Any flooring experts out there?

jackkelly · 13 February 2007 at 4:58PM

Hi all,
Wondered if anyone could advise me, I am moving into a new house in april which has concrete floors thru out the downstairs. I wanted to put solid oak flooring down in the lounge the tongue and groove stuff no glue etc was looking at spending approx £35.00 sq metre, now today I went into a specialist flooring shop and the manager in there said he would not put solid oak down on a concrete floor and he recommended a solid oak engineered flooring at £44.99 sq metre.
Now my query is, is this correct what he has said or is he just trying to get me to spend more money? the more expensive floor did have a brushed and oiled finish which I liked as he said it would show up scratches less.
Any advise gratefully received

ritesh · 13 February 2007 at 6:42PM

Hi Jackkelly

We are in the same predicament. I have made some enquiries about this as well. We were told that if we wanted to use underfloor heating then we wood need engineered wood flooring otherwise level the concrete, put down insulation and then ordinary solid wood flooring on top.

Here is a link to a website that has good information in it

http://www.1926woodflooring.co.uk/index.htm

hope this helps and would be interested to see what others have to say

Cheers

misgrace · 13 February 2007 at 7:17PM

You can get really good engineered flooring for a lot less that £44 odd per sq metre, we have just got some, 30 sq metres, and it was laid at the weekend, it is the click system, but its individual planks, bevelled edges, and it looks fantastic, we had a concrete floor, and you can put it down, but need special underlay etc, but they advise not to put the glue system in a biggish area, as if you get a leak etc, it can lift the whole lot, wheras the click system can be replaced where its affected.

If you want I can give you a link, I will try and find it for you, as I think they still have thier sale on, ours was origianlly £45 per sq metre, but got it for £33, but it is the dogs dodahs.:D

Let me know if your interested.

jackkelly · 13 February 2007 at 7:38PM

Cheers that would be great, so I was under the assumption that engineered flooring was of lesser quality than solid wood flooring is this not the case?

ginvzt · 13 February 2007 at 8:04PM

I heard quite a few times that engineered wood is better sometimes as it won't move that much as real wood. It wouldn't warp and twist that much, or something (sorry, not a specialist!!!)
We bought the engineered oak flooring with click system from B&Q couple of weeks ago to put in the house downstairs we are buying. I know we didn't buy the best, but we paid £14 per sq. meter. It looks really nice!!!!!

misgrace · 13 February 2007 at 8:08PM

Here you go Jack, this is where we got ours from, and we were impressed with thier delivery driver, and thier customer service, its free delivery over 25 metres I think.

http://www.flooringsupplies.co.uk/?wcw=overture&OVRAW=oak%20flooring&OVKEY=oak%20flooring&OVMTC=standard

We bought the Kahrs London Hampshire oak.

There is benifits to having engineered click system like I mentioned above, and ours is the thick wood veneer, you can get a cheaper engineered type, linea I think its called, but the actual oak is very thin.
They do all sorts, ash, beech etc, but ours is quite light, plus you might find it cheaper if you are paying someone to lay it, as we found that the cost to lay the real wood was astronical.

If you also click on thier hints and tips bit, there is info there also.

jackkelly · 14 February 2007 at 11:04PM

Hi just bumping up in case anyone else can help

Cheers

carby · 16 February 2007 at 12:28AM

I have concrete floors in my house, Having researched various website and visits to several shops. I purchased engineered wood from flooring supplies recently. You may find it useful to read an article on wood flooring published in the guardian Feb 2006, home and gardens section.

tiff · 16 February 2007 at 1:09AM

misgrace wrote:

Here you go Jack, this is where we got ours from, and we were impressed with thier delivery driver, and thier customer service, its free delivery over 25 metres I think.

http://www.flooringsupplies.co.uk/?wcw=overture&OVRAW=oak%20flooring&OVKEY=oak%20flooring&OVMTC=standard

We bought the Kahrs London Hampshire oak.

There is benifits to having engineered click system like I mentioned above, and ours is the thick wood veneer, you can get a cheaper engineered type, linea I think its called, but the actual oak is very thin.
They do all sorts, ash, beech etc, but ours is quite light, plus you might find it cheaper if you are paying someone to lay it, as we found that the cost to lay the real wood was astronical.

If you also click on thier hints and tips bit, there is info there also.

Dont suppose you could post a pic of yours now its laid?

Did you lay it yourselves?

never_enough · 16 February 2007 at 1:32AM

I have the same problem. I'm desperate to get rid of the carpet in the living room and wanted a real wood floor. I think that real wood needs to be attached to mini joist type things so that air can circulate underneath (but that may be rubbish! :rolleyes: ) Coupled with the depth of the planks this would also raise the level of the floor too much above the hall floor and we dont want to have to dig out the concrete. I think in general engineered is thinner planks but because of construction it is still very strong. With most you can also resand if necessary.

I too thought engineered was not as good at first, but it just seems to be made for a differant set of circumstances. I'd certainly rather have engineered wood than carpet anyday!!

misgrace · 16 February 2007 at 9:17AM

Sorry Tiff, I dont know how to put the pic through the PC, I know how to post an image, but cant work the other bit.

But I can honestly say it looks marvelous, give me a couple days and I ll get someone to show me how to put the pics from the camera into the PC, unless someone on here can advise me.

We had a delivery of some furniture yesterday, and the delivery man thought the floor looked stunning.:D

The one we got has a thicker veneer layer of the oak, I'll try and find the size of the thickness for you, but its lovely and light in colour.
We were toying with going with the Kahrs barcelona, but thought the colour was a bit darker.

My OH got someone in to lay it, a friend of his did it who is a floor layer, he does it for a living, so it worked out cheaper than going with someone else.

If you live in the greater london area, or Middx, Berks, area I could pass you on his phone number if you were interested.

Any flooring experts out there?

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