Wood Flooring

There are two main types of real wood flooring: multilayer and solid wood floorings. These differ from each other through their construction.

What is a laminate floor made of?

Laminate floors are made from fibres, which are pressed together, and the 'wood effect' surface is a printed image with a wear resistant finishing top layer. Laminate floors are not made of real wood and they don't have a real wood surface layer. Laminates and wood-effect floors should not be confused with real wood floors.

Multi-layer wood-engineered

Multi-layer or 'engineered' wood floors comprise either two or three layers of wood, which are laid at right angles. The top layer is hardwood and the layers below are also wood-based products, for example, high-density fibreboard and pine.

These floors are available in a wide range of formats and thicknesses, including 20mm self supporting / load bearing floors (just like your floorboards), 13 or 15mm standard floors and 7mm 'veneered' floors, which offer a low-cost real wood alternative to laminate.

According to the thickness of the real wood wear layer a distinction is made between:
Veneer floorings < 0.7 mm ---- Wood floorings < 2.5 mm ---- Parquet > 2.5 mm

All species of wood are affected by climate change and the criss-cross construction of multi-layer floors provides stability, reducing natural wood movement by up to 70%. In addition, the use of wood-based products below the tongue rather than solid wood, has environmental as well as cost benefits.

Solid wood

Solid wood floors are made up of one solid plank of wood, which is removed as a block right from the tree. They are then processed into flooring planks with tongue and grooved edges and are either pre-finished or finished on site.

According to the standards a distinction is made between:
Mosaic parquet 8 mm ---- Block/ strip parquet 6 - 13 mm ---- Solid parquet > 13 mm

Which wood?

Whatever you chose it has to compliment your home and d?cor, Oak is traditional, warm with grain and colour, Maple light in colour with a red marble grain texture, Walnut dark chocolate and rich in colour, Mahogany is dark brown in colour maturing to the traditional deep rich red.

The wood?s grain, colour and durability should be considered when choosing what works for your home. It?s your choice and we are here to help!

Grading

	Select Carefully selected clean wood with minor, small knots, colour variation is minimal.
	Nature Some variation and knots medium size with a small amount of variation, as Mother Nature intended.
	Rustic Large knots unfilled and filled, vast colour variation light and dark veins.

Available Woods

The screen process cannot accurately reproduce the range of colours but real samples are available in the Wood Floor Surbiton showroom.

Ash	Birch	Canadian Maple	Steamed Beech	Unsteamed Beech
Doussie	Natural Oak	Oak Stained White	Red Oak	Ipe
Jatoba	Black Cherry	European Cherry	Merbau	Black Walnut
Fumed Oak	Tigerwood	Wenge