Advice on what type of new wooden floor

justanotherguy · 12 Apr 2010

Looking for a new wooden floor. Some questions

1) Engineered vs solid: Will be laid in an open plan room that includes the kitchen and we also want quite wide board. Apparently for both these reasons man in shop recommended 7mm engineered, to limit expansion. The cost of the oak one was £70 p.s.m

2) Baked vs stained: We saw a baked oak colour, quite dark. We liked the idea that scratches wouldn't show as much as it's the same colour all the way through. However, we really liked the look of walnut grain. Man in shop said walnut was a lot more work to maintain. Is that valid?

3) Where to buy? Is online much cheaper? Difficult to really tell what it looks like online.

Marcos

WoodYouLike · 12 Apr 2010

The "man" means 7mm total thickness of engineered boards, or solid top layer of 7mm?

Baked Oak (also called Thermo-heated) can be dark brown up to pitch black, depends on the characteristic of the individual board. See here for more (plus image)

Dark, black colours will show dust rather easy.

Don't know why "man" thinks Walnut needs more maintenance?

justanotherguy · 12 Apr 2010

WoodYouLike said:
The "man" means 7mm total thickness of engineered boards, or solid top layer of 7mm?

Looking at the sample he gave us, the latter. The solid layer looks to be just under a centimetre.

I've heard of 14mm - is that necessarily better? Does it simply give you a few more sandings? How many sandings would 7mm give you?

Also - is it advisable to screw/glue even if not technically required?

WoodYouLike · 12 Apr 2010

Let's start with what type of underfloor you have and the state/quality of it.

If sound, level and dry a 15mm wood-engineer floor would suit you as well as a thicker (more expensive) wood-engineered floor. The latter are more rigid so can tackle little dips in the floor better (won't flex that much), plus they can be installed directly onto joists.

In all the 10 years we've been installing 15 and 20mm thick engineered boards here in the UK we have never had to re-sand any of them, so that is not really the most important issue (or do you plan to have "house-parties" every fortnight?

).
Taking care of your wood floor is more important, keeping it healthy by applying a suitable maintenance product every 5 - 6 months (no matter if you have an oiled or lacquer finish). with the modern liquid polishes this is done in 15 - 30 minutes (depending on how large the area is).

The installation method depends on the product you buy and again on the type of underfloor. But don't screw your floor!

Petest67 · 12 Apr 2010

WoodYouLike said:
But don't screw your floor!

You'll get splinters!

Couldn't resist it.

mac391 · 13 Apr 2010

I screwed a black walnut floor many years ago and regretted it ever since !!!

A 7mm (top or wear layer) is pretty substantial for an engineered board. Is it single plank ? And what is the total thickness ?

The all important sub-floor.... Is it timber or concrete ?? Not much point in bothering about baked, stained, wide board, floating or solid till we know this ? and your preffered method of installation, floating, nail down, glued etc...

Most online stores will send you a sample on request, including woodyoulike...

WoodYouLike · 14 Apr 2010

mac391 said:
Most online stores will send you a sample on request, including woodyoulike...

Eh, nope: Samples, why Not

We rather give access (see webform here) to large high resolution interior design images showing a floor in its whole and true character.

mac391 · 14 Apr 2010

WoodYouLike said:
mac391 said:

Most online stores will send you a sample on request, including woodyoulike...

Click to expand...

Eh, nope: Samples, why Not

We rather give access (see webform here) to large high resolution interior design images showing a floor in its whole and true character.

Sorry wyl, i mistakenly read somewhere, prolly on another site whilst i was checking yours out.. Apologies

justanotherguy · 22 Apr 2010

Thanks for input.

We had kind of settled on 190mm wide walnut with an oil finish. We saw samples we liked, and a price of about £75 psm inc vat.

But they then said it was grade ABCD - I looked into this more, and apparently that means it would be 'very rustic'

Looking for what seems to be called 'prime' means the prices doubles, which when you're doing 50 sqm adds nearly £3k, which tends to make us reconsider oak.

As for the subfloor, they took away all the old pine boards, screwed down foam-backed plywood. It's pretty level, given it's a 100 year old floor.

If we can get a nice oil finished walnut floor, with 18cm boards, for <£80 inc VAT we'll go for it, but otherwise looking for other suggestions.

WoodYouLike · 22 Apr 2010

Walnut is getting more and more expensive so careful when you are offered low prices (where low means below the £80 ex VAT a sq m) for the tick engineered board you are after.

Rustic in Walnut means colour differences, the "lower" the grade - like CD - the more colour differences you will have not only between the boards but also in the boards (sapwood allowed).

Prime is indeed even more expensive but will not have many colour differences.

If you are looking for an alternative (colour wise) you could decide on Lapacho/Ipe/Tajibo/Brazilian Walnut (all names for the same wood-species, just depends where the tree came from).

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Advice on what type of new wooden floor

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