Solid wood or engineered?

Company director, Aaron explains the differences between solid and engineered wooden stair treads.

Solid wood vs Engineered wood

An age old debate, commonly discussed in the flooring industry.

Solid wood often has a public perception of being the superior product, in some cases this may be true, but it depends on many factors. Often solid wood is the wrong choice of construction. Our engineered treads are made from solid wood hardwoods, but not simply cut from tree and shaped into a tread sized object, they're much more than that!

What makes our treads superior?

The inner core is made from many layers of laminated hardwoods, this method is superior to solid wood because it is stronger and much more dimensionally stable. Big pieces of solid wood expand and contract depending on the environment they are in. You will often find small splits appearing through dry seasons, sometimes these can be very noticeable, but is unavoidable with solid wood.

With our engineered core this expansion and contraction is reduced to almost zero. We then clad the core with prime grade oak, when finished the tread looks like one solid piece of oak but has none of the associated draw backs.

Solid wood pros:

• Quicker to make - a much more simple manufacture process.

Solid wood cons:

• Susceptible to wood movement leading to defects.

Engineered wood pros:

• Considerably more stable than solid wood.

• Our engineered treads result in less defects over time.

Engineered wood cons:

• From a manufacturing point of view this method is extremely labour intensive compared to solid wood treads, the manufacture cost is offset slightly by a small saving in raw material costs but is ultimately out weighed by the extra costs of labour to manufacture engineered treads. Quality is our priority, we don't take short cuts.

#solidwood #engineeredwood