Made from layers of real wood compressed together engineered hardwood floors are better able to handle changes in moisture and humidity than solid hardwood.
How to install engineered wood flooring on wood subfloor.
The key to a beautiful long lasting hardwood or laminate floor is a well prepared subfloor.
Jeff hosking a flooring consultant for this old house first began laying floors 35 years ago back then 90 percent of his work was installing solid wood strips with nails.
This is called the acclimatisation period.
Glue nail staple and float.
We recommended a minimum of seven days between receiving your floor and installing it.
If you were to install the floor by using all the planks from one box before opening the next you run the risk of installing the floor with large mismatched patches of flooring.
Some engineered hardwood manufacturers recommend installing underlayment between the flooring and a concrete subfloor.
Even though more stable than solid wood flooring engineered wood floors will still move slightly so it is best to let your engineered wood floor ã settleã into its new environment before you install it.
This old house general contractor tom silva shows how to install a beautiful wood floor in just less than one day.
Underlayment prevents the flooring from moving and makes the floor quieter to walk on.
Engineered wood can be glued nailed stapled and some can even be floated depending on the subfloor.
But now half of the flooring he installs is engineered made of thin sheets of wood glued together like plywood.
A concern with engineered flooring however is that the colors may be quite uniform within an entire box but have distinct tonal differences from one box to the next.
See below for a shopping list and tools.
Before you install your plywood subfloor first calculate the room s square footage to find out how much flooring you ll need to buy.
If you ve decided to install engineered hardwoods there are four possible installation methods depending on the subfloor.