Flooring FAQ: What is Timber Engineered Flooring?

Timber engineered flooring or engineered wood flooring is like a "sandwich" of real wood. When compared engineered wood to solid wood parquet, good quality engineered wood flooring will always have an advantage over parquet due to the following 4 main reasons:

Better Structural Stability

Engineered timber flooring has relatively better structural stability due to its structural layout. Overall, the flooring expands and contracts in a more stable manner as compare to traditional parquet. Therefore, timber engineered floor will have fewer gapping in between the flooring planks while parquet may likely to have gapping over a period of time.

More Available Colours and Climate Suitability

Traditionally for solid wood parquet, it is either Burmese teak or oak in Southeast Asian countries, any other wood species may not be suitable due to the climatic conditions. However, as for some good quality engineered wood flooring, they usually have good core layer that is suitable for the local climate and the surface layer can be any kind of wood species, thus giving the home owners lots of choices.

One example of a good engineered wood flooring brand is BKB; it uses Hevea (rubberwood) as its core. Hevea is a more stable wood species that is recommended for tropical climatic countries such as Singapore and Malaysia.

Wider Dimensional Layout

Engineered wood flooring is much wider in size than common solid wood parquet. This is one reason why engineered wood is more stable to traditional parquet. Wider planks will look more luxurious in the eyes of your home guests.

Product Warranty by Manufacturer

Solid wood parquet usually does not come with a product warranty as it is considered as a natural wood installation. While engineered wood flooring products usually will comes with a product warranty backed by its manufacturer. What it means to the home owners is that, they will have a "peace of mind" without worrying about what to do if there is a issue with their existing wood flooring or not. Hence, one tip when buying engineered wood flooring product is to select one with good and credible flooring manufacturer and distributor.

Well Environmentally Audited

Good quality engineered wood flooring are usually sourced from well environmentally audited resources. Every timber that is cut down to make the engineered wood flooring product, has to be assured that it comes from a reliable sustainable forestry. Home owners, when shopping for a good quality engineered wood flooring, can see whether the products have Eco accreditation labels such as the Singapore Green Label, Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) or Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes (PEFC); so as to ensure that the timber engineered floor keeps up with the Eco friendly approach.

To end, engineered wood flooring gives home owner the luxury of real wood but at many benefits as compare to real solid wood; such as less maintenance, more available colours, better stability, product warranty and so on.