Solid wood flooring

thebullsback

Hi all ,wife and I cant decide if wood flooring will be a good idea in out living room.
House is a 1900s terrace. living room 15ft x 18ft.
What do you people think about wood flooring ?
Good /Bad points please .
Thank you all for reading .

Jonesya

For:
Hard wearing (depending on the type of wood used).
Long lasting.
Potential to be restored (sanded and revarnished) several times.
More features than printed/synthetic equivalents.

Against:
Costly.
Sensitive to moisture.
More likely to open up to given gaps between the planks/strips than engineering wood or laminate.
Needs more care taken when laying it and consideration given to the sub-floor and exactly how you're going to lay it. (ie. not as simple as a floating floor).
Slightly harder to installed (trickier to cut 18mm oak than say laminate).
May need more specialist equipment, say if blind-nailing it.

meercatsunited

in addition to and agree with jonesy

for: easy to clean
looks great
does not get smelly (food crumbs etc)
laminate is easier to lay than solid wood

against: scratches easy

we laid ours in lounge 18ftx12ft using the green underlay board used for laminates and laid it just like a floating floor on a concrete sub floor, put a clear sheet of dpc down first just in case there was any moisture there, made sure boards tapped in tight, no nails used, no special equipment, did use ordinary wood glue near 2 doorways because wood does move with moisture, heat, cold.

we have had good quality laminate in the past but you can hear the clip clop of footsteps, it scratches easily, you have to be careful how much water is used to clean it, have to be careful of liquid spills. would use oak anyday.

cyclonebri1

I have some disagreement with the posts above.

Our whole ground floor is done in solid oak with the exception of 1 bedroom (bungalow, hence big floor area), that is done in engineered oak.

Most is on timber floors but some is on concrete.

After about 8 years not 1 joint has shifted, on either type.

All was bought at bargain prices and at different times off ebay, it's all an acceptable match as I went by the plank width and grading.

The only thing I would say is yes, absolutely, it is subject to moisture movement, so that needs to be born in mind.
The stuff we have on wooden sub floors is glued both together and to the floor with an expanding polyurethane adhesive, the stuff on concrete is simply glued to itself.
There lies the issue, like laminate, you must allow movement of the whole floor surface as it expands and contracts, or yes it will part.


Just another point, you can see the board joints in solid oak, even if you don't lay them mega tight, it won't show badly.
With engineered, if you get it right, you can't see a single joint, but get it wrong and it looks atrocious.

Common falacy, solid oak can be sanded and refinished many more times than engineered?, Wrong, if you go for engineered with a decent top thickness, 6mm, thats exactly the same as you can refinish solid, before the tongues and groves start to show.

For me, the big issue is, "do you want the same floor covering for every basically"

leveller2911

cyclonebri1 wrote: »

The stuff we have on wooden sub floors is glued both together and to the floor
with an expanding polyurethane adhesive, the stuff on concrete is simply glued
to itself.

You have been very lucky Bri because glueing the boards together is fine provided you left a perimeter gap which allows for expansion (ie floating floor) but you should not have glued the boards down to a wooden subfloor because the flooring has no way of expanding/contracting without splitting if the moisture content rose/decrease.. No need to have glued it down ,if its T&G you could have secret nailed it.

There lies the issue, like laminate, you must allow movement of the whole floor
surface as it expands and contracts, or yes it will part.

Which you didn't do if you glued the boards together and also glued them to the wooden sub floor........Unless I'm missing something as PU glue doesn't allow for expansion/contraction. You wouldn't glue tongue and grooved boards together in a door as they would expand/shrink and split.

Common falacy, solid oak can be sanded and refinished many more times than
engineered?, Wrong, if you go for engineered with a decent top thickness, 6mm,
thats exactly the same as you can refinish solid, before the tongues and groves
start to show.

You can use square edged Oak boards laid with adhesive which can be sanded repeatedly until your through to the screed etc......

For me, the big issue is, "do you want the same floor covering for every
basically"

This I agree with as you can too much of a good thing.......

cyclonebri1

leveller2911 wrote: »

This I agree with as you can too much of a good thing.......

Sorry meant to quote a bit out of the post but it didn't work.

The thing is, if you have glued the boards both to the floor and to each other you have made the whole floor rigid enough to resist the movement of expansion and contraction.

I think in reality the the movement is then taken up by the subfloor to some extent, and the whole lots moves together, but to a lesser extent.

Lets face it, if the top coat wasn't down, the original floorboards would swell and shrink in it's place;);)

Leif

I've never laid the stuff, but avoid cheap laminate, it looks cheap, and put it down before skirting, as beading looks naff. I lifted a parquet floor from my sitting room, it looked lovely, but had to come up. Parquet tiles are worth thinking about. They used to be laid with bitumen, which is vile, not sure now. I did not relay parquet, as my heating pipes are in the screed, and carpet gives me easier access in case of leaks. It is probably very unusual to have underfloor CH leaks these days.