PRO FLOORING
When to choose real wood
LVT has become very good at looking like oak, and for a busy kitchen or a rented plot it is often the more sensible choice. But it is not wood, and in the right room that still matters. Real timber has depth, grain and variation that a repeating printed pattern cannot reproduce, and it can be sanded and refinished decades later rather than replaced.
If you want a floor that will outlive several kitchens, it is worth the extra care it asks for.
Solid or engineered
- Solid hardwood — a single piece of timber through its whole thickness. The most refinishing life, the most traditional, and the most sensitive to moisture and temperature. Best over suspended timber floors in stable, well-heated rooms.
- Engineered hardwood — a real hardwood wear layer bonded to a dimensionally stable core. It moves far less with humidity, which makes it the right answer over concrete, in kitchens, and — importantly — the only sensible option over underfloor heating.
We will tell you which of the two suits your room and your subfloor, rather than selling you the one with the better margin. In a lot of houses, engineered is genuinely the better floor.
Timber moves — plan for it
This is where wood floors are won or lost. Timber takes up and gives off moisture with the air around it, expanding and contracting across its width as it does. A floor laid tight to the walls in a dry January will buckle in a humid August.
So we acclimatise the boards in the room before fitting, check the moisture content of the subfloor as well as the timber, and leave the correct expansion gap at every perimeter and threshold, hidden under skirting or beading. It is unglamorous, it takes extra days, and it is the entire difference between a wood floor that settles and one that fails.
Fitting and finish
Depending on the boards and the subfloor, we fix by full bonding, secret nailing or floating. We will explain which method your floor needs and why. Where you have underfloor heating, we will specify accordingly and commission the heating properly before and after fitting — wood over UFH is entirely achievable, but only if it is done to the letter.
Where we work
We supply and install hardwood flooring for homes and developments across Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire and Leicestershire. Free home measure, samples brought to you, and flexible payment options on domestic work.
