What is Real Wood Flooring?

For many homeowners, the concept of wood flooring falls across a broad spectrum: everything from solid hardwood that is real wood from top to bottom to 100-percent fake wood flooring, such as wood-look porcelain and laminate. But what is the definition of real wood flooring?

Short Answer

Real wood flooring has real wood of any thickness on its top surface. Any material can be below that top surface.

Details

With fake wood flooring dismantling the definition of real wood flooring in the minds of consumers, the National Wood Flooring Association (NWFA) in October 2018 stepped in and formed a strategic task force that, among other initiatives, came up with the formal definition of real wood flooring.

The task force first defined real wood as being, “the hard fibrous material that forms from the main substance of the trunk or branches and beneath the bark of a tree.” This definition leads to NWFA’s formal definition of wood flooring: “A wood floor is any flooring product that contains real wood as the top-most, wearable surface of the floor.” (emphasis added)

So, according to the NWFA, as long as the part that you are walking on is real wood, of the type that is taken straight from the trunk and branches (not including bark), it is considered to be a real wood floor.

By the NWFA’s definition, a real wood floor falls into any of three categories:

• Solid hardwood flooring, which is real wood from top to bottom
• Engineered wood flooring, which is a top-most veneer surface of real wood with a lower plywood-type base. Though this base is a cross-hatched plywood that would not be suitable for walking on, it is still 100-percent real wood. Presumably, NWFA does not include the glues used to bind the layers.
• Composite engineered wood flooring, which is real wood on the top-most surface but with a “backing and core material [that] may be made up of any type of composite material.” (emphasis added)

It’s this last category that should perk up your ears, since the word “any” has an incredibly broad definition. This means that products as unusual as Cali Bamboo’s GeoWood, composite engineered wood flooring that is a very thin wood veneer atop a mineral base that contains limestone, would be considered to be real wood flooring.

Trusted Sources

The NWFA is a lobby group for the wood flooring industry. NWFA Announces Official Definition of Real Wood Flooring, October 29, 2018

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