Engineered Hardwood Vs Solid Hardwood For Real Homes

Engineered hardwood and solid hardwood both look like “real wood,” but they behave differently once you live on them. We sit down with Jason Trim, owner of BPS Southeast, to get practical, no-hype answers on how each floor is made, what that construction means for daily wear, and how to avoid expensive surprises after installation. If you’re comparing wide-plank hardwood flooring for a home in a humid climate or you just want the best value for your remodel, this conversation gives you a clear framework for deciding.

We dig into the basics: solid hardwood is a single piece of wood, while engineered hardwood layers a real wood surface over a multi-wood core for added stability. We talk about humidity, moisture movement, and why engineered planks often stay flatter when indoor conditions fluctuate. Jason also explains how different species and core materials affect hardness and dent resistance, including why some engineered products can hold up better in high-traffic spaces where heels, dropped items, and everyday life leave marks.

Then we get into the fun part: modern engineered innovations. We discuss waterproof engineered wood flooring concepts, interlocking joints that help seal seams, densified or “petrified” surfaces designed for scratch resistance, and oil-treated finishes that can be refreshed to keep floors looking new. We also balance that with what solid hardwood still does best: sanding, refinishing, changing stain colors, and truly custom designs like herringbone, inlays, and one-of-a-kind patterns.

If you’re choosing between engineered hardwood vs solid hardwood, listen now and decide with confidence. Subscribe for more flooring advice, share this with a friend planning a renovation, and leave a review with the question you want us to answer next.

To learn more about BPS Southeast Flooring visit:
https://www.BPSSoutheast.com
BPS Southeast Flooring 
Servicing Rutherford, Polk, Henderson and Cleveland County 
828-532-2141 

Transcript

Welcome And What We Cover

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the PPS Tealthy Sport Podcast. With beautiful spaces, from the ground. Hosted by Jason Clinton. Interior designers, we model is the fluid across Western North Carolina. From luxury vinyl and hardwood to coffee tunnel. If it goes on your foot, you covered it. Expect practical tips, money-saving insight, and the occasional bad dad join. Because around here, exploring for everyone. Let's roll without the bubbles.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Two beautiful options, very different performance. Knowing the difference can save you from costly surprises. Welcome everyone. I'm Julie Schwenzer, co-host and producer, back with Jason Trim, the owner of BPS Southeast. Jason, it's always good to sit down with you.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

So we're excited to learn from you again. If we can get right into it, what's the difference between engineered hardwood and solid hardwood?

Humidity Stability And Moisture Risk

SPEAKER_02 1:05

The traditional difference is solid hardwood is cut and through and through the same piece of wood. So it's like if you were to go to the store, buy a two by four, it's the same piece of wood through the whole thing. If you look at it, you'll see the rings and everything. Same thing with a solid wood floor. It's it'll be a three-quarter inch body, and you look you if you cut it, you can see the rings of the tree and everything in it. That's a traditional solid wood. It tends to be a range of a few different sizes up to about five inches standard, is about as wide as the product will go. Um, depending on the species, some some trees they'll cut a little bigger, and depending on how you cut the tree, you might get a little wider plank. But that's the typical solid wood. Engineer floors tend to be multiple woods put together. It can vary on the number of trees. So sometimes they may have three different trees you have your top surface that may be your oak or your hickory or a maple. Then then the middle of it, they'll put a different type of tree. So they may could put rubber wood, they could put birch, they could put a number of things in the middle that's just a more stable or more dent, solid, more exotic that may be harder. And then the bottom, they may just put another piece of wood that bonds well to glue or to the easily to nail and some more inexpensive wood. So engineer woods, you'll tend to find you can find more inexpensive product options when you're doing pre-finished because you're looking at a much thinner wood veneer on the top. So you're able to get more tree usage on that thinner veneer and use multiple layers in between the middle and then the bottom. So you can get a nice little wide plank, not real thick, so it doesn't require as much material to make it. So you get less tree usage, less material cost, less overall cost.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

But is one more stable in like with humidity or um you know moisture spills or anything like that?

SPEAKER_02 3:22

Typically, most engineered products will be more stable against humidity because with the multiple layers of wood, they tend to like lay them, cross it, crisscross it as they inst as they build it against the wood grain. So if the it absorbs moisture, they fight against each other, so they tend to stay flatter. So in an optimal situation, solid wood will stay flat, but depending on where you live, I mean, if you live in an area that's high humidity, let's say Florida or somewhere where your humidity is really damp all the time, just because it rains, you're near the ocean or something, you're gonna have to keep your air conditioning running. You have to keep your home acclimated to keep that humidity down. Or some homes even have dehumidifiers installed within their HVAC system just to keep the humidity down. So solid woods will look good, but they can tend to want to bow a little bit because of being a solid wood piece of floor, they have the ability to absorb moisture and bend a little bit with the absorption of moisture. So if you were to see moisture damage or high humidity at home, a solid wood floor would reflect it more than an engineered wood floor product.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

Oh, thank you for breaking that down. And you mentioned exotic wood, and I mean, are there certain types of trees that you know they the wood that performs better in different conditions?

Waterproof Engineered Wood Innovations

Solid Wood Refinishing And Custom Art

SPEAKER_02 4:53

You'll see um in engineered products. One of the products I have, they use a actual rubber tree wood and the core. Reason being, it doesn't, it's not a pretty tree or anything, but when you put that wood veneer on the top of it with that really dense, hard uh rubber wood, the surface doesn't damage as easy from dents and things being dropped on it because the core is a lot harder than the sop top. So, like when something hits it and it's thinner, that backing helps deflect some of that off of it. So it's a little more resilient against uh hard things dropping on it. When you think of some things, okay, if you go to a nice restaurant, you see ladies usually wear heels. Heels are a little tough on wood floors, so using an engineer product that's a harder surface does better in a commercial application than if you were to do a solid wood, they tend to be a little softer because it's the same wood through the whole thing. And red oak, white oak, hickory are hard woods, but you start it doesn't get harder until you start going to like acacia and then you get into Brazilian cherry. It gets harder as you get more exotic, but they also get a lot more expensive. So it depends on the different species, do reflect different hardnesses. Another one you'll see a core is eucalyptus tree. I've seen companies use that as a core, but I've also seen one of our products that is an engineer product, which is very unique. It's a waterproof wood flooring. So what they've done is they found a way to in one square foot of a solid wood floor that you would normally see, like samples of, the exact same amount of wood that you would use in that, they can make 32 square feet of wood flooring in an engineered wood floor product. So they're able to thin the top of the tree that they're cutting much thinner. But as they do it and then they treat it, they petrify the wood. So they actually make it a lot more dense and hard. Then all the leftover materials, they're using the sawdust and all the other materials from the tree, they're compressing it into the core of the body and then putting a like a birch on the very bottom. Then they give it interlocking joints that when it interlocks, it seals the joints. So anything that spills on it doesn't go through the joints or cracks, and you have a petrified surface that's more scratch and den resistant than anything else on the market. So you can put that in commercial applications or restaurants and different places. It's going to work the same as a non-wood flooring that's like a laminate. Other wood floorings that are engineered, they've taken the wood veneer, they'll take it, put it in a vat of chemicals, and they will treat that for like two or three weeks in that vat to produce a color, depending on which chemical combination creates different colors. But in doing that, the color actually goes through the entire piece of wood. So if you scratch it with a knife, you wouldn't see a change, it wouldn't be like a stain on the surface. That colors through the entire body. So you could sand that floor, it's the same color. You can scratch that floor, it's the same color. And instead of using an aluminum oxide finish or a waterborne finish or an oil finish that you would see in a home, they use a penetrating oil, which basically seeps into the pores of the wood, seals it, and then builds up on top of it to give it a low shine. So you can buy this floor, put it in your home. If it starts looking dull, you just clean it, put fresh oil on it, and it keeps looking new. If it gets scratched, you won't see the scratches because there's not a top layer of finish to unfinished wood. The finish is through the entire surface. So with engineered woods, they're able to manipulate different aspects of it, create colors and different creations that you wouldn't be able to do with a solid wood because you couldn't put it through that same process. The benefit of solid wood is with solid wood, traditionally people think of that as real wood because that's what typically you would install in more older homes and you can sand it, refinish it multiple times, four or five times, depending on how good the sander is. And you have the same species, it's the same thing. It's always you can change the stains and get different colors. One of the unique parts about row wood is if you get a product that's unfinished, so it's the same as a pre-finished that's already done, but unfinished, you can install that. You can cut them, create different sizes, create different shapes, mix and match species, and then put a color over it, and it look it can give an entire different look. You can put a compass in the floor, you could put a shapes of a basket weave or herringbone or multiples. There's a tour coming up that they're trying to finance that someone took wood, mixed different species, different cuts, different stains, and recreated the night watch picture. Oh wow. Wood flooring. You have to kind of stand back a little bit to see the men and the and the everything, but they did the entire image out of, I think it was two inch by two inch piece of wood glued on the floor, they sanded it and stained it, and you can literally see the image of the painting on that wood floor. So there's there's a benefit of wood flooring that you can go really customized with solid wood, you can go really unique, you can do shapes, you can inlays, you can do a lot of things that you would never really be able to do with engineered wood product because the way they're manufactured. So it really depends on the outcome. Are you trying to do a big design? Are you? I mean, you look in some of these old churches and some of these big buildings that they've done, these really fancy floors, that's all with solid wood because they're able to cut it. They can cut out a section, take a section out of it, put another piece of wood in it. There's a lot that they can do. Once you get into engineered wood floors, you're a little bit more limited. You can get unfinished engineered wood floors, but you don't have quite the level of creativity possibilities with engineered wood floors that you would with a solid wood floor.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

Jason, thank you for that. And I I already want to ask you about some maybe some abnormal or like kind of wild requests that you may have had in a different episode. So that'll be fun to talk about that. But uh, thank you again for sharing your expertise and helping homeowners understand their options, and we'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_02 11:43

Sounds good.

Wrap Up And Free Estimate

SPEAKER_01 11:44

That's today's step in the right direction from the BPS Southeast Flooring Podcast. Ready to finally love what you're standing on? Call Jason for a free estimate at 828-532-2141 or visit bpsteutheast.com. Luxury Village, hardwood, carpet model, flooring for everyone. Thanks for listening. And remember, great rooms don't just come. They're in school.