To make the best choice in flooring, you should explore all possible options. While most folks are drawn to installing traditional hardwood floors, that option can often be outside their price range. An increasingly popular, less expensive flooring option is pre-engineered hardwood flooring.

Engineered hardwood flooring products are a great alternative to traditional hardwood flooring. Although they are less expensive than traditional hardwood flooring, they can be just as classy and stylish. Pre-engineered hardwood flooring products allow you to take advantage of some of the most desirable exotic woods without breaking the bank.

As leading Philadelphia hardwood flooring experts, the Artisan Wood Floors team knows a thing or two about flooring products, including engineered hardwood floors. In this article, our experts will break down the top brands so that you can make an informed decision about pre-engineered hardwood flooring and decide whether or not it is right for your flooring needs.

What is Pre-Engineered Hardwood?

Engineered hardwood has the same look and feel as traditional solid hardwood flooring. However, it is a composite wood made of a thick hardwood layer bonded over a premium plywood layer.

When you install a pre-engineered hardwood floor, most people barely recognize that it is not solid hardwood flooring. The top layer of a pre-engineered hardwood floor is its wear layer, consisting of a thin natural veneer that comes in a variety of popular wood species. That’s the layer that gives pre-engineered hardwood flooring its beauty. Because of this layer, refinishing pre-engineered hardwood floor can also be possible.

The benefits of engineered hardwood flooring products are plentiful. Pre-engineered hardwood is strong, stable, easy to install, and less expensive than traditional solid hardwood flooring products. A quality pre-engineered hardwood wood flooring can last up to thirty years.

Pre-engineered hardwood flooring is the preferred choice for high-moisture areas such as below-grade spaces, bathrooms, and kitchen hardwood flooring.

Best Pre-Engineered Hardwood Flooring

At Artisan Wood Floors, there are several qualities that we look for when judging a pre-engineered hardwood flooring product.

This thick natural hardwood layer allows the floor to be sanded and refinished multiple times for greater longevity. The thinner the veneer, the more difficult it will be to refinish, greatly reducing the floor’s lifespan.

Another factor that should be considered when choosing an engineered flooring brand is the wood floor thickness and construction of the core layers, which are important for the floor’s overall stability.

Top Engineered Hardwood Flooring Brands

For the benefit of our readers, our wood flooring experts have singled out some of the most notable wood flooring brands offering quality pre-engineered wood flooring products that meet our construction and quality standards.

We recommend the following three brands, in no particular order:

Anderson Tuftex

Anderson Tuftex represents the industry standard in pre-engineered hardwood flooring products.

The Anderson Tuftex team is best known for its unique Cross-Lock engineered wood construction system. The Cross-Lock system alternates the direction of the grain of five different wood plies to make a pre-engineered hardwood plank that remains ultra-strong even though it uses less raw wood than most traditional hardwood flooring products.

Anderson Tuftex is a trustworthy brand with lots of great pre-engineered flooring product options to choose from.

Bruce

Bruce is another trustworthy brand that supplies top-quality engineered flooring products to the flooring market.

Because Bruce is a company specializing exclusively in pre-engineered and traditional hardwood flooring, it has a distinct advantage over flooring companies that spread themselves thin by offering a full range of flooring products beyond wood.

Bruce generally offers traditional and classic wood flooring styles using various domestic and exotic wood species. Look for great options like tigerwood, acacia, cherry, and pecan. 

Mullican

Mullican is unique because they are one of only a handful of flooring manufacturers that make unfinished pre-engineered hardwood available to the commercial market. As a result, Mullican’s unfinished engineered hardwood flooring gives you more flexibility when it comes to your unique flooring needs.

For example, Mullican offers unfinished engineered wood planks in either red or white oaks, which allows you to apply your custom finish once the product has been installed. With Mullican’s unfinished pre-engineered wood flooring products, the possibilities are endless.

For those who prefer the more traditional route, Mullican also offers many finished wood flooring products in many styles, coming in at mid-market prices.

Hiring Engineered Hardwood Flooring Experts

Now that you know a little bit more about these brands and what to look for in an engineered hardwood flooring product, you should be able to make an informed decision on the right pre-engineered hardwood for your floors. You can’t go wrong when choosing any of these three great brands.

If you want to discuss one or more of these three brands in greater detail or have more questions about installing engineered hardwood flooring in PA, contact the Pennsylvania wood flooring experts at Artisan Wood Floors today – call (215) 515-7355 and ask for Steve!