Customer Reviews for OptiWood Natural Hickory Hickory 7 mm T x 5 in. W Waterproof Engineered Hardwood Flooring (16.7 sqft/case)

The product is good,, but they have a serious problem with product consistency I opened several boxes that had no dark brown at all and ended up with 5 boxes of medium brown extra at the end of a 700sq floor.. so if you use this order atleast 100sq more.. other than that this is the 2nd time I've installed this flooring,,it's durable and beautiful...

We’ve had our floors for less than a year and they aren’t holding up at all. The finish is completely chipping and wearing away. We don’t have any animals and we have two baby girls that could no way do this to flooring. Currently trying to see what my options on are the warranty but I don’t see how this could possibly be fixed. We used this in our entire main level about 2000 sqft… disgusted that we spent so much for this to happen to us.

product feels solid and looks ok but the feel of the surface on my feet is chaulky and hate it. Wish I went with something with a smooth surface.

Overall a fantastic floor. The finish is excellent — looking at the floor as the light rakes across it, you get a really nice warm, soft, reflection and can see the grain clearly. I compared this one to many other “real wood” waterproof engineered floors and this finish was by far the best. Many others were either too glossy or too smooth. The smooth looking ones might as well have been printed wood laminate. If you’re paying for real wood, it’s gotta have a nice texture and this one does. I also really like how thin these are. I put them in my basement which has low ceilings so every little bit counts and these were about the thinnest real wood option out there. They also installed very easily. The only thing I didn’t like, and why this is 4 stars and not 5, is that they are not “clear grade” as advertised. About 10-15% of the pieces have knots. The knots are filled in with some black filler and some of them are ok but some are way too big for the look I want. The color was also not as consistent as the picture might suggest. This is partly to be expected because it’s real wood but just something to keep in mind. Overall I still love the floor and would buy it again. But if you’re expecting clear (knot-free) wood then I’d suggest buying 20% extra instead of the usual 10%.

We order 3 different boxes of color for sample. Excellent idea as the color have so many variations. in the end we choose one color and so far we love it, it have the beauty of the wood with the easiest click installation of the the vinyl. No underlayment pad necessary is also a good feature.

I bought about 1000 square feet of the Optiwood in Honeytone. Proviso: I am not yet done installing it. I'm about 60% done. I'm very impressed. The stuff looks gorgeous. I was a little worried from the pictures that it would be too "busy", with lots of tone changes, like you often see with hickory. (I had to order the stuff sight unseen.) It's true that there is more variation than with some oak, but I don't find it anywhere close to too busy. The variation actually helps it look more like what it is--hardwood--rather than a veneer on laminate. Installation is pretty easy, modulo the natural learning curve of headstrong DIYers. Some notes: 1. You'll want a roughly 2-3 foot piece of wood--I used a scrap piece of 1x3--to set along the long edge each piece so you can tap it in with a mallet without damaging the edge of the flooring. (The "tapping block" spreads out the force of the mallet strike.) 2. It's really nice that the underlayment is already attached to the bottom of each piece of flooring. I have never done flooring before, and I'm sure underlayment is not hard to put down as a separate step, but it's still nice to eliminate a step. This also eliminates the possibility of underlayment bunching up underneath your flooring, etc. 3. However, note that if you're installing over concrete slab, to preserve your warranty you have to first put down 6 mil plastic. (Tip: you don't have to buy the rolls of plastic especially for flooring--I bought a big roll of 10-foot-wide plastic used on construction sites. It was less than half the cost per square foot and I could lay it down with fewer seams.) 4. I had a series of incidents where the lower lip on the short end--where it snaps together with the upper lip on the short end of the next plank--broke off as I was trying to hammer the two together. I couldn't figure it out but it was incredibly frustrating: I had to undo a whole row of flooring and find a way to use the now-damaged piece (usually at the end of the row, where you cut off the end anyway). I *think* this was much more likely to happen when the "receiving" plank was not lying flat on the subfloor. So when I hammered the short ends together, the whole assembly was banging against the ground from a half inch or so in the air, so to speak. Moral of the story: when you're connecting short end to short end, hold down the already installed piece so that it's lying flat on the ground. 5. Many of the boxes have 2 or 4 pieces that are shorter than (the standard) 48 inches. There are 3 different sizes for the shorter pieces, and their distribution seems to be random, within a range: some boxes have only standard lengths, some boxes have 2 shorter planks, some have 4--and which of the shorter sizes you get varies too. These shorter planks are great for certain tricky scenarios, but if you save them only for those scenarios they end up piling up (in my experience). At the same time, using them in the normal course of the install doesn't look quite as good. So I think they include too many of those. I'll probably end up using lots of them in closets and other places where they won't be seen much. Overall, I love the flooring so far. Highly recommend.

very nice so far, and it looks so good. I'm not sure how it will hold up over time but I did a scratch test and it was the only sample flooring that didn't leave a dent or chip off. I'm very excited to clean it up and see it

We love our new Optiwood winter stone floors. Installed easily without needing an underlayment. Good price...we got it on sale. Only reason we didn’t give 5 stars is because there were some boxes with varied lengths of planks, and ended up with too many small pieces left.

Love everything about this floor. Loved the way it went together too. Highly engineered, tight joints. Beautiful to live on

Not sure why Home depot doesn't promote these floors as much as the others but, this is excellent flooring. I like that I didn't need any padding/Underlayment to install as the floor includes padding on the back side. Everything went down easily and the click-lock system works flawlessly. The floor finish is very uniform and consistent. There was a good amount of randomness for the board lengths resulting in less time wasted attempting to mix up the boards from different packages. I can attest to the hardness rating, accidentally dropped a hammer from 5 ft climbing a ladder and the floor took the hit with no damage at all, very impressed. I will definitely purchase more of this flooring in the future.

I installed about 800 sqft of this flooring in my basement. Installation was easy. Laid down 6 mil poly over concrete sub floor, then floated this floor above it. This floor is sold as various length but i found that amounted to 4 different sizes. There was a full length piece, half, 1/3rd and 2/3rd lengths. I found a few defects on some pieces but not many overall. I had more defective pieces in my more expensive Cali bamboo flooring i installed upstairs. There was a little more color variation then I expected but it doesn't bother me. Wood is a natural product so i guess this should be expected. Overall, i am pleased with the way it turned out so far. Time will tell how well it holds up. I think it will take wear quite well given the color and texture. It is not glossy which will show scratches easily. I am glad there is an option for waterproof below grade wood flooring.

garbage product HORRIBLE with scratch and wear and tear this is a real review ** do not buy ** their warranty is complete garbage q roller chair wore thru the top coat to the bare wood in 2 years customer service was very rude stay away !!

very nice product, looks good and went together very nicely….easy to work with…..only a few damaged pieces but able to use them anyway with a cut….several pieces had what looked like a roller mark of some kind but i could still use them for under the bed, just have to keep an eye on it…when installing left alot of shoe marks but they swiftered right away...

Nice solid product but the color did not match the pictures so well

Looked nothing like the picture

Looks great in my laundry room. Will have to wait a while to see how it holds up to my pets and wear and tear of daily life. Contractor loved the quality of the floor and ease of installation.

Best floors on the market

I just love these colors together. They match the flagstone in my fireplace wall.

Rating provided by a verified purchaser

Great matte look, great price. Easy, clean cuts with miter saw. Easy install. Only a few unusable boards out of 33 boxes. My only real gripe is the plethora of 2ft boards included. These boards are very thin (1/4”) so if you have baseboards, you’ll need to remove and lower, or use quarter round/shoe to cover the new gap. One tip…open all the boxes before you begin and layout…there will be some boxes where the boards are much, much darker than the rest, and need to be mixed in randomly with your layout pattern.

This is the worst floor ever, on the website it looks fantastic, in person it is not the same. The color is not the same and the picture quality is very poor. I will not recommend this floor to anybody. Scratches Very easily!!! VERY DISAPPOINTED

Rating provided by a verified purchaser

Easy to install once you get the hang of it. Hold up well to scratches so far. I beat a piece with a hammer as a test, then churched up the damage with a sharpie. Still looks pretty good. Way more durable than the solid wood floors we had picked out.

Not as substantial or thick as i thought it would be. Easy to put together, but quite a heavy product. We'll see over time how well it wears. Also- the floor is slightly squeaky, unlike other engineered flooring I've used. I was going to use underlayment but directions say not needed.

Rating provided by a verified purchaser

The product did not "click" together like advertised. You still had to hammer it together and then it won't always stay in place. Very nice looking product.

The photos they chose to advertise with minimized the amount of knots in the product. I know knots are to be expected with hickory, but this was a ridiculous amount of knots on every single piece. The floor would have looked like it was leopard print.

Easy to install. Waterproof but easily scratches and dents which is a bummer. Have to be careful with pushing furniture. You can only carry them.

Nice product which enhance the room