Wood Floor Blog

Real Oak Floors guide to wood flooring

Archive for February, 2007

The benefits of Envoy multi underlay

Feb 20

Posted by admin in Brand Name Flooring, Flooring Installation | 3 Comments

Envoy multi is a unique and novel underlay to use with wooden flooring. Envoy has an adhesive layer on its upper surface, which ensures constant adhesion with all types of wood flooring regardless of the thickness. Envoy Multi can guarantee that any joins between the floor sections will not show. When Envoy is used as a sub-floor the underside of the flooring is airtight and thus prevents sections from cupping.

The wood flooring is floated on top of the underlay removing the necessity of nails and glues and consequently installation times are much shorter and easier.

Envoy multi underlay remains elastic and resilient keeping your flooring neatly in place without any seams or cracks.

Benefits of Envoy multi

-Excellent thermal and sound isolation

-Warm and comfortable

-Suitable for under-floor heating

-Shorter installation times

-Floor is virtually seamless

-Moisture resistant

You can see the full range of Envoy multi products and other underlays at www.realoakfloors.co.uk .

solid wood flooring

Popularity: 4% [?]

Junckers Hardwood Flooring

Feb 20

Posted by admin in Brand Name Flooring, Flooring, Wood flooring | No Comments

Junckers Hardwood Flooring

Real Oak Floors are proud suppliers of Junckers flooring and equipment. We recommend Junckers flooring for dance floors, sports floors and schools. Junckers are Denmark’s largest timber industry. British Allergy Foundation Approved

Junckers are the only manufacturer of flooring which is approved allergy free by the British Allergy Foundation, Allergy UK. For this reason all Junckers flooring proudly displays the British Allergy Seal of Approval.

Junckers Floors are Environmentally Friendly

Junckers Hardwood flooring is produced only from sustainable forest. Junckers comply to PEFC and FSC regulations meaning that for every tree than becomes a Junckers product, another will be planted in it’s place.

Real Hardwood

All of Junckers floors are made from 100% real hardwood!
With Junckers flooring when you ask for real hardwood, that is exactly what you get; real hardwood!

Junckers Sports Flooring

The Junckers flooring range has been engineered with Sports in mind. Junckers beech harmony grade flooring are always used for sports floors as they are strong, flexible and springy. Junckers are leaders in fitting school floors and sports floors.
As well as sports, Junckers floors also make excellent dance floors!

Junckers underfloor heating

Junckers flooring can be used with underfloor heating, in fact Junckers floors are ideal for underfloor heating.

Underfloor heating is becoming increasingly popular and as many buildings these days are insulated well, underfloor heating can be ran using less energy. Underfloor heating is great for commercial and residential applications. Underfloor heating is also great for use in conservatories.

Junckers new engineered flooring range

Junckers have a new engineered flooring range.
Junckers engineered flooring is produced by adhering layers of plastic laminate veneer with real wood.
Engineered wood floors have slightly higher moisture resistance than other solid woods. Engineered hardwood flooring is very versatile and has a many applications. An engineered wood floor can be installed below grade and on a concrete subfloor, either as a direct glue-down or a floating floor. Engineered flooring is also an excellent choice for geographical areas with higher humidity or moisture levels.

Junckers Approved fitters

We are Junckers approved fitters who have installed countless junckers floors, not only can we provide you with Junckers flooring, but we can also do the work of fitting it for you!

http://www.realoakfloors.co.uk

Popularity: 4% [?]

Our guide to laying parquet floors

Feb 19

Posted by admin in Flooring, Flooring Installation, Wood flooring | No Comments

We would recommend the use of parquet 5760 adhesive for bonding the blocks to a suitably prepared sub floor. Do not apply more adhesive than can be worked in ten minutes.

To lay the blocks, a line is drawn down the centre of the room. This line is known as the Crown Line. Lay the first two lines of blocks down the Crown Line with the tongue facing inwards so that the apex of the joints between them falls in line. If basket pattern is required it will be necessary to specify special size blocks.

Continue to lay the floor outwards from the Crown Line until a space remains around the perimeter of the floor sufficient for a border of two blocks wide plus a provision for an expantion gap. Without adhesive lay the last two lines of blocks fringing the border area and mark and cut these blocks plus 12-15mm for expansion. The cut blocks and finally the border blocks are then stuck down.

Finally, sand and seal the floor using a suitable seal for the traffic conditions of the floor.

Any advice given is for general guidance only It is the responsibility of the floor layer to ensure that site conditions are suitable for Hardwood flooring.

If specific advice is required please contact Real Oak Floors on 0844 848 6840. For more help, tips, advice and information, why not take a look at the Tips, Advice and Info on our website?

Popularity: 13% [?]

Sports Floors

Feb 19

Posted by admin in Brand Name Flooring, Flooring | 2 Comments

Different sports require different floors and floor designs can focus on a specific activity such as basketball, squash, dance and aerobics etc.

The ultimate sports floor must encourage optimum performance and safety whilst being easy to maintain. Sports floors are designed to deliver shock absorption, resilience, ball bounce and a precise surface friction.

The shock absorption level of a floor determines how much of the shock from a landing after a jump will return to the athletes leg. Hard surface such as concrete provide little or no force reduction for the athlete upon impact. Sports floor systems are designed to absorb as much of the shock as possible. If the floor is too hard the athlete will be exposed to early fatigue and aching joints through to the extreme, such as injuries, joint and shin bone damage. The friction levels of sports flooring has been closely studied. This characteristic is used to measure the floor’s ability to control the sliding of an athlete. Sports flooring must have a high enough surface friction to prevent uncontrollable sliding of athletes but also low enough to permit sliding if an extreme force is exerted on an athlete. Hardwood sports flooring are excellent protection against sports injuries. Research conducted has proven that more injuries occur on synthetic floor surfaces than do on hardwood sports floors. Sports flooring must also be able to withstand heavy loads from bleacher seating, trolley wheels and gym equipment etc.

A hardwood floor will not only fulfil the requirements needed for a sports floor but it will also creates an attractive internal environment, it is very easy to clean and maintain and also resists accidental damage. The day to day maintenance of sports floors is simply limited to sweeping or vacuuming the floor, when required the floor can be cleaned with scrubber dryer machines. Hardwood sports floors can be sanded and refinished many times over its lifetime this is because they are solid woods and usually ¾ inch thick.

When choosing interior sports flooring it essential you do your homework. At www.realoakfloors.co.uk we can supply a massive range of hardwood sports flooring from suppliers such as Junckers and Boen. In the UK, hardwood sports floors are governed by a number of recognised standards and all sports floors must fully comply to BS7044 Part 4. All of our sports flooring comes from suppliers who fully comply with at least this standard.

JUNKERS

A major supplier of sports floors are Junckers,they have a wide variety of sports flooring to suit any activity. Examples include the Blubat system, which comprises 22mm press dried beech boards secretly nailed to a kiln dried softwood batten with a continuous layer of 9mm thick special foam to the underside. This offers a semi-sprung floor at budget cost. Other systems from the Junkers range include the UnoBat 62+ this is an undercarriage system featuring softwood battens with unique shock absorption rubber pads with J-Lock connection systems, or the DouBat 110+ system which features double layer batten systems with construction heights of 110mm.You can even choose portable flooring systems to offer flexibility for arenas and halls that play host to a wide variety of sporting events and even a specialised squash flooring system which provides high levels of friction and shock absorption.

BOEN

Boenare a top selling manufacturer ofBoflex and Arenasport sports flooring. The BOEN Boflex P1 flooring system is an engineered sports surface designed to provide excellent elastic resilience. The Boflex P1 consists of standard boards measuring 2200mm ´ 137mm and 28mm thick. Inset into each board are Evazote 50 resilient foam strips, which provide the shock absorption qualities. The BOEN Arenasport another engineered board is laid onto Springbok semi-sprung battens. The foam pads include a specially formulated rubber, which will not significantly harden or deteriorate over the life of the floor. Most of these sports floors are available in different types of hardwoods such as Oak, Maple, Beech and Ash.

KAHRS

Kahrs have created a sports floor where the absorption material and reinforcements are already fitted to the backside of the board so this can be laid directly to the sub-floor without the time consuming and complicated construction of floor battens or special fittings. The floor has a total thickness of 30mm and is available in oak and beech. The floor satisfies all of the parts of the DIN test such as energy absorption, deformation, ball bounce, rolling load and friction.

POLYFLOR

Polyflor provide a hardwearing vinyl Polytred Sport PU floor covering with foam backing which is suitable for sports floors, the range is designed for to perform effectively and safely in multi-purpose indoor sports arenas.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Installing solid wood flooring

Feb 16

Posted by admin in Flooring, Flooring Installation | 1 Comment

Before installing any wood floor you must first make sure the sub-floor is free of loose materials, oil, grease etc and is also clean and dry. Before starting, lay out strips to determine the direction you would prefer to lay the wood, a good idea is to lay them parallel to the longest wall of the room or in the opposite direction to any joists. When the strips are placed down it is possible to arrange the patterns and shades into preferred positions.

The installation method used primarily with solid wood floors is the nail down method although other methods such as, staple down, glue down and free-float can be used. The installation method used depends on the type of sub-floor you currently have. If for example you have a plywood sub-floor, any of the above methods can be used. For a concrete sub-floor the nail and staple down methods are not an option unless a plywood sub-floor is added above the slab and attached with concrete fasteners.

Nailing

When installing solid wood with nails, a gap of at least half an inch should be left between the edge of the flooring and the starting wall, this allows room for expansion. The first row of wood should be nailed down with screw shank flooring nails (finishing nails). By drilling starting holes in the wood it is easier to insert the nails and avoid damaging the wood. A hardwood nailer can be used to nail down those strips not closest to the walls. Powernailers and mallets can be found at www.realoakfloors.co.uk.

Gluing

Gluing directly to concrete floor without a protective moisture barrier is not advised as wood will absorb any moisture present. Glue-down wood floors are installed similar to the way you would lay a flooring tile, with a trowel-spread mastic. The adhesive can be applied wet to the substrate and then immediately placed onto a wet adhesive or the adhesive can be left to turn tacky. It is very important that contact is made between the flooring and sub-floor. It must be remembered that adhesive does not prevent moisture-related damage to wood. Check out our massive range of adhesives, trowels, joint fillers, floor fitting kits and more at www.realoakfloors.co.uk.

Free-floating

The free-float method is very stable method, which has proved to be very popular over the last couple of years. Instead of installing each plank separately, the boards are glued together, not down therefore “floating” over the permanent flooring. This is suitable for any flooring and is the preferred method to use over under-floor heating. As the floor expands and contracts, gaps are not left between individual units. Elastilon is a perfect accessory for creating floating floors. The wood flooring is stuck onto the underlay but not the sub-floor. At www.realoakfloors.co.uk we provide a range of Elastilon of different thickness and strengths to suit any flooring type.

Solid wood floors are sensitive to moisture and should not be installed below ground level or directly over a concrete slab without a moisture barrier. Before laying a wood floor it is vital to ensure that the entire concrete floor is flat. Further installation tips can be found at www.realoakfloors.co.uk.

Popularity: 3% [?]