Wood Floor Blog

Although an oak floor can really make a different to your home’s interior and really open up the room, have you ever thought about going a little further and opting for an exotic engineered wood floor? At first, you might think why bother with the extra expense,but the recent introduction of the Real Oak Floors exotic floor collection just shows that you can style your home with a whole new look for as much as any other type of wood species.

Engineered Iroko Flooring

If you want a wood that varies in its tone that delivers a unique yet subtle colour pattern across your floor then Iroko is a fantastic choice. The fact that it is very durable makes it very suitable for a wood floor where there is large amounts of floor traffic or in places where pets or children may traverse the floor regularly. In large expansive areas, the floor is simply breathtaking, hints of toffee-coloured tones will bring out white furniture with elegance.

Engineered Teak Flooring

More stable than Iroko, wooden Teak flooring is a consistently-toned wood that has slightly darker grains giving it a character all of its own. Where oak will deliver a smooth, even tone to your floor, woods such as teak will liven up any minmalistic setting or work very well in a kitchen where you may have a teak kitchen worktop to complement the wood floor.

Engineered Doussie Flooring

Engineered wood boards like Doussie and Sapele give off a distinctive red colour and rate as a fairly hard wood on the Janka Hardness Scale (Doussie: 1810; Sapele: 1510). These two wood are much harder than oak flooring which may make a difference where floor traffic (including high heels!) is concerned.

In fact, you may need to take the hardness of the wood into consideration more if you opt for engineered wood flooring. This type of flooring is generally much thinner than solid wood flooring, although the exotic engineered wood flooring range at Real Oak Floors is 21mm thick, an extremely high quality board that will withstand a lot of use.

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Even though installing a wood floor can be a relatively painless task if you have the right tools and expertise, for the discerning home owner it is essential you forsee any additional circumstances that prevent getting the most out of your hardwood floor. Winter is on its way and for wood flooring this causes a slight problem – a lack of warmth underneath your feet. However, with good planning and these great tips, you’ll be on your way to covering all the bases.

Electric underfloor heating has probably become the most effecient and cost-effective method of heating your floors and can even act as the primary source of heat in your home. Most people, however, may want to combine radiators and underfloor heating as their main sources of heat and doing so can have its benefits.

In this instance, it is much more cost effective to place an underfloor heating system in areas where someone is going to stand for some time. The most obvious place is in the bathroom near the basin, although you need make sure whatever type of wood flooring you use is waterproof.

Going one step further, laying larger areas of underfloor heating where you may reside more frequently, such as a living room will help to make efficient use of heat where it is most needed.

A large amount of good quality engineered flooring should always have the option of electric underfloor heating and should ideally be placed when the engineered hardwood planks are being laid themselves. At this stage it is imperative that you have drawn up a plan your room and where you want the heating system to be placed:

Downstairs flooring plan for underfloor heating. Original flooring plan by designbasics.com

As you can see, all the main areas are covered, catering in places where people will be stationary for a period of time. If you have installed a floating engineered floor in areas such as the garage or porch, you will have a much easier job laying underfloor heating than if the floor was stuck down.

Ovverall, planning your underfloor heating installation is essential to ensure all the areas you need are covered and that you are making the most out of heat dissapation. Engineered wood flooring is a great type of flooring to install during the colder months and will make just as lasting an impression as a solid wood floor.

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