Engineered or solid oak flooring?

Hi there,
I've got 2 questions. I want to put a new oak floor in my kitchen/living room.

1. Which would be better: solid or engineered oak? They seem to be similar in price so I'm wondering which would be harder wearing in the kitchen. There are wooden joists underneath it.

2. Where's a good place to buy? Looking for value for money (who isn't!!).
Would it be worth going North of the border for it I wonder?

TIA,

Mel o

We were looking for solid oak flooring about a year ago, for our kitchen, dining room, living room, hall and the garage room (well, the whole of downstairs). The sales guy asked if we had any children or pets and when told that we have a large dog, he said (having seen me walk in in a pair stilletos) that the engineered board would be a lot more hard wearing. A year on, stilletos galore and a dog running all over the place, there isn't a scratch on our floor.

Can't advise about the best place to buy though as the place where we bought it has moved from their premises and I haven't got a clue where they've gone.

hi there.

Proper way to install your wood floor would be to lift up the tiles with small kango drill (sounds daunting but its straight forward enough). Make sure all tile adhesive is off the concrete.

Then remove skirtings. Fit the new floor then new or existing skirtings to be refitted. I myself have done this for many customers . It is preferred not to have too many floors laid on top of each other. A common problem when having two flooring layers is the clearance on the external hall door opening into the hall as ideally you will want a mat inside the hall door also.

As regards what type of floor is suitable?? This is open to debate but your hall floor takes the most traffic and a durable floor is needed or you will be lifting it up again in another 18 months. What I would advise is a hardwearing 8-10 mm engineered laminate board running right through to the kitchen as I have done in my own house. Had solid floors but they got wrecked with the traffic. The only downside to laminates is that water can damage it but in truth all wood floors are prone to this damage it isnt just laminate floors.

You can now get v grooved laminates with textured finishes that look better than the real timber floors but take the traffic so much better. Another bonus being that these laminates can be refitted again eg, the bedrooms in ten yrs time. As regards the colours, well oak was the biggest seller 10 yrs ago and it still is now. Never goes out of fashion and on the floors I fit there are about 6 different shades of oak to choose from.

Thanks for the replies. So it seems engineered is the way to go. We have no dog (our poor mutt died in Feb and still working on DH to get another cos I'm still brokenhearted!) but lots of kid traffic etc so want something hardwearing.

Thanks again for the replies.

Hi,

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