ok, this is an area where I actually know something! I sold and spec'ed hardwood for a custom shop before my mommy-life. The information you are getting here is correct. Engineered floors will give you 1-2 refinishings ON A PERFECT SUBFLOOR. One of the issues that sometimes arises if there are inconsistanies in the height of your subfloor. Because there is thinner wood wearlayer (before you get to the engineered wood) there is the chance that you can damage the floor irreparably when you sand it. Now I only saw this saw this happen twice, once on a loft job and once in an older home. The loft was more subtle as it was over concrete, the old house more obvious as they were DIYers and picked engineered flooring to try to negate their irregular subfloor (they neglected to tell us that that was why they chose engineered, we would have talked them out of it had we seen the floor first) Neither of their claims to the manufacturer were fully settled because both times they did not follow the guidelines for floor prep. The loft job was also a materials only job for us with their GC laying the floors but he insisted he knew what he was doing. A good engineered floor will not be cheaper than most of your nail down options because the production costs are higher. Now having said that, GOOD engineered floors certainly have their place in places where you can't put traditional hardwood due to height restrictions or concrete subfloors. My boss had a great engineered floor in his basement and it survived a flood remarkably well (it was ash, Kahrs brand out of Scandinavia and one of the beefier engineered floors and one of the pioneers) My Grandmother also had a Kahrs floor in her ground suite condo and she LOVED it and I was impressed by the milling. I'm considering it for our basement because it's warmer and less echo-y than laminate There has been a lot of 2nd rate engineered flooring coming out of China and being labeled for all sorts of different companies. You should be able to tell an engineered sample because the layers are sandwiched together and the tongue will be a different wood than the top (showing) layer. Distressed finishes are usually more expensive because of the extra step in manufacturing to make it distressed. That is different than just getting a lower grade of hardwood like a rustic or tavern grade (in solid hardwood). Those grades have more character but they often don't carry a warranty and generally have a higher waste percentage. Another thing to think about---if you ever have to replace part of the floor, you will always be able to replicate 3/4" thick hardwood but engineered floors are more like tile, they change and get discontinued over the years. You could go pre-finished, save the hassle of site finishing but with the thicker wear-layer a 3/4" nail down floor offers. Only you will know if you can handle beveling or not. The changes in milling the last 10 years are huge. The bevel in your better milled wood is tiny. I like Canadian mills, Model or Mirage for pre-finished. Remember that if you ever re-finish, the bevel will disappear and you will, essentially have a site finished floor. One benefit that many people don't know about? With a prefinished tongue and grooved floor you can have a good installer cut out a single board (or more) from your floor if it gets damaged which is why we did a fair bit of pre-finished in new homes since inevitably we would get call-backs at move in to repair trade damage (@#$%^ plumbers and their big wrenches!). Prefinished hardwood deals the best with shinkage and expansion issues because the finish is on individual boards. Site finished floors are more labor intensive but the materials are cheaper (apples to apples). They are what many people consider the gold standard however there are more steps and you don't always know how it's going to look until it's done. There is more chance of finish contamination and trade damage during the rest of the building process. We refinished 100 year old floors. I loved the idea that there wasn't 4 generations of carpet and crap in the landfill. Definitely a forever floor and it can usually be re-sanded for all but the very worst water damage (think entire house under water for a few days) If you are going with a wide plank, keep in mind your species and humidity level (and your ability to keep humidity stable). The wider the plank (with 3/4" thick flooring), the more obvious shrinking and expanding will be. If you take a 2" wide board and it shrinks 2%, it isn't very noticeable. If you take a 6" wide board and it shrinks 2% the gaping will be more noticeable and in the case of a site finished floor *could* pull your finish apart. You'll need to find a flooring contractor in your area with lots of experience. Most of the best hardwood shops ONLY do hardwood. Beware of carpet shops and many of the big box stores in many instances. Make sure they are accredited with the NWFA (national wood flooring association) http://www.nwfa.org/member/ good luck!

So let's look at the specifications for your choice: Total thickness: 3/8" (that's thin...you want to get as close to 3/4" as possible = gold standard for wood) Width: 6.5" (that's considered wide plank = glue assist install = one of the most expensive installs we have) Random Lengths: 15" - 48" (a bunch of shorts = looks like a bunch of lego blocks used to build a floor) Finish: 7 layers of Aluminum Oxide Finish Appearance: Hand Scraped (moving to the 'out of style' form of flooring; over a large square footage it starts looking 'machine scraped' = rather fake) Gloss Level: matte (10-15) = difficult to keep 'looking clean' because every smudge and every paw print will show up as GLOSSIER than the floor Depth of Colour: Dark (dark hardwoods are HELL to live with); they take a supreme amount of lighting to keep the house from looking like a cave. Whew. Lots to look at here. My concerns are the dark wood with a low gloss finish. They are STUPID-HARD to live with. People are CRYING (and I mean tears of frustration!!!) about their dark wood, low gloss floors looking dirty all the time. Foot prints and shoe prints and sock prints and hand prints and nose prints and paw prints causing the floor to look dirty and smudgy and hazing all times throughout the day - despite the DAILY cleaning. My next concern is the length of planks. It 'look's like nice big numbers when said in INCHES...but 15" = 1.25 feet. That's about the length of a RULER. And 48" sounds great until you realize it is a mere 4ft long. That isn't even 'human height'. I know area rugs that are longer. And the width of 6.5" is wide. Even with an engineered hardwood, you will need a glue assist with the installation. Wide plank wood floors (even with engineered) have plenty of movement. They get stressed quite easily = need the glue on the bottom of the planks to hold them steady. That gets expensive. Now imagine a FAT plank (6.5") that is only 15" (1.25ft) long. It will look like a loaf of bread. Now imagine a whole bunch of those planks throughout your floor. That would be horribly disappointing. And then the thickness is a real bother for me. A 3/8" hardwood is THINNER than a good laminate. A nice laminate = 12mm thick (12mm = 1/2"). Look at your price range. The price point for a lovely 6.5" LONG PLANK engineered hardwood should be close to $10/sf. That's where the quality starts. The quality continues going up as you get closer to the $15/sf range. Installation is extra.

My home has had floating laminate plank flooring for nearly a decade. The finish is still flawless, and I love it. It is very easy for the care routine, just vacuum and spot clean with water.

Its the performance of those engineered wood brands you need to research. "Innovative marketing" is more directed at their buyers (retailers) There's some new engineered wood types on the market that I as a builder don't want to be responsible for. Try to avoid direct to consumer large dollar online sales unless they are fully vetted (known brand).