What is Engineered Timber or Engineered Oak Flooring?
Engineered timber flooring is a layered floor with an upper layer (commonly 2 – 6mm) of hardwood or oak timber combined with several pieces of plywood (usually ply, pine, or rubber wood) substrate. Its upper layer of hardwood or oak timber is prefinished and bonded to the subsequent plywood layers.
What are the benefits of Engineered Timber Flooring?
Engineered flooring combines the benefits of traditional timber floors with the versatility of being a floating floorboard – making it suitable for apartments and unit blocks, due to its simpler installation and sound reduction capabilities.
The use of plywood in a place that you won’t see after installation reduces the cost of engineered timber flooring without compromising on rigidity, and reduces the natural expansion and contraction of wood during changes in humidity and temperature.
Engineered timber floors come prefinished (not raw timber), so you don’t need to deal with any smelly and dusty sanding, polishing, or varnishing after installation. Multiple layers of protective coating applied at the factory also allows engineered timber floors to be more wear-resistant as their pre-finished solid timber floors siblings.
Oak Flooring comes as an Engineered Floor
Oak floorings have grown in popularity in recent years and are mostly available as engineered floors. Oak floorings primarily come from Europe (France, Russian) and America (USA). Many of these floors have been stained with a wide variety of tones, so you’ll definitely be spoiled for choice here!
What is a floating floor? Why is engineered flooring a floating floor?
Floating floors are flooring that can be installed on top of a subfloor without nails or glue. This makes floating timber floors suitable for apartments and units and reduces the time and cost of installation. Engineered timber flooring is a type of floating floor and a way of getting real timber flooring into your apartment.
Do engineered wood floors scratch easily?
The scratch resistance of engineered timber flooring depends on two factors; the timber surface layer and the coatings / finish of the floor. Try and pick a hard timber for greater durability and scratch resistance e.g. Ironbark or Spotted Gum. As engineered timber flooring is coated in the factory, they also tend to be slightly more scratch-resistant than raw timber flooring.
Can engineered timber or oak flooring be sanded?
As they have a layer of real timber on the surface, they can certainly be sanded and polished back. However, they can be sanded less times ( 2 - 3 times) as compared to solid timber flooring (3 - 5 times) because the top timber layer is thinner.
What is oak flooring and is engineered oak flooring durable?
Oak is a type of timber that’s slow growing and durable. European Oak and American Oak are favoured over local Australian Oak timbers because they exhibit a unique grain pattern and variability. Oak flooring primarily comes primarily as an engineered floor with 2 - 6mm of oak timber on top of a plywood base. Engineered oak flooring is relatively durable and scratch resistant when compared to some other soft timber species, but cannot match the durability of laminate and hybrid flooring.
Engineered flooring price? Engineered oak flooring price?
Engineered flooring (Australian timbers) cost between $75/sqm to $100/sqm and engineered oak flooring (European & American) tend to cost between $65/sqm to $100/sqm. The installation of engineered timber floors tend to vary between $20 - $35 /sqm. At FloorVenue, we are 100% able to beat any quote (on the same quality product) - see why here.