What Is Engineered Timber Flooring? How It's Made, Pros and Cons
Engineered timber flooring is a board with a top layer of real hardwood bonded to a stable engineered core. You walk on genuine oak or Australian hardwood, but the layers underneath stop the board moving as much as solid timber does when the weather changes.
That build is why it can go over a concrete slab or into an apartment, and why the thickness of the top layer decides how many times the floor can be sanded in its life.
How an engineered board is made
Under the factory finish, every board has two parts. The wear layer on top is sawn hardwood, the same timber you would get in a solid board. Below it sits a core of cross-laminated or multi-ply timber, glued so the grain of each layer runs a different way.
Crossing the grain is the whole trick. Timber swells and shrinks across its grain as humidity changes, and the layers pull against each other so the board stays flatter and steadier.
You will see the build written as two numbers. A board sold as 14/3mm is 14mm thick overall, with a 3mm hardwood wear layer. A 15/4mm board is 15mm thick with 4mm of hardwood on top.
| Layer | What it is | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Finish | Factory applied coating, such as UV cured polyurethane | Takes the daily scuffs and spills |
| Wear layer | Real hardwood, 2mm to 4mm in our range | The look and feel of timber; the part that gets sanded |
| Core | Cross-laminated or multi-ply engineered timber | Keeps the board stable as rooms get damp or dry |
Why the wear layer thickness matters
A worn engineered floor can be sanded back to fresh timber and recoated, the same as a solid floor. The limit is how much hardwood there is to sand.
Here is how it plays out across four ranges in our engineered timber flooring collection, using what each product page states:
| Range | Build | Sanding |
|---|---|---|
| Prestige Oak 14/2mm | 2mm European oak on a 14mm click board | Refresh with a clean and a coat rather than a sand back |
| Swish Oak Natura | 3mm oak on a 14mm board | Can be sanded and recoated, fewer times than a 4mm board |
| Prestige Oak 15/4mm | 4mm European oak on a 15mm board | Sandable and recoatable two or three times |
| Swish Oak Wideboard | 4mm oak on a 14mm board, 220mm wide | Can be sanded back and refinished several times |
A 2mm board costs less to get into. A 4mm board is the one to pick if you plan to stay in the house for decades and want to restore the floor rather than replace it.
Engineered timber vs solid timber
A solid board is one piece of hardwood from top to bottom. An engineered board puts the hardwood only where you walk.
That changes three practical things. First, an engineered board moves far less with seasonal humidity than a solid board of the same width. Second, it can be glued to a slab or floated over underlay, so it suits apartments and concrete floors where solid strip flooring is hard to lay. Third, a solid board usually has more hardwood to sand over a very long life.
It is still real timber, though. Engineered boards need to sit in the room to acclimatise before they are laid, exactly like solid boards, and the colour will warm or mellow under daylight over the years.
Oak or Australian hardwood
Oak is the most common wear layer in our range. Prestige Oak uses European oak, while Swish Oak Natura and Swish Oak Wideboard use sawn oak in 190mm and 220mm planks.
Australian species are the other choice. The Swish Native Hardwood range puts a Blackbutt or Spotted Gum wear layer on an engineered core, in 136mm and 189mm boards.
Words like Natural, Neat and Select on these boards are grades, not colours. They describe how much natural feature the timber carries:
- Natural: ABCD grade, with the most knots, gum vein and colour movement.
- Neat: clean ABC grade, the same colour family with less feature.
- Select: low feature grade, the calmest of the three.
A busy grade hides scratches better. A clean grade shows each mark a little more plainly, which is the trade for a quieter look.
Planks, wide boards and herringbone
Long planks are the usual format. The same layered build is also cut into short blocks for parquet patterns.
Our Crosswood engineered herringbone is a good example. Each block is 600mm long and 127mm wide, 14mm thick with a 3mm oak wear layer, in ten colours.
Herringbone takes longer to lay than a straight plank floor. The pattern has to be centred on the room before the first block goes down, and every edge block is cut to suit, so it costs more to install. It is worth knowing that at quote stage rather than later.
How it is installed
There are two ways to lay an engineered board, and the profile on the edge decides which you can use.
- Floating: click boards lock together and sit on an underlay with no glue. Individual boards are easier to lift later if a service has to run underneath.
- Glue down: tongue and groove boards can be stuck straight to the subfloor, or floated. Gluing down changes both the cost and how the floor sounds underfoot.
Whichever method you use, the subfloor has to be flat and dry first. Order all the boards for a job in one go, too, because colour shifts between batches.
Most engineered floors suit underfloor heating, but check the product page before you commit. Engineered timber is not a wet area floor either: the Prestige Oak 14/2mm range, for example, rules out bathrooms and laundries.
Pros and cons at a glance
- Pro: real hardwood on top, with grain and variation no print can copy.
- Pro: steadier than solid timber, so it goes over slabs and into apartments.
- Pro: low emissions; the Swish Oak Natura, Wideboard and Native Hardwood boards are rated E1 at under 5ppm.
- Con: it can dent and scratch like any timber, and it is not for wet areas.
- Con: it costs more than hybrid or laminate.
If you are weighing it against a rigid core floor, our engineered timber vs hybrid guide covers that decision in detail. For the other side of the comparison, read what hybrid flooring is made of.
What engineered timber costs
Our engineered timber is priced from $69 to $129 per m2 for supply. Hybrid, laminate and carpet sit at $25 to $65 per m2 by comparison.
Where a board lands in that range comes down to wear layer thickness, board width, species and grade. Installation is quoted separately once we have seen the room, because subfloor preparation, stairs and patterns like herringbone all change the labour.
Book a free measure and quote across Sydney, or hold a sample in your own light at our Auburn showroom before you choose.
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