Sheer:

Good and not too expensive? That's always a hard one. Some very good mid priced engineered floors made by Lauzon and Mirage can be obtained for $5-6 per square foot on the internet.

But...she doesn't like the engineered? Any idea why? Some have a "wear layer" almost as thick as traditional solid 3/4" hardwoods. You could always opt for a plywood subfloor over the concrete and a 3/4" naildown over that.

There are so many options today but explaining them here would take days. Have you considered calling in a real hardwood specialist? You won't get far with places like Home Depot for other reasons along with "that's all they have is Bruce"

Good Luck
Ken Fisher

There Are Other Places to Shop...Home Depot is not the only one...

the reason they make engineered flooring is so they can be installed(glued down) on cement slab floors ,floating floors will also work,so i think you have to choose from one of these.home depot is not the only place you can buy this type of product,other stores in your area will carry other simular products,what home depot does well is provide good products at good prices.shop around ,but the depot is hard to beat. good luck

I'm shopping for a "good and inexpesive" wood floor as well. Actually, I purchased about 400 SF of and engineered floor from BeaverHome.com, but they have failed to deliver the product or a refund. We're still wating for a refund after a year (hopefully the NY State Attorney General will come thru). At any rate, my recommendation is to purchase with a credit card and if the floor isn't delivered within the timeframe with your card carrier (usually 90 days) for some action, cancel the order and request a refund from your credit card company.

As far as a company, I'm looking at Pennington. Their product is sold locally and apparantly is available on-line.

I purchased about 400 SF of and engineered floor from BeaverHome.com, but they have failed to deliver the product or a refund. We're still wating for a refund after a year (hopefully the NY State Attorney General will come thru).

Unfortunately you are not the first to be swindled by Beaver Home. Buyer beware!

quote:

---

Unfortunately you are not the first to be swindled by Beaver Home. Buyer beware!

---

A friend of mine had some very tense dealings with Beaver Homes, but it ultimately amounted to just an extremely annoying delay in receiving the shipment. They eventually came through, and, despite the delivery problems, the product was very, very good. The uniformity was ideal, and the mill-work made it an easy task to install it perfectly. The salesmen just make delivery promises that they often cannot deliver. Not good business practice, and certainly not worth recommending doing business with them, but it was not a swindle.

Do not judge engineered flooring on the samples at Home Despot. Home Despot is a great place, but because of the breadth of products it carries, it simply cannot supply and stock a full line of anything, not just a full line of flooring products. Almost every flooring worth getting there is special-order.

The engineered flooring they sell (Universal) is good quality in one respect because it has a thick top-layer, but because they come in tiles that are three planks wide, they often look awful when installed; you can tell the diffeence between the seams within each tile and the seams between the tiles. You can tell where each tile begins and ends, which makes it look fake, not like real hardwood flooring. (Same problem with Pergo). You should get engineered flooring sold in individual planks, not in tiled clusters of planks.

There are also suppliers that hardwood flooring directly to customers off the Internet. Last year, I found premium, Clear-quality, Brazilian Cherry in 3-inch planks for $4 a square foot.

Pretty darned close to a swindle. Avoid Beaver at all costs... I cannot count the names and emails I get.

I purchased the flooring for my bedroom from HD. It was a special order, never buy whats in stock. It was the premium rosewood flooring, looks fantastic and every board but one was straight, the one that wasnt, I was still able to use. In the rest of the house we used Bruce. Never, Ever again will I use bruce flooring. I would say 65% of the wood was warped in some form or another, which required some big time smacking of the hammer. Luckily I used an air nailer, but some of the edge pieces moved after being down for a while now and you can see gaps. THeir support aint that either.