We are in the market for some new flooring in the bedrooms. I've been reading about floating engineered hardwood. I was looking at it because of ease of installation. We are on a crawlspace. Does anyone have experience with this type floor. I currently have 3/4 inch cabin grade prefinished hardwood in the rest of the house and have been happy with it. Should I just bite the bullet and put that down?

Any recommendations where to buy it in Decatur/Huntsville/Shoals area?

I would go with real hardwood in a house. No real reason outher than I like hard wood over floating floor.

You can nail the engineered flooring down too ust like you do hardwood flooring,I'm gonna build soon and I'm 99% sure I'm gonna go with an engineered flooring of some type,,they are less sensitive to moisture and humidity than real hardwood and are cheaper in some cases,they can also be sanded and refinished too

Yes. We use it when putting down wood floors on SLAB construction. When putting them on a floor with a crawl space Id recommend the same as you have been using. 3/4 hardwoods. You have been really happy with it so far....I think you still will be if you continue to use it.

Use real hardwood.

I put in a floating floor and hate it. It will come up and hard wood will be put down next.

I installed floating floors in my last house. Those are the noisiest floors on earth. I would glue or nail them down if you go that route!!!!

I wouldn't even consider anything besides real wood. I'm sick of seeing people go with all this engineered stuff. Nowadays everything has to be about cheap an fast, no craftsmanship involved.

You will never regret real hardwood.

I've refinished several 50yr old + oak flooring. Only other hardwood I would consider is the PVC stuff, I bought a house with that flooring and liked it, it was extremely durable.

Support the forestry industry, go hardwood.

Thanks for the replies. I'm going to go with the hardwood. I found some Shaw utility grade for $1.19 per sq ft. I plan to order 20% more for culling. It will costed $200 to have it shipped to a terminal. I'll haul it home from there. The only thing I'll have to buy/borrow/rent to install is a hardwood nailer. I have cabin grade now. The utility grade is below that. I feel it will be ok to go in the bedrooms and closets.

I did that once with Cabin grade, in hindsight I would've been happier buying the #1 stuff on sale instead of the results I ended up with, I bet I culled 30 or 40% all together, some boxes were pretty bad and full of 10-16" pieces, it took a lot of work.

You guys may be getting laminate and engineered confused,engineered is real hardwood from the toungue and groove part up,it is sold in planks just like hardwood,you install it like hardwood by glueing or nailing or you can leave it floating which I would never do,you can get maple,cherry, oak , walnut as so on,the bottom is layers of it is veneer,I actually have looked at several places today and the salesmen said engineered is their preference over real hardwood,they said it doesn't warp and is better with moisture,they claim it's more durable as far as wear and has a 25 year warranty,as far as price is concerned there is really no difference,it's just according to how cheap or expensive you want

I refinish floors for a living and engineered flooring is not the same or better than real hardwoods. Asking the guy at lumber liquidators his opinion on quality is like asking the guy at autozone how to fix your car. They're there selling products for min wage and not out working as a skilled craftsmen with the product for a reason. Engineered flooring adds no value to your home but cost you money to purchase/install vs real hardwoods that do add value

I also work with investors flipping properties in hsv and if we installed egineered flooring vs real hardwoods i can guarantee our houses would sit a long time before being sold

Didn't go to a liquidation outlet,I'm just stating what I've researched and been told,I really don't give two chits what he puts down and I'm not trying to persuade him one way or another,just didn't want him to be misinformed,I do think an engineered floor would be better than buying the utility grade flooring,you also need to consider if you have kids or pets as to what you put down,don't want to put down nice,expensive flooring to be ruined

Pergo XP works fine for me.

Just my opinion....I love real hardwood..but stick with me a minute..When i bought my house which was my great grandmas i pulled all the green shag carpet out of it and it had pine T&G 1x4 flooring that looked new.I sanded,stained and put about 4 coats of poly on it.Looked like a piece of glass was laying on the floors it was so slick and shiny.5 years the kiddos had it beat to pieces from dropping toys and chit on it.Now i know pine dont make a really good flooring cause its to soft.When i remodeled i was gonna lay some new flooring.The wood i found was a prefinished mingled hardwood that had alotta dark and light wood in it.Just the flooring was gonna cost me around $4500..Think it was a lil over $5 per sq ft.Instead of spending that much on a floor that will eventually..(maybe 15 years) have to be refinished i went with a 25 yr 10mm laminate flooring for .99 per sq ft.After i bought padding i ended up with around $1000 in all my flooring.If it last me 15 years I'll replace it with laminate again for less than what i would spend paying someone to refinish my real hardwood and I'll have a new floor without all the mess of refinishing.For me it just made more sense money wise to go with laminate.I have layed many many thousands of ft of laminate and despite it being thin it is surprisingly strong as long as it dont get wet.My kids can drop big toys or i can drop a knife or something and it dont dent or chip.Its a personal preference for everyone and money isnt a big deal to some but for me i just prefer laminate.

Pine isnt a hardwood. Its beautiful but extremely soft compared to an oak floor. I youre looking at roughly $7 sq ft for raw wood, installation and sanding and finishing if using #1 oak. The advantage of goimg that route is if it is scratched up it can be buffed and coated for around .50 a sq ft but it is just personal preference theres nothing wrong with going with engineered or laminate i was just saying if i were spending the money i would go with something that would add a little bang for the buck as far as value