Flooring Guides
SPC, Laminate or Engineered Hardwood: How to Choose
SPC vinyl belongs in kitchens, entries and homes with pets: a core of stone and polymer has nothing in it that swells when it gets wet. Laminate usually costs least and resists scratches well, but it wants dry rooms. Engineered hardwood is real wood on a stable core: warmer underfoot, the dearest of the three, and it dents.
What each of the three floors actually is
All three are layered planks with a click or glue joint, and all three can be made to look like oak. The difference is the middle.
- SPC vinyl: a core of limestone powder and polymer under a printed wood-look layer and a clear wear layer. Dense, stiff, and it does not absorb water.
- Laminate: a dense fibreboard core, which is wood fibre and resin pressed hard, under a printed layer and a wear layer rated for abrasion.
- Engineered hardwood: a genuine hardwood veneer bonded to a plywood or composite core, so the surface is wood and the layers below stop it moving the way a solid board would.
Those three cores explain nearly every difference that follows. Stone does not care about water. Wood fibre swells when it takes water on. Real wood moves with humidity and dents under a point load, and the engineered core limits the first of those but not the second.
How do SPC, laminate and engineered hardwood handle water?
SPC handles it best, because there is nothing in the core to swell. A tipped water bowl or snowmelt from boots left by a Toronto front door will not blow the plank up at the joint. Wipe it up anyway: water that gets past the edges and runs to the walls sits under the floor, where nobody sees it until the smell arrives.
Laminate is the one to be careful with. A fibreboard core that takes on water swells at the edge, and a swollen plank gets replaced rather than dried out.
Some lines are rated for a stated period of surface water before that happens. In our catalogue, Harbour is rated for 24 hours and Lakeshore for 72. That buys you time to find a spill, not permission to put the floor in a laundry room.
Engineered hardwood sits in between. The core is stable enough for a basement or a concrete slab where solid wood would not go, but the surface is wood, so standing water will mark the finish and lift the grain. Treat it as a floor that tolerates humidity swings rather than one that tolerates puddles.
Which one feels best underfoot?
Engineered hardwood, by a clear margin, and that is the main reason people pay for it. Real wood is warmer to bare feet than vinyl or laminate and it has a softer sound when you walk on it. SPC is the firmest and coolest of the three, which is a fair trade in a kitchen and more noticeable in a bedroom. Laminate sits between them and can sound hollow if the underlay is thin.
| SPC vinyl | AC4 laminate | Engineered hardwood | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Core | Limestone powder and polymer | Dense fibreboard | Hardwood veneer on a stable core |
| Water | Core does not swell | Swells if water reaches the core | Tolerates humidity, not standing water |
| Install | Floating drop click | Click-lock floating | Nail down or glue down |
| Over radiant heat | Approved on the Marina Collection | Approved on the Gallery Collection | Approved on Kingsway and Atelier |
| Relative cost | Lowest to middling | Lowest | Highest |
The appearance gap has narrowed more than the feel gap. A printed layer on a good SPC or laminate plank is convincing in a photograph and at standing height. Crouch down, or run a hand across it, and the repeat in the pattern and the uniform grain give it away. You can see the five types on one page at compare the five flooring types.
What does each floor cost you after the install?
Laminate is usually the cheapest to buy and the cheapest to replace, and that matters more than it sounds: a damaged plank in the middle of a floating floor means unclicking back to it, and the cost of that work is the same whatever the plank was. SPC sits a little above laminate on material and behaves the same way on repair.
Engineered hardwood costs the most and asks the most of you afterwards. Felt pads under every chair leg, mats at the doors to stop grit, and humidity kept reasonably steady through an Ontario winter, when heated indoor air turns very dry.
In exchange, some engineered products can be sanded and refinished once, depending on the wear layer. No vinyl or laminate floor can be sanded at all.
If refinishing matters more to you than anything else, solid hardwood that can be refinished goes further again, though it will not go down over a concrete slab.
Floorrable quotes all three the same way. An online estimate gives a range in about two minutes, and a free measurement afterwards settles it into a firm price that already carries the waste and the prep. Removal of the old floor is priced separately, by what is actually on the floor now, because carpet, floating planks, glued vinyl and ceramic are four different days of work and four different disposal weights.
Does your building allow all three?
Often not, and this is the question that decides the choice for condo owners before any of the above does. A Toronto condo corporation's flooring requirements come from its declaration, by-laws and rules, and they usually name an underlay and ask for a floating assembly rather than anything fixed to the slab. That rules out nail-down installation on its own.
The requirement also applies to the finished assembly, meaning the slab, the underlay and the plank together, rather than to the plank by itself. So a product sheet cannot answer it, and neither can we until we have seen the rule.
Ask the property manager for the flooring policy in writing. That is the first thing covered under condo flooring and building approvals.
For a house the question changes shape: what is under the carpet, and is the subfloor flat and sound enough to take what you want to put on it?
Choosing between the three
- If water or heavy traffic is the worry, start with SPC vinyl, and put it at least in the kitchen and the entry.
- If the rooms stay dry and the budget leads, laminate earns its keep, and an AC4 rated line handles the scratching that comes with everyday life.
- If the feel and the look of real wood matter most, choose engineered hardwood and accept that it will dent and show its age.
- Mix them. Most homes end up with a water tolerant floor in the wet rooms and wood where people sit, and transitions between the two are a normal part of the job.
- If none of that settles it, the Floor Finder quiz shortlists by room and by how you live in it.
- When you have a shortlist, get a price range for your home, and a free measurement turns it into a firm price.
Floors that fit this guide
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Frequently asked questions
SPC is one kind of vinyl plank. Its rigid core of limestone powder and polymer makes it firmer, more stable in temperature swings and less prone to denting than the flexible vinyl plank that is glued down to a prepared subfloor.
Laminate can go in a kitchen if spills get wiped up promptly, and a line rated for surface water gives you longer to find one. If water is a regular event in that room, from a dishwasher or a pet bowl, SPC vinyl is the safer core.
Yes, the surface is genuine hardwood, so it looks and feels like wood because it is wood. The engineered core beneath it is what makes the plank more stable than a solid board, which is why it can go over a concrete slab or into a basement.
SPC vinyl suits most Toronto condo suites, because a concrete slab is cold and flat and the corporation usually requires a floating floor on a named underlay. Engineered hardwood is allowed in many buildings too, provided the rule permits a glued or floating assembly.
Only the wood ones. Some engineered hardwood products can be sanded and refinished once, depending on the thickness of the wear layer, and solid hardwood can be refinished several times. SPC vinyl and laminate have printed surfaces and cannot be sanded at all.
