I just took the vent cover off and took a pic. These are engineered, aren’t they? 🤷🏻‍♀️ Doesn’t seem like there is anything underneath them....

Pull a floor vent if there is one possibly? Look for tell take signs that the door height was field reduced (more flooring equals more height and shorter doors)?

@jmdkc Good news! These are NOT 'engineered'. They are SOLID hardwoods with a factory finish! SCORE!

There is no other 'floor' underneath except for subfloor. So there you have it. You have solid hardwood upstairs and down. Congratulations!

"These are engineered, aren’t they?"

No, those are solid floors, most likely prefinished, you can tell by what appears to me to be the microbevel where the boards are put together with the T&G.

Omg 😂 All along we all thought these were engineered! Even our realtor, inspector, and a floor guy we got a quote from thought these were engineered! While it is amazing that these are real....we absolutely hate them. We hate the dark color (we’d like something much lighter and airier feeling), but mainly we hate how rigid/bumpy and uneven the actual floor planks are. Not sure how else to describe it, but ach plank has “hills and valleys”. Is there anything, anything at all besides ripping them out and getting new floors, that we can do to either lighten the floors and/or sand them down to be even?

These have 80 years worth of life in them. If you imagine it costs $5-$7/sf for a sand/refinish (that would include the MOST EXPENSIVE polyurethane on the market = $200/gallon and ALL LABOUR) you can see that this is the CHEAPEST wood floor you could own.

A rip it out ($2/sf) and purchase a new floor ($7/sf for unfinished 4" - 5" wide plank oak) and cost of labour ($3/sf labour + $1/sf for GLUE). A replacement floor will cost you $12 - $14/sf.

Yep... it is CHEAPER to leave these in place and sand them down. By half.

What you are complaining about = bevelled edge. These 'valleys' are there on purpose. The edge is for a factory finished floor. The edge is easier to install with a factory finish. A square edge is *normally reserved for site-finished floors (normally...but there is a teeny-tiny-fraction of solid factory finished floors with a square edge...).

You can get rid of 50% - 90% of the edges JUST by sanding these floors. Yep. It sands out. If you REALLY want the flat floor (no valleys) you can instruct your refinisher to sand PAST the edge. This will shorten the life of the floors by 40 years (you only get 2 sandings out of them instead of 3). It will also cost a snick more money to do it (more wood shaved off = more labour = more money).

My advice - go ahead and get these sanded down in the regular way. Have the wood finished in a clear coat polyurethane (do yourself a favour and pay the $7/sf for the HIGH END Bona Traffic HD or the Loba 2K Supra AT...they are VALUEABLE finishes).

A clear coat (no yellowing, no ambering, no darkening) will HIDE the look of those little valleys (you won't see them 90% of the time). Hmmmm....done....and....done.

You can rip these out, but you will pay DOUBLE the cost of refinishing these.

Do you mean they have the handscraped look? That can be sanded out, just a lot more work.

Yes, here’s a pic of our floors. See how it has 3D texture and is not flat? So uncomfortable to walk on. What is this called—hand scraped? And this can be sanded down? So grateful for the help!

@jmdkc Yes that is a factory hand scraped finish. It will go away with a regular priced/depth sand and refinish. No problem.

I am so excited to learn that these are real! I am just still in shock how everyone we spoke to said they were engineered. I just measured how think they are—just over 1/2”. Could they still be refinished even though they are are only 1/2” thick? Enough room before hitting the tongue and groove?

Sure. You need 3mm above the tongue to ensure a nice sand/refinish (and still having enough wood to live on).

The 1/2" floor will offer 1-2 sandings...it all depends on how much wood is sitting above the tongue.

Ok awesome! Looks like I have about 4-5mm above it.