Flooring Maintenance Tips For Your Home

You might have heard that engineered flooring is better than timber because it doesn't suffer from the problems of solid wood. You may wonder, though, what exactly are those issues, and how does engineered wood overcome them? To find out, read the following explanation. Also, discover the design choices you'll have with engineered timber.

The Problems of Solid Timber

Engineered planks can avoid the problems of solid planks. Solid timber absorbs humidity in the surrounding air. Moisture can result from the local hot and muggy weather. Or it could arise from the room where the floor is installed, such as a steamy kitchen. Once timber floorboards absorb moisture, they subtly expand.

Imagine this happening to every plank across the floor. Expanding multiple boards can cause the floor to bulge or lift as the larger planks can't fit into the available room space. That's why timber floors have expansion gaps around the edges to give the floor some breathing space. However, this doesn't always solve the problem.

Additionally, once the air dries out and becomes less humid due to it being winter, for example, the boards will release moisture. Then each plank subtly shrinks, possibly leaving tiny gaps between the boards.

How Engineered Timber Overcomes These Problems

Engineered planks overcome these problems because of their unique structure. These planks are made by gluing thin strips of wood together. The grains of each layer run horizontally then vertically on each subsequent strip. This criss-cross grain pattern makes these plywood boards more stable, so they don't expand and contract as much as solid wood. An attractive strip of hardwood is glued on top to finish these engineered planks. This is the timber you see when gazing at the floor.

Thus, engineered planks use mainly wood, but it's cut up and glued together to make them more useful for floors. Because of this, you can lay engineered planks even in humid spaces such as kitchens, where you might hesitate to use solid wood.

Design Options in Engineered Flooring

Engineered planks will provide you with all the design choices of solid timber. So you can opt for different species such as Jarrah, Blackbutt, Spotted Gum, and Tasmanian Oak. You can choose boards with pink, honey, or yellow tones to match the room decor. Plus, you can opt for wide or skinny planks or lay the floor with varying width boards. The planks will look just like solid timber because of the top veneer layer.

For more information on engineered flooring, contact a company near you.