One of my rentals is getting a new floor… removing the carpet and putting in hardwood at the end of August.
What is your expierience with the engineered floors? I understand that they can be refinished ( maybe only once ) like the solid hardwood products.
I have done the lam’s and wont be using that stuff again… there is a lot of labor in the solid hardwood and I’d like to skip the nailing.
One other question… how would you put the floor down to make the room look larger? put down with the boards running with the longer length of the space or the shorter width of the space?
what are you trying to accomplish? if this is for a rental, yes, it is very likely the tenants will damage the floor (you should plan on it). Even under normal circumstances, you will have to strip the floors in high traffic areas ever 5 yrs or so and recoat them.
The carpet is trashed ( I should have replaced it when I bought it, but I let it go for a year and a half ) … I’d like to add some value to the house for a future sale… it may be a year or two before I sell it and I’d like to be able to refinish the floor at least one time.
I know that I don’t want one of the “photo” lam’s as they cannot be refinished and they look cheap ( to me anyway )
This house is not an everyday rental… it’s a vacation rental… the house doesn’t take the abuse that a month to month rental takes, so I’d like to use a nice looking product.
I have not used the eng. wood floors and was asking for some feedback from those that have used it. I could just use the standard solid wood, but I was looking for a less labor intensive install since I will be doing it myself during the offseason.
I’ve used Kahr’s (sp?) engineered wood floors in my own house. The finish is very durable – it’s been 5 years and doesn’t need refinishing yet. The downside is that it costs about the same as traditional hardwood flooring. I bought mine from iFloors.com. At that time (2001) shipping was free and no sales tax, so it cost less than a local purchase.
I run the boards parallel to the long side of the room. If you run them perpendicular to the long side, you can end up with a “ladder” effect that makes the room look smaller.
I share your opinion on the Laminates; did it one and never again.
My last rehab (for resale) I used a new engineered hardwood product by Pergo ( I know I know, I curse their laminates too.
They sell it (in stock ) at Lowe’s. They call it hardwood and it is hardwood throughout but with a thinner finish coat. 3/8" in product that installed nicely and had a nice finish with a microbevel.They say you can nail, staple or glue. Personally I thought it was too thin to nail andI did not want to staple so I glued. Came to about 3.09 sq. ft (not including glue) after the 20% discount coupon. Didn;t kill my saw blades like th Lam’seither.