What is a wear layer and can engineered floors be sanded and refinished like solid hardwood floors?
A. A wear layer is the top layer of wood on a multi-layered engineered wood floor, that holds the species and colour you are choosing. There isn’t any advantage to using the same species of wood all the way through an engineered plank, particularly with more expensive wood species. Using a less expensive species in the middle and base layers offsets the cost of producing engineered floors. Typically, a good wear layer is about 1/8″ thick and can be sanded and refinished just like a solid, single-layer wood floor. An engineered floor can only be sanded the depth of the wear layer which often is typically about where the tongue and groove starts (see illustration below). This is similar to a solid hardwood floor which can’t be sanded any deeper than the tongue and groove without revealing the application nails.
