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Somebody had asked for a review in advance, so here it is.
I installed the Kahrs Naples WhiteOak Engineered Prefinished Hardwood floor in my girls' bedroom this past weekend. I bought it at LumberLiquidators on the internet and picked it up at their store a week later. This is a floating-installation (no glue or nails).
The material was 5/8" thick - more than many others around (most of which are 9/16") thick. Each plank was 8' long, and 8" wide (actually three thinner strips laminated together). Now I know what engineered means - the top is a 1/8" thick oak hardwood. Below it is 7/16" thick pine, followed by another 1/16" thick pine layer. So not all 'hard' wood
Looks-wise, it's pretty decent, but not what I'd call top-notch. There are patches of not-so-good-grain on the face of the hardwood. But for a discounted rate ($2.78 / sq ft), I can live with it. Not that it jars the eye once the whole floor is in place. But practically no damages: The room is 120 sq ft, and in all that floor I saw a minor nick only one place, which is still undiscovered by my wife!
I worked mostly alone, and took only around 8 hours to complete the job. Of these, 2 hours were just to figure out how to cut the piece to go under the door jambs! (hey, i did admit i was doing it the first time!). I had done a lot of reading on the net about how to do this, and ended up feeling I saw less problems than predicted by everybody. This flooring uses a locking mechanism that from my uninitiated point of view seems nothing less than excellent.The tongue-and-groove is more of a lip-and-under-lip, easy to lock in, but pretty tough to unlock. On hindsight, just the sparse instruction sheet that comes in each flooring case is good enough to get the job done. If you are new to installing hardwood floors, I would highly recommend this. (Of course, I dunno if this is the defacto industry standard for engineered hardwood...)
As for quality - once installed on a layer of Quietwalk (my subfloor is concrete), the effect is pretty much grand. There are no sqeaks / bounce / creaks etc, no rough spots, nothing to detract. I like it, and more importantly, I earned quite some points with the LOML. I am already thinking of doing the master bedroom, maybe next month.
I installed the Kahrs Naples WhiteOak Engineered Prefinished Hardwood floor in my girls' bedroom this past weekend. I bought it at LumberLiquidators on the internet and picked it up at their store a week later. This is a floating-installation (no glue or nails).
The material was 5/8" thick - more than many others around (most of which are 9/16") thick. Each plank was 8' long, and 8" wide (actually three thinner strips laminated together). Now I know what engineered means - the top is a 1/8" thick oak hardwood. Below it is 7/16" thick pine, followed by another 1/16" thick pine layer. So not all 'hard' wood
Looks-wise, it's pretty decent, but not what I'd call top-notch. There are patches of not-so-good-grain on the face of the hardwood. But for a discounted rate ($2.78 / sq ft), I can live with it. Not that it jars the eye once the whole floor is in place. But practically no damages: The room is 120 sq ft, and in all that floor I saw a minor nick only one place, which is still undiscovered by my wife!
I worked mostly alone, and took only around 8 hours to complete the job. Of these, 2 hours were just to figure out how to cut the piece to go under the door jambs! (hey, i did admit i was doing it the first time!). I had done a lot of reading on the net about how to do this, and ended up feeling I saw less problems than predicted by everybody. This flooring uses a locking mechanism that from my uninitiated point of view seems nothing less than excellent.The tongue-and-groove is more of a lip-and-under-lip, easy to lock in, but pretty tough to unlock. On hindsight, just the sparse instruction sheet that comes in each flooring case is good enough to get the job done. If you are new to installing hardwood floors, I would highly recommend this. (Of course, I dunno if this is the defacto industry standard for engineered hardwood...)
As for quality - once installed on a layer of Quietwalk (my subfloor is concrete), the effect is pretty much grand. There are no sqeaks / bounce / creaks etc, no rough spots, nothing to detract. I like it, and more importantly, I earned quite some points with the LOML. I am already thinking of doing the master bedroom, maybe next month.