Laminate vs Engineered Hardwood

10 years ago

Ive gotten a lot of help on the kitchen forum and now I'm hoping to get some help here. I bought a new construction home in our neighborhood. The builder offers laminate or "level 1" engineered hardwood (3.25" wide)) for the downstairs. The house is 3,400 square feet. We have a 20 lb dog and a 20 month old toddler (think dragging heavy ride along toys and god knows what...)

We prefer the look of the laminate. It comes in a wider "plank" and has a hand-scraped look that looks more like real hardwood to me than the engineered. However, would it be silly to choose laminate even though I could get engineered hardwood? We plan to live here for 20-30 years but of course you never know if we might end up selling quicker. Is engineered hardwood (even a cheaper one) more desirable than laminate? What about the durability? And longevity? I'll attach photos of the options (first pic is laminate (Shaw trailing road), 2nd is various engineered options)

Thanks in advance!!!

Featured Answer

User

10 years ago

What a tough decision. I don't think there is a right answer. All I can do is give you my experience. I've had both - high end laminate "wood" planks, and I now have engineered hardwood.

The laminate wins in terms of durability - the only things that scratched/dented that stuff were things that you figure should do so. (Someone dragged a ladder across the floor with a nail under it, I dropped a glass bowl that shattered and it dented the floor in that spot, etc.). However, in terms of looking better, yes, I think the engineered hardwood just looks more like real hardwood. And for some reason, at least some people seem to think engineered hardwood is more desirable than laminate too - even though cost wise, good laminate can cost more than cheap engineered (or cheap "real" hardwoods too, for that matter!).

Now that I've lived with both, I would pick a good laminate again in a heartbeat. Actually, my favorite flooring right now is luxury vinyl planks that look like wood, but that isn't one of your choices.

Will they give you samples to test? If I were you, with a toddler and a dog, I'd try to scratch both of them and see which one holds up better.

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Comments (10)

Nicole S
Original Author
10 years ago
Thanks for your input! There aren't samples I can take home but I did try to scratch the samples in the studio with my fingernail and the laminate seemed harder but neither were very easy to scratch. We have a similar engineered hardwood in our current home and it has lots of minor scratches and dents in it. It still looks good but I worry it would need replacing soon and it's only 6 years old. The builder claims the engineered hardwood can be refinished "1-2 times" but I don't see how that's possible because the veneer is soooo thin.
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User
10 years ago
My engineered floor scratches way easier than the laminate did too. The laminate had something like only 4 or 5 dents or scratches after almost a decade of use - and that included 2 80 pound labs on it. But if you've got engineered now then you know how it tends to wear.

It's hard to judge just by pictures, but I do like the looks of that laminate above! But keep in mind I'm the weirdo who has decided that I prefer laminate to engineered. You'll find people who start in with this "it's NOT REAL WOOD" line of thinking....which just doesn't resonate with me. I don't care. :)
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Elesgo
10 years ago
Very often high quality laminate flooring can serve you much better and longer than engineered hardwood. Many modern laminate floors look more contemporary and stylish.
cpartist
10 years ago
What is the wear layer on the engineered hardwood? If it's less than 2.5 mm, then absolutely go with the laminate because anything under that really can't be refinished.
Season Contreras
10 years ago
I would go with the engineered.
Sandy Berry
10 years ago
Laminate vs. Coretec Plus. Any suggestions.
Nicole S
Original Author
10 years ago
We picked out our options yesterday and due to your feedback we decided on the laminate as pictured above. They threw a curveball at us because the dining room and garage entry we were told would come "hardwood" standard do not. This cost in addition to the family room which we had already factored in will cost us ~$4,000. This is for a little over 500 sq feet. I can order the laminate from wayfair/Walmart for ~$1,300. We are total rookies but looked it up online and it looked do-able, however, we have to meet up to existing laminate in several spots. For those costs savings I feel like we might have to get it shot. Any of you do your laminate yourself? Think we should do it?
Lisa G
10 years ago
I missed seeing your latest update/dilemma until now and I'm sure you've already had to choose whether to pay the extra $4,000 or not but I would go ahead and pony up the money if you can to have it all done at the same time. The last thing you want to do when you move in is tear up flooring. Depending on what flooring comes standard in those areas (sheet vinyl? Carpet?) you will potentially have to mess with raising or lowering the floor or even cutting door jambs. Not fun! Having it all done at once ensures the flooring is going to match perfectly and won't have odd cuts due to removing transition strips, etc.
Nicole S
Original Author
10 years ago
Thanks Lisa but we decided to wait. We want to see how the laminate holds up. If it's wearing poorly we'll wait until the kiddos are a little older and put in nice real hardwood. If it looks good after 2 months or so we'll buy the laminate and either do it ourselves or pay to get someone to do it. We got a quote from a flooring company and they said they charge about $2/sqft for installation. That would add about 1k. So even if we had someone do it for us that would be around $2,500. I'm sure it might be more like 3,000 but that's still a thousand under what the builder wanted.