How can I tell if flooring is laminate, engineered or wood?

[miljee]

Concrete floored 17 year old 'estate' house so definitely not 'period'! I can see the side of an area of the flooring (short ends of 'planks') by lifting the inset door mat. Thsi floor continuously covers most of the downstairs of the house.There are no layers in the material. It is tightly pushed together tongue and groove, like you'd expect from laminate.

It's a dark reddish colour but has faded to 'blonde' inside a french door, where the clear 'polyurethane varnish' has also broken down and lifted around dints and scratches in the floor. Basically, I want to know if I can sand it back (engineered) or whether I'm looking at a clever 'photograph' of wood! It's highly unlikely to be real wood.

Any ideas? Thanks.

 

[miljee]

I should add it's 'floating' as in it's laid on underfelt, on top of the concrete.

Having tried to look at photos on-line, I am interested in the fact there appear to be no layers at all on mine, and the 'grain' of the wood on top continues down the end-face of each plank.

Sorry I can't photograph- the one digital camera we have is on wedding duty abroad!

Each tongue and groove section is 260mm wide (no idea how long!) and each section comprises of smaller, oblong 'planks' of slightly different hued 'red' wood of varying lengths (all 65mm wide) and 'glued' together to give a bit of a chequerboard effect. It's 10mm thick.

What still makes me think it's not 'real' wood is apart from some serious 'dropped furniture' (I guess!) dints, the surface is still in quite good nick but is old enough to have sun-faded, and to have the 'varnish' lift in places. Laminate wouldn't be varnished, as such, would it? But might have a surface, clear layer that might lift with age? However, it doesn't clack like laminate when you walk across it.

Sorry about all the 'inverted commas'- I'm keen to imply that my use of the word 'wood' and 'varnish' means this stuff looks like wood but I don't think it is.... though getting it sanded would be a sight cheaper than replaced!

 

[EddieM]

How thick is it? 10:1 it's non sandable laminate.

 

[miljee]

12 or 13mm

 

[miljee]

To be honest, I am surprised, if it is laminate, that the manufacturers think it worthwhile to have 'grain' through all the depth if no one will ever see it?