We’re going to take a few minutes here to properly define some common but confusing hardwood terminology.

What exactly is an engineered wood floor? Well, for starters and contrary to what many think, an engineered floor is REAL wood, as opposed to a laminate floor. Before we go any farther, we’re going to define laminate versus laminated.

A laminate (noun) floor isa computer-generated image of wood (or tile or stone) layered on top of a fiber-board core and pressed between layers of melamine resin.

A laminated floor is a solid wood veneer that is laminated (verb: constructed by layers bonded together) to thin layers of plywood.

Comparing an engineered wood floor to a laminate floor is comparing apples and oranges. A better, apples-to-apples comparison is comparing an engineered floor to solid wood flooring.

Solid hardwood is just that—a solid piece of wood. Usually milled to ¾ of an inch thickness, solid hardwood can actually be as thin as 5/16ths of an inch. Bigger—or in this case, thicker—isn’t always better. There are many applications that can just not accommodate a thick floor. Regardless of the thickness, solid wood floors are reactive to moisture levels in the home. Wood expands with humidity and contracts when the air is dry. For stability, solid wood flooring should generally be nailed or stapled to the substrate.

An engineered floor doesn’t mean it’s “fake” wood. It means that it’s assembled of several layers, with the top layer being a solid wood veneer. The thickness of the veneer varies by manufacturer and style. A typical engineered wood floor has three to seven layers, including the wear layer. This manufacturing process allows for a much more stable floor, a floor that is more resistant to expansion and contraction due to moisture. This type of floor is appropriate for on, above or below grade applications, and can be stapled, nailed or in some cases, floated .

Does that clear things up?