid hardwood floor. A mix of water and vinegar – 1 or 2 ounces of vinegar to 2 gallons of water – works quite well for day-to-day cleaning.

Where should you not use engineered hardwood flooring?

Engineered hardwood flooring performs best when the relative humidity ranges between 30-55%. Drier climates or climates with seasonal drops in relative humidity may cause cracks in the wear layer of engineered hardwood flooring because of excessive dryness. Here are some other things to note before buying an engineered hardwood floor.

What is the difference between solid and engineered hardwood flooring?

When looking at or walking on Carlisle solid and engineered hardwood flooring, you’ll notice virtually no difference. That’s because we use the same wood to craft both structures. (This is in contrast to many other engineered hardwood flooring options – be sure to compare competitor’s engineered products to the look and feel of an actual solid wood floor.) Both solid and engineered hardwood flooring are available in a variety of hardwoods and can be stained or finished in a wide range of colors.

How durable is engineered hardwood flooring?

Carlisle engineered hardwood flooring is extremely durable, thanks to extremely high quality multilayer substructure as well as the unique quality of wood used in the wear layer. . Carlisle engineered hardwood flooring ican also be refinished up to three times – the same as a solid hardwood floor.

Where is it appropriate to use engineered hardwood flooring?

Engineered flooring is most often used in rooms below ground level where frequent changes in temperature and humidity may cause excessive expansion or contraction in a hardwood floor. Engineered floors are also ideal for environments where the relative humidity is higher in the Summer but more moderate in the Winter. .

What is engineered hardwood flooring made of?

The top layer of engineered hardwood flooring – the layer you see and walk on – is made of a thin layer of solid hardwood such as Maple, Oak, Hickory, Walnut or Cherry. The bottom layers are made of a backing material such as plywood or fiberboard. Carlisle engineered hardwood flooring uses multiple layers of hardwood as a backing material, providing a stronger and more stable flooring product.

Why Carlisle is your first choice for engineered hardwood flooring.

Carlisle has been a leader in flooring tradition and fashion for more than 50 years. Every solid or engineered wide plank floor is handcrafted by our highly skilled artisans and designed to reflect your sense of style and beauty. Our goal is not just to deliver a floor, but to help you create a stunning surface that is a dramatic setting for your life at home or work. With an unrivaled commitment to excellence and service, we make the process of choosing, designing and installing your hardwood floor easy and exciting. There is truly nothing that compares to the beauty, strength, stability and performance of solid or engineered hardwood flooring from Carlisle.