In most cases, solid timber is preferred over engineered wood, but this isn’t always the case. For example, those who want to add a wood floor to their bathroom will almost certainly benefit from opting for engineered wood instead of genuine timber, and here are just a few reasons why.
Engineered Wood Can Handle Moisture
It should go without saying that any flooring used in your bathroom is going to meet more than its fair share of moisture. Unfortunately, moisture is essentially the kryptonite of natural timber. When it becomes wet, it tends to swell, which can damage or permanently warp the boards and necessitate an expensive refit. Additionally, genuine timber floorboards aren’t watertight, so any water that drips onto your bathroom floor could penetrate through to the subfloor. Engineered wood flooring doesn’t suffer from such issues.
Engineered Wood Is Relatively Light
If you’ve ever handled both a timber floorboard and a piece of engineered wood flooring, you’ll already know that the genuine article is markedly heavier. This often impacts the placement of timber flooring in bathrooms because bathrooms tend to be on the first floor. In general, upper floors are not designed to take such weight. If you want genuine timber flooring in your upstairs bathroom, you may find that work must be done to the structure to handle the weight. That shouldn’t be the case with engineered wood flooring.
Engineered Wood Works with Underfloor Heating
Maybe you don’t have underfloor heating right now, but you might want it in the future, especially in the bathroom. Timber doesn’t work very well with underfloor heating. Its density and thickness prevents heat rising effectively, and it generally takes up too much space to have anything else fitted beneath. If you want to leave your bathroom open to underfloor heating, go with engineered wood instead of genuine timber.
Engineered Wood in the Bathroom Doesn’t Need to be Tough
A central advantage held by genuine timber over engineered wood is its toughness and durability, and that’s a real benefit in areas like the kitchen, where people are frequently going to be walking with shoes on or carrying heavy items that could be dropped. But people rarely wear shoes, especially heavy boots or high heels, in the bathroom, and there aren’t many heavy items to drop. At the end of the day, one of timber’s most fundamental advantages just isn’t relevant in the bathroom.
