Solid vs Engineered Hardwood in North Carolina: Which One, and What Installation Costs

What the two constructions are

Solid hardwood is a single piece of wood, usually three quarters of an inch thick, milled with a tongue and groove and nailed down to a wood subfloor. It is what has been in Southern houses for a century. It can be sanded and refinished many times over its life, which is why a fifty-year-old oak floor can look new again.

Engineered hardwood is a real wood veneer, from a millimeter or two up to a quarter inch thick, bonded to a plywood or high-density core built in cross-grain layers. It can be nailed, glued or floated, and it can go over concrete. The cross-grain core is what makes it stable: the layers pull against each other and the plank moves far less with humidity than a solid board does.

Both are real wood on top. From a standing height, a good engineered floor and a solid floor in the same species and finish are indistinguishable.

What North Carolina humidity does to each

Wood takes on moisture from the air and swells, then gives it up and shrinks. In a Wake County house the indoor humidity can swing a long way between a damp summer and a heated winter, and a solid hardwood floor swells and gaps with it. Small seasonal gaps in January are normal and close again by June. Wider boards move more than narrow ones. A solid floor installed without proper acclimation, or nailed tight in a humid August, can cup or buckle when the seasons turn.

Engineered hardwood moves much less, because the core resists the veneer's urge to expand. That makes it the better-behaved floor in a humid climate, over a crawlspace with high moisture, in a basement, and over a concrete slab where solid hardwood cannot go at all. We went into the wider comparison in hardwood vs luxury vinyl for NC humidity.

None of this means solid hardwood is wrong here. It has been in Angier houses since before air conditioning. It means the acclimation, the moisture testing and the installation method matter more than they would in a drier state, and they should be in the quote.

Refinishing, and how many lives a floor has

Solid hardwood can be sanded and refinished several times. A thick engineered veneer can be refinished once or twice; a thin one cannot be sanded at all and is finished for life. If you want a floor that can be brought back in twenty years, either solid or a thick-veneer engineered product is the choice, and the veneer thickness is the number to ask for. Refinish or replace? explains how to tell what an existing floor can take.

Which suits which house

Our honest steer, house by house.

• ✓Older homes with a wood subfloor over a crawlspace, Angier, Lillington, Fuquay-Varina: either. Solid if you want the traditional refinishable floor and the crawlspace is dry; engineered if the crawlspace runs humid.
• ✓Newer Wake County builds with a wood subfloor, Holly Springs, Apex, Cary: either. Engineered for wide planks, because a wide solid board moves the most.
• ✓Slab-on-grade homes and basements: engineered, glued or floated. Solid hardwood cannot be installed over concrete.
• ✓Kitchens: engineered, and only if the household is disciplined about spills. Many families choose a wood-look LVP here instead.
• ✓Bathrooms and laundries: neither. Water wins.
• ✓Homes being prepared for sale: engineered usually gives the best look for the money.

Species, width and finish

Oak is the standard in central North Carolina for good reason: it is hard, it takes stain evenly and it is what buyers expect. Hickory is harder and more varied in grain, good with dogs. Maple is smooth and pale and shows scratches more. We carry solid and engineered hardwood from Bruce, Mohawk, Shaw and Hallmark in all three, and the samples come to your house for the consultation.

Width changes movement. A wide plank looks wonderful and, in solid, moves the most seasonally. If you want six inches or wider, engineered is the safer construction here. Finish is a durability decision as much as a color one, and factory-finished boards carry a harder coating than a site-applied finish.

What a hardwood installation quote contains

Hardwood is the most expensive floor we install per square foot, and the spread between a quote done properly and one done cheaply is mostly in the preparation. An honest quote lists these lines.

Material, by the square foot, with the species, construction and grade named. Removal and disposal of the old floor. Subfloor inspection and preparation, which on an older house can mean refastening, flattening or replacing sections. Moisture testing of the subfloor or slab. Acclimation time, which is several days of the material sitting in your house before it is installed. Installation, whether nail-down, glue-down or floating. Transitions, moldings and stair nosings. And, for a site-finished solid floor, sanding and finishing as a separate line.

Where quotes go wrong is a subfloor line that was never there, transitions that were never counted, and a site-finished floor quoted without the finishing. Our guide to flooring installation cost in central NC explains how to compare two quotes fairly, and how long a flooring project takes covers why hardwood has the longest schedule of anything we install.

Making it affordable

Engineered hardwood in a mid-range oak is often the best combination of look, stability and price for a Wake or Harnett County home. Putting hardwood in the living areas and a coordinated LVP or carpet elsewhere brings the whole-house number down without compromising the rooms people see. 0% financing (same as cash) is available on whole-home hardwood.

APW has installed hardwood across Angier and central North Carolina since 1973. Our own background-checked, trained professionals acclimate, test and install every floor, backed by a 100% product and labor satisfaction guarantee. See our hardwood flooring page, or book a free in-home consultation.