Wood & laminate
Hardwood vs engineered wood vs laminate: cost, life and quantities
Three floors that can look alike are built very differently. Solid wood lasts generations and costs most; engineered wood goes where solid cannot; laminate costs least and is replaced, not refinished.
What each one is
Solid hardwood is a single piece of wood, usually 3/4 inch thick, milled with a tongue and groove. It is nailed or stapled to a wood subfloor, and it can be sanded and refinished many times over its life because the wear layer is the whole board above the tongue.
Engineered wood is a layer of real hardwood, typically 2 to 6 mm thick, glued over a core of plywood or a high-density fibre. The core makes it much more stable than solid wood, so it can be glued to concrete, floated over underlayment or laid over radiant heat. How many times it can be refinished depends on the wear layer: a 4 mm layer once or twice, a 2 mm layer perhaps not at all.
Laminate is not wood. It is a photograph of wood under a clear, hard wear layer, on a fibreboard core. It clicks together and floats. It resists scratches better than most wood finishes but cannot be refinished; a worn laminate floor is replaced.
Side by side
| Solid hardwood | Engineered wood | Laminate | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Installed cost per sq ft | $9.25–20.75 | $7.30–17.00 | $3.25–9.25 |
| Typical life | 50–100 years | 20–40 years | 15–25 years |
| Refinish | many times | 0–3 times | never |
| Over concrete | no (on sleepers only) | yes | yes |
| Basements | no | often | yes, with a vapour barrier |
| Install | nailed | glued, nailed or floating | floating |
| Expansion gap | about 3/4 in | about 1/2 in | about 3/8 in |
The cost ranges add the material, labour and supplies ranges used by this site’s cost calculators, from national surveys of installed prices. Life ranges are planning figures from manufacturers and the National Wood Flooring Association; a floor’s life depends more on traffic, pets and care than on its type.
Thirty years of each
Initial cost is only part of the comparison. A cheaper floor that is replaced twice may cost more than an expensive one laid once.
A 500 sq ft floor over 30 years
Solid hardwood at $15 installed per sq ft, lasting the whole period, refinished once. Engineered at $12, lasting 30 years, refinished once. Laminate at $6.25, lasting 20 years, so laid twice with removal in between.
- Solid hardwood: $10,750, $358 a year
- Engineered wood: $8,500, $283 a year
- Laminate: $7,300, $243 a year
Laminate is cheapest here, and it stays cheapest over 60 years too: $11,475 against $15,750 for the hardwood, which is then on its first install while the laminate is on its third. Solid wood wins on the arithmetic only when it is bought near the bottom of its price range; otherwise its case is its look, its feel and its ability to be renewed.
The flooring comparison calculator runs the same arithmetic for any two floors and periods, and the lifespan cost per year calculator ranks all of them.
Ordering each one
The quantities follow the same method for all three: the area, plus waste, divided by the coverage per carton. What differs is the waste and what goes underneath.
Solid hardwood is sold in cartons of about 20 sq ft in random lengths. Waste depends on the grade: about 5% for a clear or select grade, 10% for a common grade, 15% for rustic. A 15 × 12 ft room in a common grade is 180 sq ft plus 10%, 198 sq ft, which is 10 cartons. The hardwood calculator sets the waste from the grade.
Engineered wood comes in cartons of 20 to 30 sq ft, with 10% waste for a straight layout, plus underlayment if it floats or adhesive if glued. The engineered wood calculator adds them.
Laminate boxes run from 17 to 25 sq ft. A 14 × 12 ft room is 168 sq ft plus 10%, 185 sq ft, which is 10 boxes of 19.6 sq ft, plus two rolls of underlayment. The laminate calculator counts both.
Moisture: the real difference
Wood moves with humidity. A solid board gains and loses width as the air around it gets damper and drier through the year, and a wide solid board moves more than a narrow one. That is why solid wood is nailed rather than floated, why it needs the largest gap at the walls, and why it is not laid below ground or directly on concrete, where moisture from the slab would cup the boards. The National Wood Flooring Association asks for the wood and the subfloor to be within 4 percentage points of moisture content of each other for strip flooring, and within 2 points for planks wider than 3 inches, before installation.
Engineered wood moves much less, because its cross-laid core resists the swelling of the face layer. It still needs acclimating and a gap at the walls, but it tolerates slabs, basements with a dry slab, and radiant heat. Laminate’s fibreboard core does not move with seasonal humidity the way wood does, but it swells permanently if water soaks into an edge, so spills must be wiped up and wet rooms avoided.
Before any wood floor goes down, measure the moisture of the subfloor and the flooring with a meter, and let the flooring acclimate in the room with the heating or cooling running. The acclimation planner gives the timing for each type.
Sound and feel
Solid wood nailed to a wood subfloor feels and sounds solid underfoot. Floating floors, engineered or laminate, can sound hollow and click under hard shoes; a good underlayment reduces both, and is required in many apartment buildings with a minimum sound rating. Glued engineered wood on a slab feels closest to solid.
Choosing
Choose solid hardwood for living areas above ground on a wood subfloor, where the floor should outlast several refinishes and the budget allows. Choose engineered for concrete slabs, basements with dry conditions, radiant heat and wide planks, which are more stable engineered than solid. Choose laminate for a tight budget, heavy wear from pets or children, and rooms where a replacement in 20 years is acceptable. For bathrooms and laundry rooms, look at vinyl plank instead; most laminate tolerates spills but not standing water.
The expansion gap guide covers how each one moves, and the plank layout guide how to lay any of them out.