Solid hardwood
Flooring milled from a single piece of wood, typically 3/4" (19 mm), with a generational wear layer and high sensitivity to humidity swings.
Solid hardwood is one material all the way through, which is both its advantage and its constraint. The advantage is a wear layer that supports many refinishing cycles. The constraint is that there is no cross-ply construction resisting seasonal movement.
It is correct over a plywood subfloor, nailed down, in a home with a controlled humidity range. It is not correct over concrete or radiant heat, and no budget argument changes that.
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Terms this one depends on
- Engineered hardwoodFlooring that pairs a real hardwood wear layer with a 90° cross-ply core, which is what gives it dimensional stability over concrete, in condominiums and above radiant heat.
- Wear layerThe thickness of real hardwood above the core — what determines how many times a floor can be refinished.
- Nail-downFastening flooring mechanically to a wood subfloor — correct for solid hardwood over plywood.
- SubfloorWhat the finished floor is installed onto — plywood over joists, a concrete slab, or a radiant assembly — and the thing that determines the installation method.
- Strip, plank and wide plankBoard-width categories defined by the flooring standard, not descriptive terms a showroom is free to apply as it likes.
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