What is the recommended thickness of engineered wood flooring?

Wooden floors are always a popular choice, but there are two wood options available. You can choose to have a solid wood floor or an engineered wood floor.

The former is what most people think of when they imagine wood flooring, as it is a purely natural product made up of wooden planks. It is the simpler choice for that reason, whereas engineered wood floors typically involve more issues that must be considered before they are fitted.

One of the most important of those is the thickness of the flooring. So what thickness is recommended if you are thinking about going for floors made out of engineered wood?

What is engineered wood flooring?

First off, let us look briefly at what engineered wood actually is. While a solid wood floor is simply made up of planks or one piece of wood, an engineered one sees boards, fibres or strands of wood bound together using either an adhesive or some other method of binding. It then has a veneer made of a wood such as oak put over the top of it. This veneer usually measures between 3ml and 6ml, depending on the overall floor thickness that you have chosen.

Engineered wooden floors look just as natural as solid ones, but also have a number of real practical advantages. The biggest is that the backing made of the pieces bound together offers greater stability and less movement due to the fact that it can cope better with temperature changes and moisture than a solid wood floor. That makes it a very effective choice for areas where weather conditions and temperatures are changeable – such as Chester in the North West.

How thick should it be?

Engineered wood floors vary considerably in thickness, but an average of around 13.5ml is what can be found in most homes or commercial premises. It is possible to get floors with thinner wooden boards that will be a cheaper option, but doing so will prove to be a false economy over the longer term. Opting for floors with very thin wood just means that the surface will wear down more quickly when it is sanded. That is something you will inevitably have to do at some points to keep the finish of the floor looking good.

Beyond this basic information, there are some key questions that come into play when considering the thickness of floor needed. The answers will determine what choice you make.

1. Will the floor experience heavy footfall?

This is probably the most important issue when choosing engineered wood flooring. A floor that is going to be walked over a great deal will also have to be sanded more often to keep it looking good. Therefore, both the boards and the veneer must be sufficiently thick to be able to handle more frequent sanding and refinishing without wearing away. Examples of rooms that attract heavy footfall are living rooms, kitchens and hallways.

Any thickness below 13.5 ml would certainly not be advisable for one or more of those rooms.

2. Does the room have under floor heating?

You may not realise it, but under floor heating is another important issue to consider when fitting engineered wood flooring. It will be pointless to have this if the floor does not let the heat penetrate through to the room above, so the thickness of the floor matters a lot. While it is possible to get engineered wood floors as thick as 21ml, that level of thickness will make it more difficult for the heat to get through and warm the room.

Again, a floor with thickness of around 13.5ml will make it much easier for the warmth from the heating to come through the floor into the main part of your room.

3. Is the subfloor in good condition?

The subfloor means the bare surface that your engineered wood flooring will be going on top of. When it comes to the recommended thickness, it can depend on whether this surface is in a good condition or not. If the subfloor is not very even or has other damage such as holes, it will be better to choose the thickest possible grade of engineered wood floor. That could mean 21ml.

On the other hand, if the subfloor is still fairly smooth and in a reasonable overall condition, that sort of thickness will not be necessary. In that sort of situation, a more standard engineered wood floor of around 13.5ml will be an effective covering for the subfloor.

Hopefully this has given you some idea of what exactly an engineered wood floor is and what the factors are that you need to weigh up when considering how thick you want it to be. Unless your subfloor is seriously damaged, the standard degree of thickness will provide a fine flooring solution.