Cpartist, I never thought about the pollution consequences of LVP. Thanks for the reminder.
I’m 99% certain we’ll go with wood.

^^^ As long as you don't pick a really dark color, I think you'll be happy. We have white oak 5" wide planks in a medium stain with a matte finish and they are wearing beautifully.

We went with Kahrs engineered hardwoods as the wood is sustainably harvested and had minimal VOCs. European standards on products are more strict than what is allowed toxicity wise in the US. We've been cautious with life cycle cost considerations and indoor air quality concerns with everything in our house. I'd never install vinyl products in a house with my kids if I had a choice. Or buy a house with it.

@haylo33 - except when your friends want to sell or just spruce up, they have the option of refinishing their hardwoods. When LVP wears/scratches (which it will), one has no option but to replace. Which is expensive, annoying, and wasteful. To cpartist's point, it will end up in a landfill and it doesn't break down like wood would even if that got put in the dump.

@Anina S. - go with hardwood, for all the reasons cpartist listed. We have 3 kids, and a very active decent-sized dog and would get hardwoods in our kitchen and elsewhere again in a heartbeat. They do have some scratches and dents from life but they blend in after a day or two - we picked a lighter color purposely which helps on that end.

@wiscokid, are your hardwoods engineered?

We also chose Kahrs.

What part of the country do you live in?

If this is an "upscale" house, then why aren't you considering real hardwood flooring?

Most "upscale" homes use the real thing, not products that attempt to mimic the real thing (which is what LVP and engineered flooring do).

I used LVP at my beach house. I love it. It's impervious to damage from sand and my dogs haven't made even one scratch in it, whereas at the home back in NY they've scratched the living bejeepers out of my "real" wood floor.

I get that the cognoscenti sniff in derision at LVP. I could not possibly care less. Many of the homes around me have also used LVP for various easy care reasons, but presumably they're all Philistines too.

I have lvp in my basement. it looks really great and since we are on a lake it spares the rest of my house (with hardwood) the mess. entry in and out of lake activities is through the basement. this stuff (lvp) is bulletproof.

i would not put it in the rest of my house. not being snobby, just honest.

If this is an "upscale" house, then why aren't you considering real hardwood flooring?

There are many parts of the country where "real" hardwood would not work, like here in FL.

Most "upscale" homes use the real thing, not products that attempt to mimic the real thing (which is what LVP and engineered flooring do).

Gee my house is considered "upscale" and we have engineered hardwood. My condo that I lived in before building this house was also considered "upscale" with views of the water and everyone who didn't have tile had put in engineered hardwood. I've been in houses here that are 2 million and up and guess what? No "real" hardwood to be found. Only engineered hardwood. Why? Because here in humid FL, hardwood would never hold up.

And engineered flooring is REAL WOOD!

Oh and that friend of mine who put in LVP? Lives on the water in one of those 2 million and up houses.

I used LVP at my beach house. I love it. ... the home back in NY they've scratched the living bejeepers out of my "real" wood floor.

I get that the cognoscenti sniff in derision at LVP. I could not possibly care less. Many of the homes around me have also used LVP for various easy care reasons....

No need to get defensive.

The key question, that remains unanswered, is where this house is located.

LVP clearly makes sense in many cases for something like a beach house or basement.

But the OP describes the house as "upscale", and "easy care reasons" aren't generally a primary decision criteria when selecting flooring in upscale homes.

I'm also curious about your experience with dogs "scratching the living bejeepers out of my "real" wood floor."

I've only owned small dogs, but they have done absolutely ZERO damage to my hardwood floors over the past 15 years. Either you have giant dogs with unclipped nails or really soft wood.

There are many parts of the country where "real" hardwood would not work, like here in FL.

Settle down and actually read what is posted...you missed/ignored the very first line in my post, where I asked what part of the country the house is being built.

Blah blah blah... Why? Because here in humid FL, hardwood would never hold up.

Again, you somehow skipped over the VERY FIRST sentence in my post, where I asked about location. Real traditional hardwood is obviously not suited for every location/climate.

And engineered flooring is REAL WOOD!

Yes, it is has a very thin layer of real solid hardwood.

The rest is made up of cheap glues, sawdust, wood chips, cardboard, ect.

So maybe 10% real solid hardwood and 90% fillers.

The rest is made up of cheap glues, sawdust, wood chips, cardboard, ect.

If you choose a low quality engineered, then yes but most higher quality engineered hardwood floors are basically plywood.

But hey, keep your nose in the air as if you're superior because you'd only use "real" hardwood.

If you choose a low quality engineered, then yes but most higher quality engineered hardwood floors are basically plywood.

But hey, keep your nose in the air as if you're superior because you'd only use "real" hardwood.

You have a serious chip on your shoulder for some reason.

I don't feel I'm superior at all, and I never said I'd "only" use real hardwood.

What I said is accurate. Engineered wood only contains a small fraction of the actual hardwood look it mimics. It is mostly plywood/glue/sawdust/wood chips, which is not suitable as a finished floor.

That is OK if your conditions are not suitable for real hardwood, but you're fooling yourself if you think engineered flooring is "REAL WOOD!" in the same way that true hardwood is.

This thread is a hoot. :)

Yup!

I guess some folks thinks all engineered wood is the same. They are certainly not. My floor planks are made of hickory, and solid sawn Canadian spruce hardwood filets make up the core. No sawdust. No cardboard. It is one of the more dimensionally stable floors available. I would never have solid hardwood where I live - it's way too humid and I did not want to deal with those issues.

OK everybody, I have my answer. You have all been very helpful in mostly confirming what we already suspected.
We will be using engineered hardwood (good quality) on the main floor and LVP in the basement.
Our home is in the Midwest, so no coastal or desert conditions to worry about.

You never addressed this, but is there any reason you didn't have solid hardwood flooring in your consideration set?

Booty bums, we have not completely eliminated that option. It depends on the cost.

I would choose site finished wood floors over engineered if the building specs will support that. I have always had site finished wood floors, because my previous houses had basements or crawl spaces. Future house will be on a slab, so we are going with engineered wood floors.

@M R - we chose Armstrong SPC - how do you like the SPC?

@User thank you for teaching me a new word today - cognoscenti

I'm renting a Beazer home (while we build) with Bruce engineered hardwoods (which I know is not the product the OP is considering). The floor in front of the sliding doors are separating at the edges, there's a huge gap in another set of boards and the scratching and divots are amazing for a home of 8 years. This influenced my decision for LVP or in our case SPC.

While visiting the model home our Realtor noted, "Oh are these LVP floors? I don't like LVP." So when at the design center we chose SPC she remembered her statement and then enthusiastically helped us pick out our current option. The hardwood options were ugly anyway; the only colors we wanted were in the SPC family.

We will be using engineered hardwood (good quality) on the main floor.
Our home is in the Midwest, so no coastal or desert conditions to worry about.

Booty bums, we have not completely eliminated that option. It depends on the cost.

I would spend several thousand dollars more to get 100% real site-finished hardwood flooring instead of a very thin veneer of engineered hardwood.

You can refinish it multiple times, you don't have grooves between every board, if something dents it you won't end up seeing exposed plywood, ect.

Do people actually refinish floors? I know we constantly talk about how you can but I’ve never known anyone to. My mom has lived in her home for 25 plus years with original real hardwood. We lived in our old home 9 years and put in site finished hardwood. None of us have considered refinishing. It feels like a nice to have but rarely done thing

"Do people actually refinish floors? I know we constantly talk about how you can but I’ve never known anyone to."

LOL! Exactly. I have known 2 people that did it, they had to move out of the house and stay in a hotel for a week. And the mess they came back to was horrendous. No thanks. If my floors became that bad, I would just get new flooring!

I had floors (REAL WOOD FLOORS! Site finished and everything! LOL...) refinished in an empty house before I sold it, and I could not believe the mess. I would not refinish floors in any house I occupied.

The reality is that all flooring has pros and cons, and then layered on top of objective pros and cons are everyone's own personal preferences and biases. You can love your REAL WOOD FLOOR all you want. I'm happy for you. Seriously, I hope you are deliriously happy with your choice.

It's when people take their own personal preferences and turn it into "facts" (in their own mind) that I get annoyed. Or amused. Depends on the day. :)

REAL WOOD GOOD! VINYL BAD! VERY BAD VINYL!

The reality is that different people value different things....differently. Nobody needs to get all worked up because someone decided engineered wood, or LVP, or even REAL WOOD is their own, personal, preferred flooring choice.

In the end, there is literally no objective better or worse choice across the board - it's all based on a million variables, which we will all assign different weight to. That's why I almost never respond to these kinds of threads. These posts about "What kind of floor do I want", to me, are almost as hard for random strangers on the internet to answer as "What color should I paint my house." Darned if I have a clue what you'll end up liking best!

I am having my oak hardwood kitchen floor (installed in 1987) refinished in a few weeks. I’ve never needed to have the original 1911 oak floors refinished since I bought my home in 1987. I wonder how LVP will look after 100+ years? Or 20?
Close friends recently had their hardwood floors (installed 1922) refinished. It took a few days, and the mess was cleaned up by the flooring company. Worth it.
I live in the East Bay area where most homes have hardwood floors, and people get it refinished, usually after several decades or more of use. Yes, it’s a big project. I imagine having LVP installed is also a big project.
FWIW I have not been in a home locally ( Berkeley/ Oakland/ SF/ Marin) with LVP, at least on the main floor. I’ve only seen it in situ in one home in another area, and it did not feel or look quite like real wood.
Obviously in some geographic locations it makes more sense than wood.

Also, FWIW friends who are currently installing a new hardwood kitchen floor to replace old vinyl were quoted a significantly lower price for hardwood than for engineered wood.

Yes, of course people refinish hardwood floors. Is this a serious question?

You can refinish it multiple times, you don't have grooves between every board, if something dents it you won't end up seeing exposed plywood, ect.

Again you're showing you don't know engineered flooring. You can absolutely get engineered floors without a groove between the boards and you can get engineered flooring where you have it site finished yourself. And you'd have to drop something like a TV on an engineered floor with a good wear layer for it to expose the plywood

Booty Bums of course you can refinish them. That’s their claim to fame. My point was that in my real life I’ve yet to hear of anyone bother to. So being able to seems more like a selling feature than something people actually do with hardwood.

I never said engineered floors can't be refinished. Instead, I stated you can refinish real hardwood multiple times.

And how many times in your lifetime would you need to refinish your hardwood floors? If they need to be refinished more than once every 25 years or so, then maybe they weren't quality to begin with.

My first house was a 1927 year old house with original maple floors with a walnut inlay. Never had been refinished and we never did refinish them when we bought the house in 1987.

The only reason we had to refinish the floors in our second house (1898) was owners back in 1950 put down carpet and the owners we bought from in 1993 still had that carpet down. The underlayment had congealed into the floor between the cracks. Believe it or not, we removed all that after many months and then refinished the oak floors.

Inherent in its design, pre-finished floors have unsealed edges/grooves. Conversely, site-finished flooring gets sanded, filled, stained and sealed as one continuous/seamless floor.

Again wrong. All edges were sanded, filled, stained and filled. Maybe cheap floors aren't but mine were.

- Thank you for acknowledging that the plywood can be exposed in engineered floors if something heavy is dropped. Heavy things are dropped on floors literally hundreds/thousands of times every day in this country. It is not a rare occurrence.

It would have to be something quite heavy like a 70" tv and hit it just on the corner from on high for it to even make a bit of a dent. And a secret. If you did that on site finished hardwood? You'd also see a ding without stain. No different than engineered hardwood. Once again you keep speaking as if you're an expert but you keep proving you're not. Sorry.

We refinished site finished wood floor that were 10 years old. We bought the house, removed the carpet upstairs and added new wood floors. We didn't love the color of the floors downstairs and on the staircase, so while the hardwood guy was there and the house was empty, we had him refinish the floors downstairs and the staircase to match the new floors upstairs. We had to do another floor refresh when we remodeled the kitchen 7 years later and some of the old flooring was exposed when we moved appliances.

Our second house was about 14 years old when we bought it and the previous owners had refinished the floors to the trend at the time, which was darker floors. It was a darker brown that looked nice and we liked the look, so we kept them as they were while we lived there.

So yes, plenty of people refinish their wood floors and many do it just before moving into a recently purchased and empty house, so it isn't a big deal or inconvenience.

And how many times in your lifetime would you need to refinish your hardwood floors?

You're not going to win this one. It is a fact that real hardwood has much greater flexibility in refinishing. Owners can refinish as they need or want to. Or as the future owners need or want to. That is one of the beauties of real hardwood flooring.

Again wrong. All edges were sanded, filled, stained and filled. Maybe cheap floors aren't but mine were.

You're again having a problem with reading comprehension. Go back and read what I said. Your engineered flooring is NOT sanded, filled, stained and sealed "as one continuous/seamless floor." Instead, each board is finished separately, so your floor made up of hundreds of individually finished boards. Your floor does not have a continuous/seamless layer of stain and sealer.

If you did that on site finished hardwood? You'd also see a ding without stain. No different than engineered hardwood.

Wrong again. It IS different.

If you have a dent/ding in engineered, you expose the plywood/glue/wood chips/cardboard/ect. Guess what you expose with real hardwood...more real hardwood!

Our beach house has hardwood floors everywhere except the bedrooms. The home was built in 2006 and they still look amazing despite the amount of sand and traffic they receive. Our primary home has a mix of hardwood from when we built the house 22 years ago and engineered hardwood which we installed 7 years ago. I much prefer the hardwood over the engineered, despite it being much older it actually looks newer. It has held up well to 2 large dogs and children, scratches and dents are not noticeable.

Booty Bums of course you can refinish them. That’s their claim to fame. My point was that in my real life I’ve yet to hear of anyone bother to.

Your observation would come as a surprise to the tens of thousands of hardwood floor installers/refinishers throughout the country.

As well as the multiple people in this thread who have refinished their floors.

Most people who refinished floors in this thread did or upon moving into a new home. So not a current owner who put on flooring, then decided to refinish. Of course some people will refinish. My point is that lots do not so while it is a selling feature it’s an overrated one for those putting it in. Very few people are going to pack up their existing home and redo their floors.

Exactly WestCoast.

My point is that lots do not so while it is a selling feature it’s an overrated one for those putting it in.

So we're all in agreement that it is a selling feature. It is up to each person to decide how much emphasis to place on this particular selling feature.

Of course it’s a selling feature, an overrated one. But as someone who built a new home a couple of years ago and plans to live in said home for many many years to come, not one that weighed on my mind in the least. You are making it seem like it is the only reasonable option to people and it just isn’t. There are endless choices for flooring and many of them are great in different climates and scenarios. People should absolutely consider a variety of options and hardwood could be one of them but it is not at all the only one and does it really matter if someone opts for engineered instead? Nope not one bit

"It is a fact that real hardwood has much greater flexibility in refinishing. Owners can refinish as they need or want to. Or as the future owners need or want to. "

Probably, IF the hardwood is PLANK flooring. Nearly all hardwood floors today are tongue and groove. Which means you can't refinish "as you want". There IS a limitation there, and certainly other mitigating factors.

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/2813908/how-many-times-can-3-4-oak-boards-be-sanded-refinished

For many many people, a good quality engineered is an excellent option. But OPTION is the operative word here. We have options, and it's up to us to research and decide what will work best for us.

I'm shopping now for new flooring. I have 'Mirage real hardwood' in my kitchen that's held up unbelievably well (looks brand new) however now putting new flooring throughout house. The opinions from flooring guys I'm getting are all over the board- from you should only do onsite finished hardwood, to engineered only belongs in a basement, to why waste your $ on hardwood with so many beautiful alternatives, to the high end flooring store where I will most likely end up purchasing telling me to go with the brand new line of Mirage engineered floors that came out this year vs. their hardwood for a fraction of the cost of their hardwood and yes, they say it can be refinished but to the points above- I have never known anyone to refinish their floors unless they were buying a house with 50 year old floors and it needed to be done. I am not considering vinyl at all but am just as confused as the author. Lots of opinions on this topic. I'm in the northeast and asked no less than 8 friends that puchased new, built new or renovated in the past two years what they did and all have said they have engineered wood.

AS, my personal choice if I was building/remodeling a house on a basement or crawlspace would be to go with site finished wood floors. On a slab I would choose engineered wood. To confuse things even more ... there are engineered wood floors that can be finished on site too, but they are more of a specialty product.

The key with all these products is to buy the best quality you can afford and have the best qualified installer you can find.

I live in FL and currently have engineered wood floors everywhere but the bathrooms.

Ten years ago, we ripped up our site finished family room wood floors because we wanted wood everywhere and couldn’t fit the solid wood plus 3/4” plywood under the kitchen appliances without replacing countertops, so we swapped to engineered everywhere.

While I still love my new floors, I really miss the soft feel of walking on floors that have a 3/4” plywood base below beneath them. In addition, the site finished floors did not allow spilled water (melted ice cubes) into the cracks between boards. My new floors have places where the top finish has peeled up, which just makes them even more prone to damage.
(That said, the floors are still in good shape and despite having gone through two bathroom floods, have weathered well with the exception of a topcoat peeling in some places. And if anyone says don’t ever put wood floors in wet places, know that water leaks in the bathroom will make it to the front door etc in a very short time.

We had site finished hardwood in our previous home, and engineered in our current home (which is on a slab). Looking at a cross section of both, the wear layer is the same. Either one could be refinished a couple of times, and that's it. A reasonably good quality engineered floor will have similar durability and longevity to its tongue and groove hardwood cousin, naysayers to the contrary.

Our floors are now 6 years old, and in excellent shape. I don’t foresee needing to refinish them in our lifetime.

Ultimately, the choice is a matter of cost and personal preference. We happen to prefer the look and feel of real wood, so never considered LVP, but that was a preference, not a hard and fast rule.

had engineered wood in old house [the floor was down at least 10 years] and now in this house. Love it.

One of my good friends has LVP in her much more expensive home and loves it too.

So go with what you like. Make sure the wear layer is good.

To make things more complicated would you choose a LVP like product with a real wood veneer top visible layer instead of the screen printed wood picture? Same SPC solid core and cork integrated pad. Same wear layer as a good quality LVP product. Only no repeat because the visible layer is actual hardwood veneer. Price at a point lower than engineered.

"While I still love my new floors, I really miss the soft feel of walking on floors that have a 3/4” plywood base below beneath them."

Not sure I understand your point. My house was built with a 3/4" plywood subfloor. When I removed the old carpeting I installed engineered wood flooring.

@Chessie - My subfloors are concrete slab, so my initial floors were concrete slab with 3/4" plywood and then site finished wood floors on top. I could stand on them all day and my feet and back would never hurt. When we ripped out the wood floor and 3/4" subfloor, we glued the engineered floors to the concrete slab (over the appropriate water proofing materials). Walking on our engineered floors is softer than walking on tile, but not nearly as easy on my feet as the original floors. If your subfloors are already 3/4" wood, then you shouldn't notice any difference with engineered floors, except that water will still seep into the cracks with pre-finished floors, where it would sit on top with site finished floors.

I actually don't care for the look of site-finished so I am very happy with my choice. Standing water will be an issue with ANY plank flooring. That is the very reason that I put glue-down LVT in my kitchen. SEAMS are an issue with any floor, except sheet vinyl, tile, and glue-down LVT (the adhesive layer is waterproof).