Real Wood Top Layer Flooring

Real wood top layer flooring is the term commonly used to describe engineered wood flooring that are made using an external layer of real wood on top, technically called ‘lamella‘ or ‘wear layer’. Engineered wood flooring is a really innovative and flexible flooring option that can work in every room in the home.  In the good old days, if you wanted wood flooring, you had the choice of just that, solid wood flooring or something like lino flooring (linoleum) or laminated flooring that had been made to look like wood.   Nowadays there is a real alternative to solid wood flooring, that’s often called real wood top layer flooring because that’s what it has, a real wood top layer.

Engineered wood flooring is a cleverly constructed flooring board that is effectively man-made but is made using natural products.  Never to be confused with laminate flooring, which is effectively an image of wood that’s laid on a core board, engineered wood flooring looks and feels just like real wood.  One of the main advantages of engineered wood flooring over solid wood flooring is that it doesn’t expand and contract to the same extent as solid wood because of the way it’s made.

The core board of an engineered wood flooring board is made by bonding together layers and layers of ply to create a really sold core.  Once that core has been constructed, it then has a solid wood top layer applied, hence the descriptive name of of real wood top layer flooring.  Although this top layer is typically make of oak, other options are possible and it’s this real wood top layer that makes engineered wood flooring look so much like the real thing.

The reason that engineered wood doesn’t expand and contract like solid wood is the way the core board is constructed.  The whole bonding together of layers makes for a really stable and solid flooring option.  Because of this feature, you can use this type of flooring in kitchens and bathrooms, where solid wood flooring wouldn’t be suitable.  If you were to put solid wood flooring into an environment where the temperature and moisture levels fluctuate significantly, it would expand and contract to such an extent that it would start to cup and bow and gaps would start to develop.  This doesn’t happen with engineered wood flooring, which is why it is so very attractive and appealing.

Add to this flexibility, the fact that engineered wood flooring, or real wood top layer flooring comes in a whole host of colours, thicknesses and finish options and you start to see why so many people are choosing this before solid wood nowadays.  No matter what your budget, there is a real wood top layer flooring option that’ll suit your needs perfectly.