Installation
you want to install it. Both are environmentally friendly.
Solid Wood Floor
A solid piece of wood from top to bottom. The thickness can vary, but generally ranges from 3/4” to 5/16”. Solid wood can be used in any room above ground. Solid wood flooring can be sanded and refinished many times which make them ideal in family/living rooms, dining rooms, bedrooms, and even kitchens and powder rooms.
Engineered Wood Flooring
Engineered wood floors are real wood floors that are manufactured using multiple layers of wood veneers. One benefit of engineered wood flooring is that the wood will expand and contract less than solid wood flooring during fluctuations in humidity and temperature.
Engineered floors can be nailed or stapled to a wood subfloor, or glued down to a wood subfloor or concrete slab. This makes engineered wood floors ideal for slab and basement installations, but they can be used in any room.
Job-site Finished Floor
A job-site finish is one that applied on the job site, in the room where the flooring is being installed. With a job-site finished floor, you can choose the type of finish to be applied to your floor, which will impact maintenance, as well as the stain, if any, and sheen of the final product. In other words, a job-site finished wood floor offers you unlimited possibilities for customizing the final appearance of your floor.
The floors will be sanded and finished in your home so some noise, dust, and disruption to your home are expected. You also will need to allow time for the finish to dry on-site, during which time you will not be able to walk on your floor
Factory-finished Wood Floor
With factory-finished wood floors, the finish is applied in the factory, long before it reaches your home. While many options are available with factory finished floors, you will not be able to achieve the same level of customization as you can with job-site finished wood floors.
A major benefit of factory finished floors, however, is that there is minimal dust and noise during the installation process. You also will be able to walk on your floors immediately after they are installed.
Depending on the type of finish used, you can expect that there will be multiple coats applied, and that each coat will need to be sanded before the next coat is applied, and also will need to dry thoroughly before the floor can be walked on. In addition, all wood flooring, whether job-site finished or factory-finished, will need to be delivered to the job site and allowed to acclimate for a period of time before the installation can
begin. This can take several days depending on the material being used.
This is a very important part of the installation process because the wood must reach equilibrium moisture content (EMC) with the job site conditions to ensure a long-lasting, high-quality installation.
First of all, you will be spending several thousand dollars on material alone, so if you damage it, it’s not as easy as buying another $30 gallon of paint or $200 of hardware and starting over again. Plus, wood flooring requires special tools that you will likely have to rent and will have little experience using.
More importantly, however, you will need to make sure the room you’re working in is flat, that the subfloor material will work for wood flooring, and that no moisture issues are present that will damage the wood long-term. Testing for moisture requires special tools as well, and you must test both the subfloor and the flooring to ensure a successful installation.
In addition, you will need to know how to center the room, how much space should be left for expansion gaps, how to work around obstructions like closets, fireplaces, bay windows, staircases, and cabinets, and if you make cutting mistakes, you may end up running short on your material and not have enough to finish the job.
In some cases, you may not be able to exactly match the lot, much like running short of paint sometimes results in a slight color difference when mixing a new gallon.
The bottom line is that installing wood floors is not recommended as a DIY project. In the long run, you will save money and time by using a professional.