Wooden Flooring

pcknight

pcknight

pcknight

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Well, we have decided to have wooden flooring put down in the living room. Any hints or tips guys on what to do etc? I will be having someone to lay it so need advice on what to look out for and what type of wooden flooring to go for.

Also, i have to brick up an old Chimney (Myself). It has been taken below the roof. Do i need to leave a vent in the wall?
 
Yes leave the packs of wood or Laminate in the house to reach the house temp for 48 hrs before laying
and NO do not blokck the vent in the wall its there for a reason
laying flooring is very easy if you dont it before
but if in doubt get a chap in !! they should cost you around 19 quid a hour to lay
the flooring but give it a go and tryit your self pop down to B+Q and get a tip sheet and see if you can do it and you be more proud of the finished result :)
 
Don't get that laminate flooring down. That stuff is as common as dog crap these days.

If you're going to have a wooden floor, at least make it so it doesn't sound like you're walking on laminated tat.
 
If you're talking about 'proper' wood as opposed to laminates - I had a look into this recently - seemed to be two main options.

1. Solid wood - which is effectively just planks of your choice of wood. This is actually cheaper, but can suffer from warping, expansion etc.

2. Engineered wood - where the top half of the board is solid wood which is then laminated onto an engineered backing (which is some kind of pseudo ply/chip/mdf product). This is more expensive but doesn't warp in the same way as (1).

Some come with tongue + groove style locking joints and can be laid as a floating floor over floorboards or concrete, while others need to be nailed/glued to the the supporting floor.

Where they touch walls it's a choice of either removing skirting and butting the boards up to the wall and then replacing the skirting over the top, or fitting fillets to cover the gap, which doesn't give such a tidy finish.

Worth bearing in mind that wood can be very noisy (major issue if you're in a flat rather than a house), may require a wood-floor specific underlay and can make rooms feel colder than carpet.

We were eventually dissuaded by the cost - decent carpet was (I believe) £25/m2, while solid wood was £45/m2 and engineered wood up to £65/m2. Fitting added on top bumped the engineered wood up to something daft like £80/m2.

You might well be able to get products cheaper than that though.
 
basmic said:
Don't get that laminate flooring down. That stuff is as common as dog crap these days.

If you're going to have a wooden floor, at least make it so it doesn't sound like you're walking on laminated tat.
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I agree, most laminate flooring is complete pap, that wears terribly. John lewis do some real nice wood flooring (12mm I think), but you might need to sell a kidney to pay for it.

Also make sure you floor is fairly flat, you can offset some bumps with the special laminate underlay. But if there are still humps, the laminate will lift and split in no time.

Good luck
 
Carpet up, check condition of floor boards. If they're decent hire a sander, sand floorboards, varnish. Job done.

If laminate is your only option, don't bother, get a nice carpet instead.
 
A quality solid wood floor I believe will be a lot more expensive than £45/sq. m and won't suffer from warping.

A friend just had some laid, he opted for solid oak, and each piece was about 2 inches thick, it worked out (I think) to more like £100/sq. m.

Solid wood flooring has an advantage over engineered wood, because it will withstand being sanded down many many more times than engineered wood will.

Hav
 
Havana_UK said:
Solid wood flooring has an advantage over engineered wood, because it will withstand being sanded down many many more times than engineered wood will.

Hav
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Engineered wood has many more advantages over solid. It's harder wearing, doesn't scratch and won't get indented from things like sofa legs and so on. It's cheaper too, and there are many more variaties available to choose from.

Engineered wood 4tw.
 
No floorboards as it is a concrete floor.

I have a guy calling on Sunday to let me know how much it would cost and give some advice.

We need to put a wooden floor down as the carpet is musty smelling etc. Coming from Chimney. I think a wooden floor would be better for the child too. Easier to keep clean, no worry of carpet bugs and with a carpet it holds in smells etc.

Engineered Wooden flooring looks like the way to go.
 
Havana_UK said:
A quality solid wood floor I believe will be a lot more expensive than £45/sq. m and won't suffer from warping.

A friend just had some laid, he opted for solid oak, and each piece was about 2 inches thick, it worked out (I think) to more like £100/sq. m.

Solid wood flooring has an advantage over engineered wood, because it will withstand being sanded down many many more times than engineered wood will.

Hav
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Quality wood flooring does NOT need to cost way more than £45 per sq/w...no chance. So either your friend has been ripped off, or happened to visit a very expensive place.
In my researching I've not come accross any[i/] solid flooring that costs as much as £100 per sq/m.

I've recently had my solid oak 18mm thick flooring delivered from an on-line store for the sum of £25 sq/m (it was reduced from £36 sq/m).
I've been quoted (from many sources) £25 per sq/m for fitting which total price compares very well with good carpet, yet a solid-wood floor will last a lot longer.
Proper solid-wood flooring has grooves cut underneath to stop any warping, and I personally think that removing the skirting and laying the wood underneath gives a much better finish than the beading.
http://www.carpentersofyork.com/ have a great selection of all types of flooring, so its a good place to start to look at your options (this is where I've got my flooring from).
 
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Yep laminate is crud espically the b&q stuff, it looks so fake too. Solid wooden flooring on the other hand is excellent. It has to be sanded and revarnished (every year) but any scuff marks are easily removed. Nothing can beat the look of polished mahogony flooring but its not cheap at all, Oak is £30/m3 and real mahogony is £100/m3 this is for parquet floor.

It would look even more impressive with ultra gloss varnish but you would have to walk with socks
 
Laminate floors are great if you have young kids. Much easier to keep clean than carpet.
I put laminate down in the kitchen and living room for that exact reason but will put in a nice carpet if we decide to sell or if the kids get older.
 
Why do people like wooden floors?

When you've been pounding the cold hard pavement all day you want to be able to kick your shoes off and sink into a nice thick warm carpet under your feet when you get home.

I hate the wooden floors in our house. A house is for living in, not for looking fancy.
 
qwerty said:
Why do people like wooden floors?

When you've been pounding the cold hard pavement all day you want to be able to kick your shoes off and sink into a nice thick warm carpet under your feet when you get home.

I hate the wooden floors in our house. A house is for living in, not for looking fancy.
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Get a couple of nice rugs down!!
 
Von Luck said:
That's just FREAKY. The person who has laid ALL of the carpets in our family for the last 25 years is called Peter Hudson. Spooky-coincidence-tastic. :eek:
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Not me I'm afraid :) Though we may be related in some distant way. The name Hutson only exists as some dim relative spelt it wrong when they got married. I just hope it's not genetic.

EDIT: Edited for spelling, how ironic.
 
TDK said:
... Solid wooden flooring on the other hand is excellent. It has to be sanded and revarnished (every year) but any scuff marks are easily removed. ..
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Most solid wood flooring comes pre-finished, but of course you can buy it un-finished too (although obviously its a lot less messy to buy it pre-finished).

You're definitley wrong about having to sand and re-varnish every year though, where on earth did you get that from?
 
It was from the maintenance crew at my old school. They did this every year for the the great hall. Their cheapest quote for great hall was £25k needless to say they now do it themselves.
 
Have laminate in the livingroom put down about a year ago by the previous owner, either it's very good or I'm somehow careful with it. No marks on it at all, no movement in it and no creaking etc. It also looks nice compared to so many laminates I've seen.

hopefully she paid a decent wedge of cash for it and it'll last a good few years :D
 
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