Can You Put Engineered Hardwood In A Bathroom? (Find Out Now!)

Bathroom remodels are one of the most popular home upgrades. New styles in fixtures, finished, and color schemes can brighten a bathroom and add value to your home. Many homeowners planning a bathroom upgrade wonder if they can put engineered hardwood products in their bathrooms.

Engineered hardwood flooring products can be used in bathrooms. Engineered hardwood flooring products can be as water-resistant as other types of more traditional bathroom flooring. Engineered hardwood flooring does require a bit more care and maintenance than tile or stone flooring. You should follow the manufacturer’s recommendations when installing engineered hardwood flooring in a bathroom.

All flooring has its own requirements for installation and maintenance. Failing to follow these recommendations and instructions can result in the engineered hardwood flooring not performing up to specifications and, in some cases, voiding the warranty on the flooring.

Engineered hardwood flooring is a manufactured product that gives a look and feel of real wood without many of the downsides of real wood products. The method of manufacturing engineered wood products is to layer one on top of another using special glues.

The process creates wood product layers that cross the wood grains, producing a much more structurally stable product than real wood. The special glues give the engineered wood a high resistance to moisture and provide a stable substrate for the wood veneer finish applied to the top surface.

Typically, the veneer applied to the tops surface is between 5 and 10mm thick. The thicker the veneer, the more expensive and more wear-resistant the flooring.

Engineered hardwood flooring products are typically easier to install than real hardwood. The engineered products Typically, engineered products are uniform in length and width and don’t require any special fitting to install.

The engineered flooring products are usually three-eighths to five-eights of an inch thick. Most real hardwood flooring is ¾ of an inch thick. This thinner dimension often allows the engineered flooring to be placed over existing flooring.

The tongue and groove joints can be fitted tightly to give a seamless and smooth floor without special tools or equipment. In addition, the veneer finish on engineered wood flooring doesn’t need to be sanded or finished after installation.

You should first determine the type of sub-floor in your bathroom. Installing engineered wood flooring on a wood subflooring is different than installing on a concrete floor. Many single-story homes in the US are built on a slab foundation, and any flooring is installed directly on the concrete slab.

Older homes on pier and beam foundations or bathrooms on the second floor almost always have a wood sub-flooring of some sort. This can be particleboard, plywood or some other sheet stock.

You need to remove the old flooring in the bathroom. Often this will require you to remove the toilet as well. Your floor should be cleaned down to the sub-flooring to make the installation proper and correct.

The sub-flooring must be clean and dry. If the sub-floor is concrete, have the moisture in the concrete checked. The manufacturer of your engineered wood flooring often has maximum concrete moistures for installing the flooring products.

In some cases, if the moisture content is above the recommended level, a moisture-resistant barrier must be placed between the concrete and the engineered wood flooring.

While preparing the bathroom and the sub-flooring, it is a good idea to let your engineered wood flooring product acclimate to your home. For example, if your engineered wood flooring is wrapped in plastic, open the plastic to all air circulation around the planks. You should allow your new flooring to acclimate at two days to your home environment.

If you fail to acclimate your flooring, it could shrink or expand after it is installed. This can cause major and expensive problems with your new flooring.