Engineered wood or reclaimed wood?

[Laurelfig]

We need to get new floors in our terraced Victorian house. I love the look of old reclaimed boards but the quote from our trusted floor guy is astronomical. I'm wondering if we should settle for engineered wood.

Thoughts on this? Does any engineered wood look a bit less new and uniform? Would it be that much cheaper than reclaimed boards?

Thank you!

We went for engineered wood and honestly, I don’t like it anywhere near as much as original floorboards. It’s a completely different vibe. Also, some of the wood veneer is lifting in places, and fixing it would require lifting almost the whole floor because the whole damned thing is locked together.

It’s a lot better than laminate (in my opinion), but a LOT less nice than proper boards.

The cost was the problem though, IIRC. We just couldn’t afford the real thing for such a big area.

Thanks so much @PacificState. That's what I'm worried about! The cost is insane but perhaps we'd regret doing it differently.

Open to other views!

I have engineered wood flooring, not floor boards (it goes on top of the floor boards).

I would not use real wood because a) it is more expensive (but probably not much more maybe 50%), b) behaves in a more difficult way with expansion etc and is harder to fit and c) because engineered wood looks exactly the same as solid wood once the floor is down - only the surface is exposed so why wouldn't it ?

The only negative is if you intend to sand it a lot, because with the engineered wood you will only get a couple of sandings before you break through the veneer. But tbh I doubt whether I will ever sand mine unless the price of flooring goes up dramatically. It's not worth the cost vs. replacing it.

If it is lifting then it is probably because the original product is poor quality or it has not been treated or fitted correctly.

I don't know about actual floor boarding vs. engineered wood laid on top of existing floor boards IYSWIM. There may be some more advantages to solid wood for this application.

We have engineered flooring in our victorian house, love it. It's been down since 2022, no issues at all. Got it from flooring 365.

I’ve had engineered wood for 15 years in the living room. It’s I think maple or ash veneer, so was pretty light when it was fitted. It has darkened over the years though to quite a mellow lived-in colour. It’s never peeled up. I’ve got original floorboards elsewhere in the house, which I painted as they weren’t in good condition. I like both, I wouldn’t like just floorboards on the ground floor I prefer a bit more insulation. I think you would have the reclaimed boards over your original boards though, is that what you mean?

We have a high quality engineered wood throughout the ground floor. Nothing wrong with it, but it lacks the character and beauty of the old wood floors we’ve had previously.

DSis has just splurged on solid oak flooring for her extension and I wish we had done the same, even though hers was expensive - I guess that’s why it is so lovely. We have friends who don’t need to worry about their budget who recently put reclaimed, specially seasoned and finished oak in a massive but very traditional kitchen diner. It too is more beautiful, at a corresponding price.

We used reclaimed and, as you say, it costs a fortune (especially if you use the old over-sized Victorian boards) but you get what you pay for and it will last a lifetime.

Engineered wood always looks tatty in a few years IME.