Flooring: Wood and wood alternatives
Natural wood flooring has staying power and an attractive warmth, but easier-to-install copycats may sometimes be a better choice.

Solid wood remains many people's ideal for floors. Indeed, hardwood flooring can increase a home's resale value and speed its sale, according to the National Association of Realtors. Oak is the most popular and readily available choice. Others include maple, cherry, and hickory. Pine, a softwood, costs less. Solid wood flooring comes prefinished or unfinished.

Alternatives to solid wood include plastic laminate and engineered wood. Both are easier and cheaper to install. Laminate mimics wood (or tile or marble) by using a photograph of the real thing beneath its clear surface layer. Engineered-wood flooring incorporates a thin veneer of real wood over structural plywood. It costs about the same as solid wood. You'll also see bamboo flooring and parquet wood tiles.


WHAT'S AVAILABLE

You'll find wood and wood-look flooring at flooring suppliers and lumberyards as well as at mass merchandisers and home centers such as Home Depot, Lowe's, and Wal-Mart. Flooring suppliers tend to have the widest selection, particularly for exotic woods, while mass merchandisers and home centers usually offer the lowest prices.

The many brands of wood flooring include Anderson, Bruce, Harris-Tarkett, Hartco, and Permagrain. Brands of plastic-laminate flooring include Armstrong, Congoleum, Formica, Mannington, Pergo, Tarkett, and Wilsonart.

Price range, per square foot: prefinished solid wood, $4 to $7.25; engineered wood, $5 to $9; plastic-laminate, $3 to $4.50. Add about $3 per square foot if you have the flooring installed professionally.


Important features

With prefinished solid wood. Narrow boards are called strips; wide ones, planks. Most are 3/4-inch thick or less. A finish layer protects the flooring from spills, stains, and wear. Thicker flooring is usually nailed to a plywood subfloor; thinner flooring is stapled or glued. Thinner flooring can also cover above-ground concrete using a vapor barrier. For nailing into wood, you'll need a manual or pneumatic nailer (about $20 per day to rent). You can usually refinish solid wood several times before it is sanded down to its tongue joints.

With engineered wood. A wear layer protects the wood veneer--usually 1/8-inch thick or less--on top of construction-grade plywood. Instead of the painstaking nailing needed to put down a solid-wood floor, engineered wood is usually stapled down (the most secure method) or glued to the subfloor, though sometimes it can be floated the way plastic-laminate flooring is. You may be able to refinish engineered wood--by lightly sanding and varnishing it--at least once, depending on the thickness of its veneer. (Most manufacturers recommend that a professional do this.)

With plastic laminate. Here, too, a wear layer protects against spills, stains, and wear and covers the pattern layer--essentially a photograph of wood, tile, marble, slate, or some other material. A fiberboard core supports the top layers. Plastic-laminate planks are interlocked with or without glue and held in place by their own weight in what is called a floating floor. A foam layer goes between the laminate and the subfloor. A vapor barrier is recommended between the subfloor and the foam layer if moisture is a concern. An alternative approach is gluing the flooring to the subfloor. Once the wear layer becomes worn or damaged, it can't be sanded and refinished. You may be able to do minor touch-ups with kits sold by flooring manufacturers. If not, you'll have to replace the offending section or--if problems are widespread--the entire floor.


How to choose

Performance differences. Most of the solid-wood products resisted spills very well in Consumer Reports tests, and they should be able to stand up to close encounters with party drinks and other common household liquids. In a long-term foot-traffic test, the laminates held up better than most solid wood flooring and all of the engineered wood flooring. Among the laminates, some brands were better than others in resisting denting, but all were much more dent-resistant than other types of flooring.

Plastic laminates proved impervious to stains from mustard, wine, and acidic liquids, although most of the solid-wood and engineered-wood flooring were close behind. All of the plastic-laminate products we tested came through hours of ultraviolet exposure in our lab with their original colors intact. Ultraviolet light from the sun and or from halogen lamps can change the color of real wood.

Recommendations. First determine whether you'll install the flooring yourself or hire a contractor. Your decision may affect which type of flooring you decide upon. Plastic-laminate flooring offers relatively easy installation and a tough surface for busy rooms. It mimics wood and other materials but is better at resisting abrasion, scratches, and dents than prefinished solid-wood flooring and engineered-wood flooring. One noticeable drawback of plastic laminate is its faux-wood pattern, which can look unnaturally consistent over a large area. With real wood, each strip or plank has its own unique grain.

Prefinished solid wood is less damage-resistant and harder to install (you may want to hire a pro), but it offers authenticity and warmth. It can also be refinished several times; damaged or worn plastic-laminate flooring must be replaced.

Engineered-wood flooring offers a true wood surface without the painstaking nailing needed to put down a solid-wood floor. Unlike most solid-wood flooring, an engineered-wood floor can go in a basement or other damp area because of the added dimensional stability of its layered construction.

But you won't save money by choosing an engineered floor; it costs about as much as solid wood and generally can't be refinished as often. Always purchase an extra box of flooring for future repairs.