My wife and I are looking at either solid hardwoods or engineered.

Is the main difference one can only be refinished once?

We have 2 small dogs who never scratched our laminate floors.
Laminate finish is more scratch resistant I'm assuming?

My question is does the harder the wood matter for scratches since it's the finish that will scratch?

Any recommendations on what wood we should go with?

airtas:



It sounds like you're in the very early stages of looking at wood floors. The number of times an engineered hardwood can be refinished depends largely on the surface wear layer. Laminate floors are not real wood but rather made up of composites that resist scratching.

Harder the wood? That's always a tug of war with many new floor owners. Don't let anyone convince you harder is better. Recommendation?

Try these links...and get back with us.

http://www.hardwoodinstaller.com/prepar ... rdness.htm - see the information below the hardness chart. It may open your eyes a bit.

http://www.hardwoodinstaller.com/preparation/types.htm

Thanks Ken,

Those links help alot.

My biggest thing is with the dogs. We are definitely doing pre-finished and know all floors will scratch from dogs but will any type of wood be more resistant than another?

I was at a local store and they told me the more coats of clear coat the better on the finish. How does this help? If you have 8 coats of clear coat and the first coat is scratched wouldn't it look the same as if there were 4 coats on it?

Resistant?

How about ability to disguise? In one of those articles I went on to talk about older red oak floors which were and have always been the mainstay of millions of homes. We don't hear many complaints about these types because the grain disguises the inevitable scratching all floors get.

With the concern over dogs, I would choose something that has more grain, or character floors that seem to be so popular today. You could even go with a distressed hardwood, but will they remain stylish or be one of those "we gotta rip this out" moments in 10 or 15 years.

I would consider going with a brand of engineered "Kahrs" the finish is resistant, fairly priced, and not bad at all to install. Other than that lower sheen finish will hide scratches better, and I agree characteristics of the wood also can help blend things in. Kahrs probably isn't what your looking for but it may be worth at-least looking at it.

It is difficult question to answer because all hardwood has scratch with time. If you are searching for a scratch resistance wood floor, choose a hardwood species with a high quality finish, a hardwood with specially engineered finish will provide you maximum durability.

doesn't color play into how obvious the scratching is as well? and if scratching is a major fear of the customer shouldn't some faux products be an option?? with the introduction of hd imaging in the production of these products they are more beautiful than ever. I am in no way saying they actually match the beauty produced by nature, but not everyone is staring at the floor every where they go.