Real Oak Floors Wood Floor Blog

Electric underfloor heating can be tricky to install with certain types of flooring – with thanks to James Ewing of Flexel we have explained the carbon heating film and how it solves many of these problems.

Traditional methods of installing electric underfloor heating systems in rooms with laminate flooring or carpeted floors involved utilising cable systems covered with difficult to use and time consuming liquid levelling compounds. These tend to be messy and extend the installation time and costs because of drying and curing times.

Flexible carbon heating film is the ideal solution for providing an economic electric underfloor heating solution for a variety of floor coverings. Flexible carbon heating film is ultra thin, robust and is a completely dry lay system for heating under laminate or timber floating wooden floors and even carpet and luxury vinyl floor coverings.

Flexible carbon heating film is supplied in three different widths (300mm, 500mm and 1000mm) and standard lengths between 2m and 10m in 0.5m increments. These mat lengths come pre-wired with a simple two wire mains connection. This means that the heating mats can be installed and the chosen floor covering can be laid long in advance of the electrician providing the 230V mains connection. This saves time and money.

Installation of carbon heating film involves no special skills. Installation is completely dry and is a simple unrolling process. It can be laid on most concrete or timber subfloors when used in conjunction with the correct thermal insulation.

Flexible carbon heating element is ultra thin. Even with the recommended floor insulation layer of closed cell polystyrene the floor build-up is only 6.5mm. This avoids potential problems with skirting boards and door thresholds.

Carbon heating elements are reliable, safe and robust. With no moving parts they are completely maintenance free. Brands of carbon heating film like Ecofilm from Flexel International are fully approved to the relevant electrical safety standard IEC60335-2-96 and comply with the 17th Edition electrical wiring regulations. Ecofilm comes with a 10 year guarantee.

Carbon heating film can be used as an effective direct acting radiant heating system. It can be used as a substitute for traditional convector radiators by providing primary heat or just be used to warm a cool floor surface and provide background heat.

Flexel Carbon Heating Element has become a firm favourite with installers and users because it is simple and economic to install and creates gentle under-foot warmth that heats the entire room, leaving no overheated or cold spots. It offers clean balanced heat distribution at the lowest possible temperature, resulting in high user comfort levels and improved economy. Totally safe, even under wood floors, its radiated heat provides overall warmth and comfort without the usual dust carrying convective air currents of conventional radiator systems.

This form of heating, easily controlled by room thermostats is particularly suited to new build, extensions, hard-to-heat areas, conservatories, hallways, kitchens and bathrooms. It becomes invaluable in many other locations where the absence of radiators is a distinct space-saving advantage. This electric underfloor heating is ideal for use with any of our engineered real wood flooring. (Thanks to James Ewing of Flexel).

Real Oak Floors discerning customers demand the most exceptional and innovative wood floor - some prefer a classic style whilst others prefer the most contemporary up to date chic look. Most importantly though, all demand the most exceptional standard and durability from their wooden floors.

At Real Oak Floors they are specialists in the wide plank timber floors. The large selection of solid and engineered wood flooring makes them one of the leaders in the market for exclusive beautiful wide plank flooring.

Due to the increasing popularity of under floor heating and the fluctuating changes in our climates our wood floors need to be crafted to precision to ensure durability and stability for years to come. Real Oak Floors bespoke finishing service can ensure that all boards are crafted to the exact precision of the customers needs. We have taken time to investigate and test our floors to the extremes to ensure they are adequate to fulfill the demands of the most extreme projects that we have undertaken. The environmental changes of temperature and humidity can often put solid oak floors under duress and cause damage and stress - this in turn can lead to cupping, warping and extensive expansion and contraction in solid wood boards. Flooring under this strain can be ruined within a couple of years so Real Oak Floors have ensured that all their engineered boards are tested against these elements.

What is a Wood Floor? There are different types of wood flooring but the current favourite is the oak floors. Due to the properties of oak they expand and contract depending on the temperature and humidity of their environment. The timber floor is derived from a living tree. During the life of an oak tree it adapts to its environment, expanding, contracting and growing with the seasons. Even after the milling process, the oak flooring still has these qualities and will expand and contract to match its environment. Engineered boards are machined with precision computerised kilning to give the correct moisture content for an indoors environment. This is usually between 8 - 12%. Flooring that has not been kiln dried correctly can cause unstability in the flooring so to ensure that our boards do not react like this, they are tested and guaranteed by the manufacturer.

Real Oak Floors have two different types of engineered structured boards available - a 3 ply and multi ply board. All boards have a birch ply centre which ensures that no distortion due to cupping and warping take place due to temperature or humidity fluctuations. The high quality precision engineering of our timber boards means that the softwood core can resist stresses and bending of the real wood layer without any movement taking place. This gives a superior wood floor in all situations and reduces large gaps appearing between each board. 3 ply boards are made from a top layer of hardwood timber, typically a real oak layer or other hardwood, which is carefully hot glued to the thicker layer of birch blockboard to ensure a stable board. The base layer is a thiner layer of birch ply which is laid at right angles to the main blockboard to ensure stability.

The multi ply board is made up of a layer of hardwood timber similar to the 3 ply boards, it then has a construction of several layers of cross birch ply backing - often between 10mm - 15mm thick. Each ply backing layer is laid at right angles to give an extra strength to the boards and minimise movement of the hardwood top layer.

Real Oak Floors vast range of engineered wood flooring varys in the width and thickness but they have ensured that all engineered planks over 18mm thick are also suitable as a structural floor. This enables the timber boards to be laid directly onto joists or battens, eliminating the need for extra plyboard or chipboard flooring and raising the height of the overall floor. These boards have been tested to the highest standards to ensure that even when placed on joists and used in conjunction with under floor heating they will give the same exceptional perfomance without movement or warping.

Real Oak Floors have one of the widest ranges of engineered wide plank flooring and can offer widths up to a staggering 450mm wide. These can also often be used as mixed width boards and the lengths are exceptionally long - to order they can obtain up to 8m in length. These boards are of the highest quality and milled to perfection mixed with the exact specification of the customers requirements. The extra wide planks are milled to the customers exact demanding specification for an exclusive look unique only to them.

The wide array of widths of wood floors is coupled with a unique ability to produce almost any colour, texture or finish of the clients request. Basic finishing such as lacquered boards, natural oiled and brushed and oiled boards can be mixed with a hint of colour to produce the perfect environment for the clients home. The high gloss sheen can be achieved as easily as the natural matt finish. Distressed boards, antique, smoked and rough sawn boards also complement a full range of finishes. All Real Oak Floors accessories are finished in the same high quality standards and are perfectly matched to the customers specifications of the floors.

Real Oak Floors have further expanded their range of products this month, their range of wood flooring tiles has just got even better! There are are many different great looking designs made from different wood types such as Oak, Maple and Walnut. These engineered parquet flooring tiles are all 19mm thick which makes them all very durable and hard wearing. Also to go with the parquet flooring tiles are blending borders and corner squares to match.

Also new in are two brand new ranges of flooring! Real Oak Floors now have the Majestic Wood Flooring range and the Prestige Wood Flooring range. The Majestic range covers the finest wood flooring we have, it is very high in quality and looks great! The prestige flooring range on the other hand is also very high in quality, each floor is individually crafted in the UK by master craftsmen with years of experience. This range like the Majestic Wood Flooring range covers both Engineered Wood Flooring and Solid Wood Flooring. It is brought to you exclusively by real oak floors and can be found nowhere else!

If you want a really extra wide plank flooring look no further than this new product we have just got in, 350mm oiled or brushed and oiled wide board! This flooring is 350mm wide as standard but is available up to 450mm! This is one of the widest boards available on the market at the moment. It has a 20mm thickness and is supplied in random lengths from 4 - 5 meters.

Real Oak Floors were specifically chosen to be flooring suppliers to ITV’s 60 Minute Makeover! They supplied Armstrong contract Vinyl Flooring to the show for one of their makeovers which will air in late September!

On top of supplying to 60 minute make over real oak floors were selected to supply wood flooring to the Palace Theater in London, owned by Andrew Lloyd Webber! They supplied their 180mm Barnwell Antique Oak Flooring for the theatre. This flooring is excellent for use in a traditional setting such as the theater or traditional home! It has a hand scraped micro bevel to enhance the planked look and is available with either a 6mm or 4mm real wood layer.

Have you been over to the real oak floors website lately? If not then you should! You may remember our last blog post where we told you they had just put up a range of Atkinson Kirby wooden flooring, well things have been expanding further since then!

If your looking for something a little different to wood flooring then why not look at the brand new range of stainless steel flooring! There is a wide range covering many different innovative designs and it has been developed to meet the high standards of residential and commercial markets. The main benefits of stainless steel flooring are that it is very easy to clean and very hard wearing, in fact this flooring is virtually indestructible!

In other news if your looking for something to complement your oak flooring very well in the kitchen then real oak floors have just cut the prices yet again on there oak worktops to clear! These worktops are now selling from £100 so get in there quick because at this price there not going to last much longer!

There is also now a few new sections to look at! There is now a new flooring products section so rather than hunting down the new ones you can now look in one place to see whats fresh on the market!

If your in need of skirting, architrave or door frames then take a look at the range of veneered skirting at real oak floors! They have skirting available in profiles such as Ogee, Torus and Pencil Round. Vennered adjustable width door casings are available either standard of fire resistant! Mould resistant veneered bullnosed window boards are available in three different depths.

The range of atkinson kirby flooring covers both solid and engineered wood flooring with options of being supplied unfinished, oiled in a great choice of colours or fumed and oiled. These floors are of the highest quality and are available in a range of different widths.

If your looking for wood flooring then real oak floors have all you are looking for! Our flooring range covers both engineered wood flooring which is ideal for use with underfloor heating and solid wood flooring. Of course our floors are available finished with a wide range of colour oils to suit your room. You can have your floor supplied unfinished which leaves you to finish it to your desire.

Our oak flooring is our speciality with the range covering narrow and wide plank boards, finished, unfinished, rustic, smoked, bevelled, unbevelled and much more!

The range of wooden doors at real oak floors is always expanding and improving. The very popular selection of Oak Doors comes in many different styles and types such as Internal and External and even Fire Check! They also have wooden flooring and oak skirting to match the finish of the doors.

For all your flooring needs get in touch with real oak floors!

You may think that Osmo colour oils are only useful for use on wood flooring, fact is it can be used in most situations such as skirting, architraves and mouldings. The famous Frauenkirche church in Dresden had it’s seats stained with a honey colour Osmo colour oil. Here at real oak floors we can supply some of our wood doors unfinished which means you can finish them with your own choice of colour from our extensive range.

The Frauenkirche in Dresden was built in the years 1726 – 1743. The building was in need of a total rebuild as it was destroyed during the second world war, even the wood flooring was completely destroyed! It has taken many many years to restore the church to it’s former glory, in fact well over fifteen years with a sponsored investment of over 100 million euro’s. The restoration project needed expert carpenters to bring it back to it’s former glory as they were the only ones with the skills needed to do the job and do the job to the standard it needed to be done! In the end over 80 carpenters applied for the job of restoring the church seats. Amongst those that applied was Sebastian Schultz, an experienced carpenter from Chemnitz, Germany. Chemnitz stood out from all the other applicants as he had researched in depth the details of the original furniture. His research had found that regional fur from Saxonia and Bohemia has been used instead of Douglas fir as was specified. As a result of this he and his team sealed the deal and got the contract.

Schultz knew why this fir wood was used for the church seats. It was because the properties of the fir wood were ideally suited to the job. Fir wood is light, making it very easy to bend, has a low resin count and grows very straight. It also has an attenuating affect which reduces resonance.

For the job at hand Schultz and his team processed 400 cubic meters of fir wood which took them a total of three years to process ready for the church.

The rampart totalled 1, 200 square meters and the seats totalled 3, 800 a total of 5, 000
square meters of wood, all of which was hand-planed and finished.

Once the seats were constructed they were treated with products from Osmo. Eighty other samples from different products were tested before this procedure but in the end they settled on the Osmo products. Firstly the seats were stained a honey colour matching that of the original seats and then finished using Osmo Wood Wax. It took 25 cans of the Osmo product each of which contained 25 litres to complete the job a total of 625 litres!

Maintenance wise the seats have only had treatment once in the last two years. Fact is Osmo maintenance products should be used once every three months in high traffic areas such as the church or any other high traffic area such as on an oak flooring installation in the public domain.

The project was a success with the wooden seats replicated as close to the originals as they
possibly could be. Schultz and his team had achieved what they had set out to do. This was thanks not only to their expert skills but also to their knowledge and background research they had done. Last of all the job could not be done without the materials that they possessed such as the finish supplied by Osmo and the locally sourced wood.

The Queen walked on WOCA oiled flooring

The Eurostar is a train of up-to-date design and performance. It competes well with any of the airlines uniting Europe. So its new St Pancras International Terminal was built in luxurious fashion comparable to airport standards.

For the flooring in the Eurostar departure and arrival halls, the 800-million-pound project used approximately 6, 000sqm of FSC accredited solid Jatoba wood flooring which is quite likely to be the largest, single space, solid wood flooring installation in the UK in 2007.

The architects chose to use surface treatments and maintenance products manufactured and supplied by WOCA in Denmark. The project thereby also sets a new quality standard for wood floor finishing in Europe.

On November 6^th, 2007, Her Majesty the Queen opened the new St Pancras International Terminal in London. Queen Elisabeth II. Highlighted the importance of attention to detail and the quality of the completed terminal through which millions of people are expected to pass each year.

WOCA’s contribution
WOCA Denmark (known in Denmark as Trip Trap) is one of the world’s leading suppliers of real wood flooring treatment and maintenance products, in particular for heavy traffic projects such as St Pancras International. Before WOCA became the surface finish supplier, the architect team visited Copenhagen Airport with the design team, where a similar floor has been in service for nearly two decades, and which has been treated with the WOCA oxidising oils, and has been since maintained successfully using a variety of WOCA maintenance products, speciality chosen to meet the arduous traffic conditions.

WOCA UK, with the support from its Danish technical teams, and the UK oiled floor treatment specialists worked with the experience from Copenhagen Airport, and formulated an oil treatment and protection, and maintenance procedures for meeting the needs of the St Pancras project.

Surface treatment at St Pancras
After the solid FSC Jatoba solid wood floor had been machined to the customers exact specifications, and fitted. The ladder bordered patterned floor was belt sanded with 100 grit abrasion. The cross beams were then hand abraded to eliminate sanding marks and to achieve the fine finish required on the cross beams. Then two coats of High Solid natural WOCA Master Oil were applied, and finished off with the final coat of WOCA Maintenance Oil. The high quality finish demanded on this prestigious project required the development of a unique oiling and buffering technique using Dane Care special discs on the 2^nd and 3^rd wet coat to produce the fine, hard wearing quality finish.

Inevitably there were several weeks between the final floor finishing work and the opening date, and given that other trades were on the floor until the last minute, a complete re-oiling became necessary to achieve a perfect finish. So another WOCA innovation was introduced, which is the unique WOCA oil refresher product, applied the same way as traditional wood floor WOCA master soap, but having a two in one ability to remove the dirt from the surface and at the same both restore the floors natural appearance and ensure the appropriate protection.

The team was able to hand over the completed Jatoba flooring, dust free and in perfect condition in time for the Queen’s arrival. According to the WOCA team it was tremendous to see and hear her majesty confirm in her speech, how impressed she was with the attention to detail, after she saw and walked around the completed new St Pancras International terminal.

WOCA Denmark, of course, has also developed the future maintenance procedures for the project. With the use of the WOCA formula, the railway station floor will be perfectly maintained and remain in good condition and appearance for decades to come.

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