Solid hardwood is solid wood. More expensive, can be sanded and refinished many times. The traditional approach.

Engineered hardwood is a thin wood veneer layer over plywood. Cheaper, easier to install (usually prefinished, can be click-together). Can only be sanded and refinished 2X if that. You'll read claims that it can be sanded/refinished 4-5X, I don't believe that, the veneer is barely over 1/8'' thick.

Basically, you use solid hardwood in a house that you want to last for a long time (generations, a century, etc). Engineered hardwood is something you are more likely to pull up and discard in 20 years. Just choose whichever fits your needs.

Consumers Report tested different wood floors a while ago and said solid hardwood held up much better then engineered wood. Around here everyone uses engineered wood because all the homes are built on slabs, there are no basements. So if you have a choice I think solid wood is better.

Really research this and make an informed decision. You can google pros and cons of engineered hardwood and pros and cons of solid hardwood.
If you are on slab you can't put down real hardwood.
Engineered hardwood can only be refinishes once maybe twice. having said that hardwood should only need to be refinished every 15 years (barring major water damage)
Pricing varies depending on the wood chosen. It can't be said that one is more expensive/cheaper than the other.
The methods of construction are different. If you live in a high humidity area, engineered hardwood because its veneer over plywood which doesn't ewxpand or contract like real hardwood, is often the wood of choice.

I'm not yelling, but do your RESEARCH please and make an educated decision. There are alot of factors that come into play here and sometimes it will come down to personal preference as well.

In interest of disclosure we did put down solid maple flooring after humidity tests were done as part of our flooring is over our open carport and we live in a very rainy climate.

Maybe post this question on the flooring forum as well.

blfenton - hahaha...I always have to remind myself that typing in caps is YELLING. I probably do it too much myself, so even though I do tend to be oversensitive, I won't take your one-word-in-caps as yelling.

I am going to do further research - on both the flooring board and the internet in general. I do feel better having spoken with both my builder and his bro. Right now I am definitely leaning towards the engineered - for a few different reasons, one of them being that I absolutely positively love this particular engineered hardwood I found. And the price is right. And the more experienced of the 2 builders feels that it will be OK. And I think it will fit our needs. And I don't feel like any of the responses here made it sound like I'd be making a horrific mistake by going engineered.

If money were no object at all, I might feel differently. But with our multiple structural issues adding substantially to our costs, the budget has been blown out of the water and if I can save a few bucks and still get something that I feel will fit the bill...

Thanks to everyone who responded. I appreciate the feedback. SQ

Another reason, and not mentioned above, I will be going with actual oak, site-finished floors is because I can't stand those little grooves you get between engineered planks. Yes, the gaps are much better now than years ago. But I still see those gaps everytime I see engineered wood in a showroom.

We plan on living in this house for the next 40-50 years. I don't want to have to put another floor down during that time. Nor do I want to save a couple of hundred bucks now just to spend major bucks down the road when the engineered floors can't be refinished again.

My former GC said that from all his years of experience, a good engineered floor will cost almost as much or even more than a site-finished wood floor. In our case, the engineered would only have saved us a couple of hundred dollars over about 1100 square feet.

I think you owe it to yourself to get some actual quotes for real hardwood. And to actually SEE real hardwood samples from a professional installer. (BTW, flooring stores do not usually have real hardwood floors laying around.) You'd be amazed at the difference in looks and feel. This, plus your internet research should provide you with enough info to make an informed decision.

I agree with Breezygirl above about the grooves...and I can always tell the difference between site finished hardwood and engineered wood. But it sounds like you love what you found, and really, that is all that matters! I am sure it will be very beautiful.

Just to muddy the waters, here are some more thoughts.

First, the kitchen floor gets harder wear than any other floor in the house, except maybe the tread of the bottom-most stair that your kids go bounding down every day. We had area carpet on our kitchen for awhile (hard slate floors + bad ankles = pain) and we wore through the nap in under a year. Add the water and stain factor. In my house, if a kid drops an ice cube or spills some water, it just stays on the floor until I slip on it. I'd fear that a hardwood floor in a kitchen might need refinishing quite a bit sooner than the same floor in the living room.

Second, in many smaller kitchens the floor isn't really a visual focus. Your view of it is blocked by island, counters, cabinets, and there really isn't that much floor anyway - just little aisles less than 4 feet wide. The floor is a lot less ''top of mind'' in those kitchens than it seems when you are standing in the flooring showroom. However, in larger kitchens, open-plan kitchens, or kitchens without an island, the floor is a lot more visible.

Third, the floor is a pain to change out later, so saving $2,000 on the floor only to have subsequent regrets is worse than saving $2,000 on regretful appliances. A new dishwasher simply gets shoved in place and hooked up - a new floor, not so easy.

So my inclination would be to make durability the #1 priority, beauty #2, and cost #3. Maybe cost is #2 and beauty #3. But durability is #1.

I have had both types in my past and present kitchens and honestly see no difference day-to-day. In the long haul, as others have said, the solid could last generations while the engineered will not stand up to repeated refinishing.

The beveled edges on the planks is common to prefinished flooring whether it is engineered or solid wood. So it's not the case that you can always tell just by looking that a floor is engineered.

I've had hickory engineered wood in my current kitchen for 3 years now, and it is nearly pristine just like the same flooring in other rooms of the house. My kitchen floor certainly gets a lot more traffic and mess than the other rooms. I have 2 dogs and a preschooler who put it to the test every day, and we even had a puddle of water in one spot for at least 1 day with no consequence. If I were sure we'd be staying in this house for decades to come and money were no object, I'd have solid site-finished floors, but as things stand, I have no regrets about going with engineered here.

Dee850, can I ask what kind of flooring you have? We need to replace our el cheapo builder grade laminate and we're looking at engineered wood and hardwood. (I'm following this thread with great interest Susie...thanks!) In our current house, the main floor is very open and the same flooring runs practically throughout. So, wood in the kitchen is a definite. Plus, in our previous house we had original 90 year old oak in our kitchen and I loved it.

Thanks to the later posters. Here is what I actually told our builder:

I love the look of this floor I found. I mean LOVE - with all caps! It's a distressed finish with those black "worm holes" in it. Just what I want. I asked him to get me a price on something that looks exactly, exactly like it in real hardwood. If the price difference is manageable, I would go with the hardwood in the name of durability. If I don't think that the price difference is worth it to us, I will go with the engineered. I think that the distressed nature of the stuff will help with the appearance part of it - it definitely looks a little beat up which is what I like. And honestly, I don't think my husband and I would be getting it refinished unless it was some type of major issue. I am open to the possibility of the hardwood if it is priced right. johnliu - I think I'm trying to take your advice, but really keep it in perspective to our needs. Thanks again all - SQ

BTW - not sure how well you can see it, but here's the wood with which I am so in love:

Geokid, I'm not certain of the brand but my husband thinks it was Bruce. Whatever it was, it came with at least a 10-yr manufacturer's warranty against finish defects. That doesn't cover things like scratches or normal wear, but it does cover things like de-lamination and peeling. Can't find the documentation at the moment, but I'll report back if I come up with it later. It certainly isn't anything high-end, because we were on a very tight budget! Sounds like we have a similar layout to your home. Ours is running continuously through the entire "public" wing: living room, family room, dining room, kitchen. I'm so glad we did it that way, it's a really nice effect.

SusieQusie, I really like the rustic look of that floor. We recently installed a similar-looking engineered wood floor in our master bedroom, and I actually like it even better than the wood in the rest of the house, which has a smooth glossy finish.

FWIW, I was quoted $11.55 sf for 3/4 x 4" tree claimed rift and quartersawn white oak site finished. Looks very much like the pic above, although not every single piece of wood has the worm holes. hth

Breezy, the grooves/gaps you mention isn't actually true about all engineered wood floors. We've had ours for 8 years now and we do not have those grooves. I know exactly what you are talking about b/c my friend had that kind of hardwood flooring (though not engineered) in her home and I didn't like it at all. I will take a picture of my floor tomorrow in the daylight.

SusieQ, my floors are pecan, 4 1/2" wide planks - they are very durable. I have four young kids, a 75 lb dog and a cat and they have proven to withstand our active household. We have the flooring throughout our main level, including in our kitchen. When we were choosing our flooring 8 years ago during a 2-story addition, I consulted my BIL who is a builder in Orange County with a large construction firm. He had installed engineered wood in his own house. I'd never heard of it and was skeptical, but valued his opinion. I was told the same thing - they can only be refinished 2x, but I figured we probably wouldn't be in this house long enough to worry about that down the line. But here we are 8 years later, not anticipating a move anytime soon, and they still look great!

I don't recall the price differential b/w engineered and regular hardwood - according to my records, the price we paid for material was around $6/ft but I'm not sure if that is with our builder's discount or not. I do know that we didn't make our decision based on one being more expensive than the other - we looked at a variety of flooring, both engineered and not, and chose the one that we liked best.

I do think that you need to weigh the pros and cons. I might have selected differently if I were planning to be in our house long term, beyond the life of refinishing. In any case, our first floor is not that large anyway, so if a future homeowner wanted to replace it, it wouldn't be that expensive.

I just wanted to point out the misinformation about the "grooves" - we don't have any gaps in our flooring. I wouldn't want that to deter someone from considering engineered wood.

Fourkids--I'm just going off of my experience looking at the major flooring stores in my town with their dozens and dozens of engineered wood floor samples. Some of the grooves (I assume on the more expensive ones) were less noticeable, but they were still noticeable enough to me. I'd love to see your pecan floor. Any pics?

There are actually 3 options that you're glossing over - engineered floors, pre-finished all wood floors, and site finished all wood floors. The engineered floors and pre-finished floors will have the grooves that people are talking about but the better brands have micro-bevels that are barely noticeable and don't catch crumbs the way the older ones did. Engineered floors are generally only used on slabs where you glue them to the floor. If you have the option for all wood, that's the way you should go.

I'm curious if the more distressed finish is more expensive? Some manufacturers of both engineered and hardwood offer tavern\loft grades which are less matched and have knots and pin holes. This grade can be significantly less expensive than studio or lounge grades. Not clear what the objection to the beveled edge is (are these the grooves being talked about). If you don't like it fair enough but I'm sensing it isn't about taste but perceived value. Does it matter if your engineered floor won't pass for site finished hardwood? I can't see why on earth anyone would care.

As someone who is naturally messy I'm not sure I would want wood of any sort in my kitchen but I think engineered might give me greater pause.

We just installed prefinished red oak floors - I looked last night, maybe I'm just easy to please, but i don't see the grooves that people are talking about. The LR,DR and hallway all had site-finished red oak floors, we wanted the same flooring on the entire first floor, but couldn't quite swing the cost of site finished this time. DH DIY'd Somerset Red Oak flooring @3.59 sq/ft. I love it!!! Here's a shot of the new prefinished Somerset floors:

And here's the wood from the LR that was site finished (excuse the dirt - this was mid-demo!!!).

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!

Hey Susie,

We own a flooring store (we sell and install all of our product - we do not use subcontractors) and specialize in hardwood. I ditto everything Mikomum (and others on this thread) said. There are a lot of quality engineered floors available, and they definitely have their place. We sell LOTS of engineered. Many of our customers are remodelers, and 99% of the homes in our area are on concrete slabs, so pre-finished engineered floors are a good fit for most. That being said, not all products are created equally, so it's important to know and understand what you're looking at.

Oh, also, do your best to check out your subs and get references...installation can make an enormous difference in the finished product with either engineered or solid product.

I echo what's already been said about doing your research. Explore your options and educate yourself before you decide. Good luck!

~ Mastiff

Mikomum - excellent post. This makes me happy that I chose prefinished, because I want 5" wide Brazilian Cherry. I think we will go with Owens Flooring by Colonial Craft, because I've read many good things about that product. Thanks for the info.

Thank you, mikomum! We have laminate in the public spaces of our main floor and we have to get the entire floor replaced (all 1000sf) because our brand new dishwasher leaked and ruined the laminate. It's just a small area, but of course, the flooring is discontinued and there is no suitable match. I think we will be going with hardwood so this doesn't happen again in the future, or if we do laminate, we will make sure to buy a couple extra boxes just in case!

Breezy, here is a picture of my engineered hardwood. Unfortunately, something is wrong with the lens on my camera and it's coming out blurry. I can't find my other camera (dd was using it on Mother's Day and not sure where she put it, ugh!).

Here is another picture that has a clearer picture of my floor. Please excuse the chairs. I'm getting them slipcovered and this was a picture I sent to the seamstress to show her the style of my chair.