We are doing a dining room/living room edition. About 800 ft.² of new flooring is needed. We were planning on using engineered hardwood flooring, but the flooring guy is trying to convince us that now is the time to do solid oak. The final cost is about double for solid oak flooring versus engineered hardwood floor. Anybody have an opinion? Is it worth the extra cost for solid hardwood flooring? Again, this is an a living room/dining room area.

You get what you pay for. How long will the engineer flooring last vs solid hardwood?

Pre finished solid oak or finished on site ?

All my floors are fake wood or tile....
why spend the cash?...
To refinish Hard wood will cost you double/ triple/ ....

Time change,,,, they say every 7 years people want something "different"
(I sill like saltillo tile)

Finished on site is what the flooring guy is trying to sell us.

The engineered floor is supposed to last 20 to 30 years. Solid hardwood is supposed to last a lifetime.

Even when solid oak flooring starts to get warn, it looks pretty good. The artificial floors look terrible when worn.

Keith

#2 or #3White Oak looks amazing, know a guy that finished his whole house in 1/4 sawn red oak I’m not a fan, it was everything cabinets, window trim , baseboards , crazy. It was just to much.

wws

with sanding and refinishing......
I love wood,,,but....

5 times as much for for materials and install

+++ and 4 more day without being able to live in your house while the sander guy is doing his thing.
no ,,,,
If does not pencil out.....

20 year old fake floor
Don't buy home depot crap
we rented it 4 five years,,to someone one with a "Kick me" sized dog...inside....

The red oak is coming from either a local source or somewhere within the U.S. Where is that engineered wood coming from? Red oak lasts forever. We had a dehumidifier leak on the engineer wood and the wood buckled and peeled of the base.

We have pre- finished solid hardwood flooring in our home, we love it, holding up real well. Goodfellows out of Montreal was the manufacturer.

Have any Amish flooring mills in your area...? Plenty around here that will whip out the real stuff at very reasonable prices.

Solid red oak. You will kick yourself when the engineered stuff starts looking bad.

If pre finished I would.

Most engineered flooring cannot be refinished because the top layer is thin veneer, where 3/4” solid hardwood can be refinished several times.

I have an Amish place in Ephrata, PA that mills old 200 year old beams/timbers into flooring. My favorite is white oak; random width 4, 5, 6 inch.
These cost 10.00 sqft installed and I sanded and poly’d them for another 200.00 in materials. I used the real deal in the downstairs floors.
Have southern yellow pine upstairs.

Had both in my last house. The ‘real’ stuff on the first floor and the Engineered flooring in 2 rooms we built out on the 2nd floor when we had a 3rd kid.

The Engineered looks good and held up well, but if you have the means to roll with it, go for the real hardwood. Side by side, I don’t believe there is a comparison. Real wood builds character as it wears, Engineered floor gets replaced when they wear.

I’ve installed many thousands of square feet of solid wood flooring, engineered flooring and laminate flooring. I’ve also refinished many thousands of square feet of wood flooring.

I’m always going to recommend solid wood. To me it is far better looking than any of the other stuff. It is also far more durable.

Just last week I refinished 1300 ft.² of white oak flooring that had been installed 60 years prior. It actually still looked pretty good but needed a refinish. You’re not going to get that type of durability, or even the ability to refinish, out of the other stuff.

Here is a before and after of one I did a couple of months ago. This floor is red oak and 110 years old. I also rebuilt the staircase.

The staircase is a wow, wow, looks great

Geepers LugNut.
What is the riser height on those steps.

I have no advice for you buy wanted to add to the thread. I just had an 100 plus three room ranch home demoed. It had 3 inch pine strips solid wood flooring. It would have been nice to safe it but too much work to rescue it.

Good luck.

Two questions: 1) how long is "a lifetime"? 2) Are you comfortable with the amount you have saved for retirement?

I like the sound of hard wood way better when walking on it. The laminate flooring has an annoying “click” to me when waking on it. Imo.

That said, I just deal with the click in our cabin.

Solid hardwood all the way. Solid wood lasts a lifetime, engineered does not. It can be a real pain in the (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) to keep engineered looking respectablely clean as well. I know 2 families that put in engineered when they built new homes thinking it was the way to save money. Both regret it now.

They are totally old-school with a rise of 8 inches or more. There wasn’t much I could do about that because of the limitations at the lower landing. I did put wider treads on, I extended the overhang to about an inch and a quarter. There had been little to no overhang before and it varied.

Here is another old-school staircase with a rise of about 8 inches and a tread depth not much greater than that. This guy had me replace them with a staircase of modern dimensions. In order to gain room at the lower landing, he actually had me build a foyer on the front of the house.

The original staircase.




The demo.



The foundation for the new foyer.



The new foyer almost completed.



The new staircase. I also refinished the 60+ year-old, hard pine flooring and had to match it in the new foyer.

Just put in solid red oak last year in the whole house except kitchen and baths. Did it my self, and enjoyed it.

Finished on site is a far better product than pre finished. It will look amazing and last a century. If you can afford it, that is the way to go. Just make sure he understands you want it perfect. You shouldn't be able to see any ripples when he's done. It will stink up your house for a few days, and you won't be able to walk on it for a week if memory serves me correctly.

Looks nice, but you still have the entire ceiling to do.

Yeah LOL.

A buddy bought this house (young guy in the back). He had me inspect it before he bought. One of the first things I commented on was the fact that someone had installed flooring on the ceiling.

There was probably a popcorn finish on the ceiling, that's what is on the bedroom ceilings.

Lugnut you do fine work !

Great job lug nut. Solid wood and never look back.... Which is better fake fur or real? Same thing.....

Love oak flooring, but after having a masonry tile floor I'm never going back....Sure it's not warm & cozy like a wood floor, but tile wears like iron & if you have inside dogs, it's a no brainer.

Nice work Lugnut

Lugnut, that is beautiful work, very well done!

Lugnut You do nice work Well in fact I should say very nice work

Personally what i’ve found after installing 3/4 inch french oak flooring 15 yrs ago, If you have a dog in the house i would not install solid wood. I would find an alternative.

We put down prefinished #2 solid Hickory down 16 years ago. I wish I would have had it finished on site. That micro-groove between each piece traps dirt. I will get them refinished at some point and add a little bit of stain.

My first house was built in 1951 with mill scraps from the mill across the street, and pieces from old buildings ( old at the time of construction). The ceiling was breadboard overlaid with sheetrock. All window jambs were redwood with square nails. The original house was built right, but it was only 500sf. The other 600 sf had no foundation, just a 6"x6" strip of concrete on the ground. So glad I don't own that heap of junk anymore.

That's an economical way to go as well, if you do the work. Refinishing is more work, but you e saved a lot doing the install yourself and you got 8-15 years out of it before hiring someone to refinish it. It is possible to diy, but I would hire that out. I do everything diy and have been in the trades 20 years. I'll do my own foundation, electrical, plumbing,framing,roofing, grading, paint, sheetrock, build my own cabinets,, you get the point. But I would not try refinishing a hardwood floor.