# Wood Floors



## pistolpete (Sep 16, 2010)

Do any of you guys know anything about engineered wood floors? My wife and I are trying to decide on some, but there are so many different brands we are not sure which ones to get.


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## surfgrinder (May 18, 2008)

i have put in Schoen floors a couple of times and they were just about the easiet floor to install. Not to sure about durability but it seemed to be a quality floor.


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## Gfish (Aug 31, 2009)

They say the engineered wood is more durable than regular wood cause it's a combo of real wood and a laminate. The plan for my house is the engineered wood floors though out the whole house once I get some other projects out of the way.


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## Stephen S (Jan 26, 2007)

I recently installed an engineered wood floor in my home. Engineered wood is made of layers of real wood, constructed like ply wood with alternating grain directions for each layer. Number of plies, ply thickness, and overall thickness will vary by material and manufacturer. This construction method produces a strong material with better dimensional stability than solid wood and which can be laid directly over concrete (my situation).

I ultimately selected a hand scraped hickory product from Shaw (www.shawfloors.com). There are many options out there and they vary greatly in price and quality. Do some homework (try http://www.hardwoodinstaller.com for some starting education) and check out the specialty floor stores for samples.


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## Flat's Hunter (Oct 18, 2007)

I went with lumber liquidators. Foud a sale price on some wood we liked. My advice would be to go with some higher quality places because you get longer lengths of board. Lowes wood looked like 4-5 feet was longest board. Ours was up to 8 ft I think. Of couse te boxes contain 2, 3,4,6,8 foot lengths. Plus with engineered won't move as much as solid wood floors with the moisture

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## pistolpete (Sep 16, 2010)

Stephen,

Are you guys happy with the Shaw? Do you remember the name of the product you went with? One flooring guy is recommending a Shaw product and the other is recommending a Mannington product. We definitely like the look of the hand scrapped hickory. I just feel the more distressing the better for covering scratches and imperfections. Thanks for the help guys!


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## Too Tall (May 21, 2004)

A coworker is putting this in his house. Tile that looks like hardwood flooring. 
http://www.southcypress.com/Design-Gallery/Wood-Tile-Idea-Gallery


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## Stephen S (Jan 26, 2007)

pistolpete said:


> Stephen,
> 
> Are you guys happy with the Shaw? Do you remember the name of the product you went with? One flooring guy is recommending a Shaw product and the other is recommending a Mannington product. We definitely like the look of the hand scrapped hickory. I just feel the more distressing the better for covering scratches and imperfections. Thanks for the help guys!


It's been installed for about 4 months and so far we're very pleased with it. The product name is Vicksburg, Cider color. You nailed it...we too thought the distressed look would save some pain on the inevitable scratches. Though it is referred to as hand scraped, the distressing has a pattern, indicative of automation. You should expect this in the mid-level price ranges, but there are enough marks and gouges that a little matching stain makes minor scratches disappear.


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## Gfish (Aug 31, 2009)

I laid a laminate in three rooms and it came out pretty good but a saw an engineered wood with a knotty pine look that I liked. Doing the whole house is going to be job.


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## waterbug (May 22, 2004)

You have received some good advice. Lumber Liquidators has a good selection and seems to have very competitive prices. We bought our flooring from another company but they appear to be out of business now.

We just moved from a house in which I laid about 2,000 feet of the engineered/floating hardwood on a slab. Whether you install it yourself or have it installed, I can't emphasize enough the need for a good acoustic barrier in addition to your vapor barrier for a floating floor. Here are a couple of the rooms I did so that you can get an idea of how the engineered/floating hardwood can look. Good luck with your project.


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## tbendbound (Feb 7, 2011)

We put down one of the Virginia Mills products from Lumber Liquidators about 5 yrs ago, a engineered hardwood prefinished handscraped. We have it in our family room, dining room, two hallways, master bedroom and we just pulled the carpet out of our study / 4th bedroom a few months ago put it in there. For the occasional deep scratch a little Liquid Gold covers it. I think I have done that 2-3 times in 5 years. While the darker color like ours does show dust more, we love it. We have two dogs and kids and it is so much better than carpet. Oh, by the way, ours is on a slab and we did not do the install (a 2cooler did the 2nd part and our tile). Both installers stated, as did Lumber Liquidators, that this is a glue down product on slab. No vapor / accoustic barrier needed.


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## tbendbound (Feb 7, 2011)

We have had a Virginia Mills Engineered Handscraped Hardwood from Lumber Liquidators. It has been down 5+ yrs and still looks great. We were told by two different installers that no barrier was required. Hmmm? Ours is a concrete slab, it waa glued dowm, per 3 different recommendations. We still love it . Good luck!


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## TxDuSlayer (Jun 24, 2006)

Can't stress enough make sure you get a good quality wood or lamiante flooring. A company came in a put some down in my house and only lasted 5yrs and looks like **** its all scratched up and has seperated from each plank.


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## rjhiv (Dec 13, 2008)

one of the main things to look for is a quality manufacturer and a good warrenty on the product. Both Shaw and Mannington have been around for years in the flooring industry. You should have no problems with either. most of the engineered floors can be installed floating or direct glue down. the glue down does not need a vapor barrier as long as you have a concrete slab that has been installed for an extended period of time. I would typically say at least 6-8 months. a good test is to take a 12" square of clear poly and duct tape it down all the way around with no gaps. if you have moisture forming under the poly within 24 hours you need to use a moisture barrier. They have some glues for wood floor that have a moisture barrier built into them.


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## Brew (May 21, 2004)

Have the VM product from Lumber Liquidator's in our house in cherry. Been there 6 or 7 years. Had stood up really well until 110 Lbs of Pit moved in this past year. 

It was glued to the slab with a polyurethane cement that is waterproof. 

Orange Glo hardwood floor restorer works well on all but the deepest scratches. Supposed to be able to sand & refinish this stuff once I believe.


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## stefan s (Oct 28, 2011)

pistolpete said:


> Do any of you guys know anything about engineered wood floors to your home ? My wife and I are trying to decide on some, but there are so many different brands we are not sure which ones to get.


We are getting ready to start the same type of project. We just pulled up the carpet in 2 of our bedrooms. This stuff was at least 15+ years old. Even the foam underneath was just worn out completely and stained. I think the previous owners invested a lot in professional carpet cleaning. I have read a bit up on this, and it seems that this is something that can be done by someone with the basic carpentry skills. Waterbug's photos are very similar to what I want the rooms to look like.

Any disaster stories out there?


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## MikeS2942 (Mar 5, 2010)

I just finished having my hardwood floor laid in my house, we looked at all of the other options on the market and they just did not compare to the look of the real wood. My wide purchased a box of engineered flooring and a box of real wood flooring, we laid them out and made our decision.

I hope we made the right chose.


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## texan52 (Sep 7, 2004)

Give me the pros and cons of this product. Any comments welcome, as I am in the dark about laminate flooring.

http://www.homedepot.com/Featured-P...splay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053


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## Mako232 (Sep 16, 2005)

We did real wood floors throughout the house and really like them. They can be a pain to put in with the sanding and staining but look mighty fine. They can also be refinished if you ever want to change the color. Probably the main disadvantage of the laminate floors is you can't refinish them.


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## MikeS2942 (Mar 5, 2010)

texan52 said:


> Give me the pros and cons of this product. Any comments welcome, as I am in the dark about laminate flooring.
> 
> http://www.homedepot.com/Featured-P...splay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053


I heard many disadvantages of laminate flooring, this was the first thing we thought we wanted to lay. We looked at a lot of laminate than looked at engineered flooring. We purchased a box of engineered floor and a box of real wood flooring and laid them side by side on the floor. There was no second decision, hardwood floor won out.


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## hippyfisher (Mar 24, 2009)

stefan s said:


> We are getting ready to start the same type of project. We just pulled up the carpet in 2 of our bedrooms. This stuff was at least 15+ years old. Even the foam underneath was just worn out completely and stained. I think the previous owners invested a lot in professional carpet cleaning. I have read a bit up on this, and it seems that this is something that can be done by someone with the basic carpentry skills. Waterbug's photos are very similar to what I want the rooms to look like.
> 
> Any disaster stories out there?


Are you on a slab or pier and beam? From what i know you cant put real hardwood on a slab without first laying something to nail it to i.e. plywood. Thats one of the reasons we went with an engineered hardwood. Only been about 3 months but we are extremely happy so far. PM Cornhusker on here if you want a professional install, i was very pleased with their work.


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## Jeff SATX (Jan 18, 2011)

i just floated tounge/groove virginia mills through out the master, living, front room, and hallways. it was the potomac plank hand scraped engineered woods and looks awesome. if you like to half arse things i would recommend getting it installed by a professional. i'm OCD so i did it and it turned out perfectly. i let the girlfriend do a few rows and it about drove me crazy and there were some gaps in the seams and joints that did not make me very happy but i let it correct its self a few rows later by manipulating it. one piece ****** me off and i beat the heck out of it with the dead blow hammer and barely left a dent. pretty durable stuff.


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