Compare parquet and engineered board

Our experts — pro­fes­sion­als in the field of con­struc­tion and repair have ana­lyzed the prop­er­ties and fea­tures of two sim­i­lar floor­ing mate­ri­als — par­quet and engi­neered boards, made a com­par­a­tive analy­sis of their advan­tages and dis­ad­van­tages, which will help you make the right choice.

parquet board

A high-tech prod­uct that is made by glu­ing two or three lay­ers of wood mate­ri­als. The low­er, as well as the mid­dle lay­er is made of conif­er­ous wood, the upper, front lay­er is made of pre­cious wood. Each lay­er is posi­tioned so that the wood fibers are per­pen­dic­u­lar to the fibers of the oth­er lay­er. This gives the par­quet strength and resis­tance to changes in humid­i­ty and tem­per­a­ture extremes. The thick­ness of the top lay­er can vary with­in 0.5–6 mm with a total thick­ness of up to 22 mm.

Par­quet dimen­sions accord­ing to the stan­dard: length with­in 1.8–2.5 m, width 140–200 mm, thick­ness from 14 to 22 mm.

Accord­ing to the norms of the State Stan­dard, the par­quet board is clas­si­fied into three types:

1. type PD‑1 — has a base of a sin­gle lay­er of wood, which is recruit­ed from indi­vid­ual slats, formed into rec­tan­gles or squares, which are locat­ed per­pen­dic­u­lar to each oth­er. Long slats are passed along the lon­gi­tu­di­nal edges of the base;

2. type PD‑2 — with a base of one lay­er of long rails arranged along the length;

3. type PD‑3 — with a two-lay­er base, assem­bled from laths or wood veneer, with the direc­tion of the fibers of each lay­er per­pen­dic­u­lar to each oth­er. The bot­tom lay­er is laid with the direc­tion of the fibers along the length, the mid­dle one is per­pen­dic­u­lar. The thick­ness of the lay­er can reach 8–9 mm, grooves and ridges are made in it for lock­ing joints.

The most com­mon and wide­ly used is a three-lay­er par­quet type PD‑3. Man­u­fac­tur­ers pro­duce par­quet com­plete­ly ready for use, the front of which is cov­ered with sev­er­al lay­ers of var­nish, which does not require fin­ish­ing work after lay­ing, as, for exam­ple, for piece par­quet. Also, the front lay­er of prod­ucts can be sub­ject­ed to var­i­ous pro­cess­ing meth­ods — impreg­na­tion with oils, tint­ing with var­nish­es of dif­fer­ent shades, brush­ing (arti­fi­cial aging) to give a spe­cial col­or and tex­ture to prod­ucts.

If grooves are cut in the prod­ucts and ridges are made on the sides, then the par­quet can be laid like a lam­i­nate — with the for­ma­tion of locks at the joints of adja­cent prod­ucts, that is, in a “float­ing” way with­out glu­ing to the base. If there is no tongue, then they are laid with glu­ing to the base at the joints.

engineering board

The engi­neer­ing board has recent­ly appeared in con­struc­tion prac­tice. It is a prod­uct of two lay­ers of wood mate­ri­als glued togeth­er, in which the base is made of mul­ti­lay­er mois­ture-resis­tant ply­wood (usu­al­ly birch), the top, front lay­er is made of valu­able wood species. Cutouts and ridges are formed in the ply­wood base lay­er to cre­ate inter­locks dur­ing lay­ing. For the top lay­er, sol­id lay­ers of wood are used, in con­trast to the par­quet board, in which the front lay­er can be recruit­ed from indi­vid­ual boards.

Dimen­sions pro­duced by man­u­fac­tur­ers: length varies between 50 — 600 cm, width 120–450 mm, thick­ness with­in 12–20 mm.

The front lay­er can be sub­ject­ed to the same fin­ish­ing oper­a­tions as par­quet — impreg­na­tion with oil, tint­ing with var­nish or brush­ing.

Table of advantages and disadvantages

The main differences between materials

The main dif­fer­ences between the mate­ri­als are as fol­lows:

1. a par­quet board can be assem­bled from indi­vid­ual slats and boards; in the man­u­fac­ture of an engi­neer­ing board, sol­id wood lamel­las are used for the front lay­er and sol­id ply­wood blanks for the base;

2. engi­neered board is less sen­si­tive to changes in indoor humid­i­ty, can be used in “warm floor” sys­tems;

3. when cov­er­ing from an engi­neered board, it is not required to leave a defor­ma­tion gap around the perime­ter of the room, it is also eas­i­er to make joints with oth­er floor cov­er­ings;

4. when lay­ing engi­neer­ing boards, it is rec­om­mend­ed to use adhe­sive fas­ten­ing to the base, in con­trast to par­quet boards, which can be laid by any means.

How are the materials similar?

The sim­i­lar­i­ty of mate­ri­als is as fol­lows:

1. both mate­ri­als are mul­ti-lay­er prod­ucts made of nat­ur­al wood for the front floor cov­er­ing;

2. the upper, front lay­ers of both mate­ri­als are made from pre­cious woods sub­ject­ed to the same pro­cess­ing;

3. both mate­ri­als can be used for floor­ing in rooms of the same pur­pose;

4. when lay­ing the coat­ing, lock­ing joints are used;

5. both mate­ri­als are envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly, as they are made from nat­ur­al wood;

6. prod­ucts are durable, do not lose tex­ture and do not fade under solar ultra­vi­o­let radi­a­tion dur­ing the entire peri­od of oper­a­tion;

7. cov­er­ings from both mate­ri­als have approx­i­mate­ly the same attrac­tive appear­ance with the tex­ture of nat­ur­al wood.

Con­clu­sions: The mate­ri­als are very sim­i­lar in their prop­er­ties and appear­ance, how­ev­er, the engi­neered board has some advan­tages due to a wider area of ​​appli­ca­tion, resis­tance to mois­ture and tem­per­a­ture changes, and a vari­ety of lay­ing meth­ods.