One of my pet peeves is reading a listing that says "hardwood floors" throughout and pulling up the pictures and its not real hardwood floors nor is it even engineered wood floors, its laminate. Really? You can't tell the difference?
Hardwood floors are 1/2 to 3/4 inch in thickness with each plank made of solid wood and milled from a single piece of timber. As a hardwood floor gets worn it can be re-sanded, stained and varnished to a new beautiful finish several times. It lasts a lifetime. It also costs at lot to have installed by a professional. You can't buy a hardwood floor at Costco and come home and install it yourself in a weekend. It is a process of laying different lengths of tongue and grove wood showing the rich grains in the wood all different and unique, then sanding it, staining it and varnishing it to perfection. I love hardwood and have it in my home. There are some limitations on using solid hardwood: it should not be installed directly over concrete; should not be installed below grade (basements); and should not be used with radiant floor heating.
Because of those limitations a lot of builders are installing engineered wood floors. Engineered wood flooring is composed of two or more layers of wood in the form of a plank being longer and wider than hardwood planks. Unfortunately there are different "qualities" of engineered wood floors with the most inexpensive being simply a 'vaneer' and not sandable. However a high quality engineered wood floor offers the same properties of harness and durability as a hardwood floor and can be sanded one or two times to renew the finish. With a true hardwood floor you know what you are getting. With an engineered wood floor the question of what quality is unclear.
Laminate, vinyl and veneer floors are often described as as hardwood floors and are easily confused with engineered wood floors. These floors look very nice when they are new and there is nothing wrong with them - for what they are, which is not real. They are a quick fix for floors that can be installed by the homeowner for a relatively inexpensive cost. None of them have the same look or feel as real wood. Laminate is simply an image of wood on its surface, vinyl floors are plastic formed to look like wood, and veneer floors use a thin layer of wood with a core usually made of high density fiberboard. It's just not the same thing people! When they get scratched they are toast.
In my opinion, when a listing boasts of hardwood floors it should be hallmark of quality. Unfortunately the term "hardwood floors" is a description used by some Realtors for any of the above.
Solid hardwood floor
Engineered
Laminate
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