Has anyone attempted to make his/her own engineered hardwood flooring? By engineered, I am referring to a veneer laminated on a plywood backing.
Although I would love to install solid hardwood on our first floor, we are directly on a concrete slab. For the past year I have been pricing flooring and concluded that a reasonable quality ‘real wood’ veneer would be cost prohibitive (upwards of $8 per square foot). the good stuff runs about $12 per square foot. In looking at the construction of the better products it seems they use a thick veneer (approx 1/8″) and a high quality ply backing such as Euro birch.
In doing the math, Eurobirch would cost around $2 per square foot and the hardwood veneer (say cherry) would cost about $1.50 per square foot (assuming I get 4 veneers per 4/4 stock). Factoring in glue and finish, that’s only about $4 – $4.50 per square foot. It would seem that we could save between $4,000 and $5,000 for our 1,100 square foot area and have a top notch product. That’s more than enough to pay for a vacuum press that would be essential to make this fly!
What am I missing? There seems to be little info on the internet about this, but seems like a really good cost effective way of providing a dream floor for our house. Because there’s no info I’m worried that I’m really missing something here.
Thanks!
Replies
Joel -
I can't speak to the validity of making your own flooring, but I would suggest you investigate the proper procedures for installing a wood flooring material, engineered or otherwise, over a concrete slab. You want to make absolutely sure the slab is dry. I don't mean cured, but that there's no moisture migration from below the slab. Perhaps you've already done this - if so, that's great. If not, you can get an earfull over in the Fine Home Building forum, Breaktime. Lots of knowledgeable folks over there.
From Beautiful Skagit Co. Wa.
Dennis
Joel,
You are absolutely crazy. Lie down and maybe this idea will quickly go away. There is simply no way that you could possibly make an engineered floor with the incredible precision and quality that is necessary to make such material work in installing a floor. Examine any manufacturer's product for squareness, width, thickness and the precision to which the thickness and placement of the tongue and groove is held, and you will see what I mean.
These products are made on massive machinery kept to within a few ten thousandths accuracy. Everything is computer-controlled, including the finish.
$12/sq ft? I just finished laying 1600 sq ft of International Floor Versastrip maple. It's 9/16 thick, with a very generous top veneer, has adhesive built into the tongue and groove. It is VERY solid and STIFF! - much better than the similarly priced Bruce flooring. It ran us $4.10 a foot. We floated it over concrete on Traffic Master underlayment, a premium cushioning material at $0.80 a sq foot. I don't know what it's made of - seems to be a polyurethane. Like the pad under a carpet, it does not pay to skimp on the floor underlayment.
The floor is gorgeous. The finish is exceptional. It does NOT feel like a floating floor on that underlayment, it feels and sounds like a glue down or nail down installation. No "hollow" sound at all. And it all came from Home Depot!
There are 2 things you MUST do. First, if your concrete is at or below grade, you must do a Calcium Chloride test for moisture penetration. Here's a source for materials:
http://www.vaportest.com/Webpages/calcium_chloride_test.htm
They want $125 for a precision electronic scale. Go here for much better prices (under $50):
http://under-50.balances.com/
Second, check your floor for evenness with a long straight edge and use a leveling (patching) product. This makes a dramatic difference in the floor's final feel (flexing, bending, creaking).
Good luck!
Rich
I have priced out several brands of flooring with a cost of about 3.60 to 4.50 a sq. foot. I do not know where you were getting your prices from, but it sounds like they were going to rip you off. If you were not going to install it yourself you can contract it out for about 2.00 a foot. Good luck.
Wade
Checked out Lumber Liquidators
http://lumberliquidators.com/
They sell all kinds of flooring, will deliver and they also have a number of stores around the country.
I live in Portland, OR and they have a store here. I have been in there and they have a fantastic selection and the people are real knowlegeable about the various types of wood flooring products and can give you good advise. I have heard that their phone sales people are just as knowlegeable and will steer you to the right type of flooring for you.
Their prices are real reasonable and they have a number of specials and odd lots that you can pick up good buys on.
And I DO NOT work for, with or have any affiliation with them - I just like their product and the people I have delt with.
1 - measure the board twice
2 - cut it once
3 - measure the space where it is supposed to go
4 - get a new board and go back to step 1
Thanks for the replies guys.
I was negligent in mentioning that the pricing was in Canadian $$$. The $12 stuff is top of the line in that the backing material is multi layer ply very similar to Euro Birch and comes in single planks (i.e. one hardwood strip per plank instead of multiple stips that looks engineered). The veneer is a full 1/8", allowing for multiple sandings if necessary. Lesser quality engineered floors can be had for $5 cdn but you get what you pay for. The veneer is extemely thin (couldn't be sanded and refinished), the backing is mdf or lesser quality plywood and they tend to have 2-3 strips per board which means it looks like the floor was laid down such that 3 stips of hardwood were all cut at the exact same place versus staggered as you would see on a solid hardwood floor. My thoughts were that producing my own would compete with the $8 - $12 stuff.
I agree that the larger manufactures have precision equipment that is good to 1/1000 of an inch, but let's face it, 1/64" is sufficient for flooring and that is achievable with the equipment I have (especially if the floor is floated which would flex close to 1/64"). I've installed a few solid hardwood floors and in doing so, ended up cutting my own tongues and grooves on some pieces to avoid wasting them after they were cut once. It worked very well. I coudn't tell the difference between the tongues and grooves cut by the manufacturer and those I cut.
Regardless of whether we buy product or build our own, I understand that we will need to look into installation techniques and considerations (float vs. glue down).
Rich, I haven't discounted the fact that I'm crazy - my wife reminds me of that every day. I'm currently building a slate pool table that she thought was nuts. The fact is that by end of summer we will have a solid mahoganny and padouk table for roughly $4,000 less than anything we have found. It just took a little imagination and willingness to challenge the conception that building it yourself is impossible. Right now, I'm just looking for fatal flaws in the idea of producing the flooring when it seems achievable. I guess I'm looking for insight into whether they use special materials or finishes that simply aren't available to the consumer.
Joel,
You don't want to do this. The engineered floors are just that "engineered". Your method would be an experiment.
If this is your "dream house," don't skimp. You will regret it later.
I just had an engineered floor put down in my house on a concrete slab. They came in ripped up carpet and tile. Ground down the high spots and filled the low spots. Glued down a vapor barrier. Installed 650 square feet of flooring. All in two and half days. BTW. My house has a vapor barrier below the slab as well.
As mentioned by others, there are a number of suppliers out there that I have seen engineered wood floors for much less than $8 a square foot. My neighbors paid about $6.50 a square foot for Bruce on the internet.
In your price calculation for doing this yourself you are forgetting your time. How many months are you willing to spend away from your family?
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