Advice needed, wooden flooring

DavidJonas

Can anyone offer some advice on wooden flooring?

We thought this would be relatively straightforward, but each potential contractor we speak to seems to have a different opinion. Which is bewildering. I am concerned I am not getting the right advice and/or that each guy is merely trying to guide us to their own services.

We want to put down herringbone wooden flooring in 3 rooms and the hall, all connecting. One of the rooms has a concrete floor, the rest are timber. They are the same height. Ideally we want to minimise the thickness of the floor, for reasons relating to the adjacent kitchen. We have kids and a dog so there will be spills and some grime going onto it.

Some people say solid wood is out, it will move too much on the concrete and we need engineered wood instead. This would go down on 9mm ply. Say 14mm engineered on 9mm ply making for a 23mm floor.

Another guy recommends battens. He says 10mm battens on 9mm ply would be a good compromise. These would be sanded and oiled to make a smooth surface. He steers us away from the click-together engineereed wood, saying it can come to pieces.

The next guy says solid wood is okay but he wants to put it down on 18mm ply. He dislikes battens, saying you will see the nails in time and they will go rusty if the floor gets wet. He wants to sand and then lacquer the floor. He says oil is maintenance heavy and we will need to re-oil it every 6 months. 20mm wood on 18mm ply makes for 38mm worth of floor!

One guy says the engineered flooring with rectangular strips across the bottom is cheap stuff from China and no good. Another says they aid flexibility and they are okay.

I don't know what to think any more. Lacquer or oil. Solid, engineered or battens.

What is your experience of these types/finishes please?

BJV

We have just sold our house but earlier in the year had a similar choice. Two kids, dog and cat's so a busy house and I HATE CARPET. We looked at solid, laminate and eventually went for porcelain tiles with under floor heating. IT was the whole of downstairs, so three reception rooms floor and big open plan kitchen, dinning room and family room. I really liked the look of solid wood but TBH do not have the time for the maintenance. Laminate ??? Well ok but can look like a poor imitation. In the end we got amazing tiles which are easy to look after. Really hard wearing and do not need any maintenance. They are a real feature and look as the estate agent said " amazing". I do not normally believe EA but our house sold in 48 hours so I think the floor must have helped just a little.

cyclonebri1

DavidJonas wrote: »

Can anyone offer some advice on wooden flooring?







Another guy recommends battens. He says 10mm battens on 9mm ply would be a good compromise.

Start by ruling out what that guy said

Jonesya

You could lay engineered flooring throughout, as a floating floor on regular underlay - that should be pretty straightforward.

If you go for solid wood you've got more to consider on what the condition of the sub-floor is like and the fixing method. If the timber sub-floor is OK you could lay the solid wood floor straight onto it, fixing it down with blind nailing or screws. For the concrete area you could glue it down, using something like Sika liquid battens.

For the treatment, I've laid all of my floors myself so have always used flooring with a factory applied finish. The factory finishes are normally good and hardwaring but it does mean you have micro-bevels between the pieces of timber, you can't have a truly flat sealed floor that way. But then it does save on the dust, chemicals, disruption of treating it in-situ.

onomatopoeia99

I put down engineered wood (6mm oak on 15mm ply) on concrete with a foil backed underlay. Tounge and groove and glued together as a floating floor, no plywood subfloor.

Easy to lay, cost me two days of my own time for a 5x3.75m room doing it as a "never done it before" amateur and created an excellent finish. I didn't lay it herringbone though, just in straight lines.

Aside from the kitchen where I have installed slate on the floor, and the bathroom which already has porcelain. I am going to do the whole house with engineered wood, and install it all myself.

DavidJonas

That is very helpful.

Haven't heard of liquid battens but it offers hope with respect to putting a solid wood floor onto concrete. Can't see it working with Herringbone though.

The fully bonded stuff might do the job though.

Jonesya

DavidJonas wrote: »

That is very helpful.

Haven't heard of liquid battens but it offers hope with respect to putting a solid wood floor onto concrete. Can't see it working with Herringbone though.

The fully bonded stuff might do the job though.

The name may have changed, it was one of Sika's gunnable flooring adhesive products, there's various products depending on how you want to apply it:


http://www.everbuild.co.uk/Sika/Sika-flooring-wall-finishing