Which engineered oak floor?

[RogerM]

My daughter is considering having an engineered oak floor laid in her 1930's semi in Kingston Upon Thames. She's busy getting quotes, and her favoured one gives 2 prices, one of about £20/sq-m using a Wickes product, and the other in European Oak for about £50/sq-m, plus fitting in each case. Not done any flooring but I know many of you guys have done. She's been told that the Wickes product uses a soft Chinese oak look-a-like which marks easily, and that the European Oak is a far superior product that is far harder wearing, all of which sounds like sense.

Which brands of engineered flooring should she be looking at? I've heard good things about Kahrs, but there must be others. The floor is intended for a kitchen diner over underfloor heating, the hallway and lounge to cover the existing suspended pine strip floors (not t&G) which are shoddy and which have wide gaps between the boards through which the wind howls.

I've suggested a carpet and decent underlay, but that's not the look they want. They have no dogs and one small child. They intend to live there for the next 5 years or so, but probably not much longer.

What should I be suggesting she looks at to get the best product at the best compromise on the price/quality curve? Ideally doesn't want to spend more than £50/sq-m unless there is a clear reason to do so, and if she can get away with less then so much the better.

 

[MBcarpentry]

parquet make nice engineered flooring I have laid quite a bit of there stuff! The stuff from the diy stores is not good qaulity. Just heads up for your daughter any hardwood flooring will dent/Mark if walked on in high heel shoes, I laid 50m2 of solid oak flooring for a client last year and the day I finished it the clients sister popped in to have a look and left a trail of high heel dents in the floor throughout the house :shock:

 

[RobinBHM]

Last year I paid £32.00 per square metre for 189 x 21mm engineered oak flooring, which was made from european oak. Delivery is extra.

http://www.artistico.co.uk/oak_flooring ... g~!60.html

Their prices are keen, I was a bit nervous when I ordered as its a small company so I collected, however the quality was fine and they had plenty in stock.

If you buy online, you should be able to get a decent engineered oak floor in the £35 range which is probably the cheapest price level at which you can get good quality flooring. Ideally you want decent width boards of 170mm plus with 5mm wear layer, and packs that contain mostly boards of around 2.1m length. Cheap flooring has lots of really short boards.

I dont know whether you need structural flooring of 21mm or overlay which is maybe 14mm. It may depend on recommendation for flooring over heating.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Try www.directwoodflooring.co.uk
I can't speak for their engineered stuff, but I had samples (which they will send you free) of solid wood that were excellent - I'd have gone with them if it wasn't for a change of plan.

 

[AndyT]

I agree with the good things you heard about Kahrs. I fitted 22 mm thick engineered oak from them in our hall, dining room and kitchen 10+ years ago. Good hard 4 mm oak which could be sanded and refinished but no need yet as it's held up so well.
I bought it online from a company called 1926 trading. They may have a different name now.

 

[Yetty]

A little off-topic, but how about vinyl flooring?

Recently put down some vinyl 'Oak wood effect' (classic herringbone design) flooring in my bathroom and shower rooms. I've been so impressed how far vinyl flooring has come over the years. It's textured, grippy, hardwearing, no maintenance, waterproof, warm... I think it looks and feels good. Would definately consider in other rooms.

Interestingly, visitors often say "what a fantastic hardwood floor you've put down, can you do that for me one in my hall...", and when I tell them it's vinyl, they go all stand-offish and cool down. Seems like some perception issues going on here!

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Maybe the destruction of the vinyl forests upsets them?

 

[John Brown]

We recently had some engineered Oak laid in our hallway, trying to match the stuff in our dining room. Very disappointed, as it looks exactly like laminate, but costs more! I've always been impressed with the hardwood floors in the US, they seem to take any amount of punishment, maybe that's down to the finish? My brother-in-law is quite happy to drag wheeled suitcases across his, whereas in our previous house we laid Osmo oak flooring, it looked great until friends whith heels came to visit.

 

[Yetty]

Maybe the destruction of the vinyl forests upsets them?

=D>

 

[AndyT]

Roger, I just re-read your original post - for the hall, where she has existing pine boards - what I did was to lift the manky old boards and lay 12 mm ply, screwed to the boards, then the rubber underlay and then the new floor. 12mm ply is plenty thick enough, and the resultant increase in thickness is less than if you just lay straight onto the boards. Plus you get a reliably smooth surface.

In my case, it also meant the levels lined up with the dining room, which I had done first, in the same way.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

I have often speculated as to whether real wood flooring is actually better than a good quality laminate.

In both cases in order to achieve good wear characteristics the surface is covered with a resistant clear finish. Thus the appearance is a function only of the interest and variability in the grain pattern, not the underlying material. Cheap laminates are printed from a very limited palette of boards - higher quality laminates have much more variability.

I do think that in the right place real wood is far superior in appearance/charm - eg: listed property, variable width boards, evidence of natural wear, patina etc. However our last two fairly modern houses have fairly inexpensive laminate flooring which has remained almost unmarked for 10 years, and still looked acceptable after 15-20 years. It requires zero maintenance bar a broom and mop.

My pragmatic conclusion - if you are only expecting to be in the property for 5 years, there is no point fitting a floor which can be refinished several times and last 60 years, unless you value the knowledge that the quality is there, pride of ownership or deep have pockets.

Terry

 

[n0legs]

Kahrs all the way.
Boen Parkett would be my second choice.
Kahrs did a 'woodloc' fitting system, totally glueless floating floor. You will need a 'power shunter', special slide hammer, to make closing the short joints easy.

 

[Wuffles]

Kahrs all the way.
Boen Parkett would be my second choice.
Kahrs did a 'woodloc' fitting system, totally glueless floating floor. You will need a 'power shunter', special slide hammer, to make closing the short joints easy.

Or an off-cut and a heavy friend to stand on the bit you don't want to move when you hit it

 

[Rorschach]

If only living in a property for 5 years I would lay a moderately priced laminate and be done with it. We had a cheap laminate in the porch (so seeing regular abuse) for about 15 years and only had to be removed because of an accident, before that it looked absolutely fine. The replacement floor is also a fairly cheap laminate, been in about a year now, looks brand new despite being walked on several times a day with dirty, wet outdoor shoes etc.

I would go moderate priced in this situation as the resale value will be better as it will look better and more realistic. A high priced solid or engineered floor will never recoup it's cost in such a short period and resale price will not be affected much.

 

[No skills]

As much as I hate to say it but I agree with the laminate suggestions, a reasonable laminate will look good for more than 5 years unless you do lots of woodwork on it (no names mentioned).

We have similar pine strip and gap floors in our 1890 house of doom, I have done the hallway and our bedroom in a 15mm engineered oak from the large orange shed - quality was ok (not great) and the only place local I found what I wanted, wider look boards and longer lengths - now I want more its discontinued....
Look out for how thick the wear layer is and the amount of filler used in imperfections - some engineered floors look awful with all the filler in knots, ours is ok the couple of bad bits we got were used in inconspicuous areas.

I'll use solid downstairs as I have some already.

 

[Alexfn]

I own a flooring company. Khars is 30% more because of the brand name. The woodloc system is used by a lot of other companys and under different names.. 5g click for example.
Regardless dont fit a flooring floor. You want nail down t&g.

The Chinese oak is hit and miss. Some of the best stuff we do is coming out of poland and im paying 35+ vat for it. It retails online for 50ish

A quality oak floor will easly last 100 years. Lets see any laminate do that? Its all made from mdf

Camaro loc would be my choice over laminate

 

[RogerM]

Regardless don't fit a flooring floor. You want nail down t&g.

Alex - thanks for the advice. Not sure what you mean by a "flooring floor". Can you clarify please?

 

[RobinBHM]

Floating floor perhaps?

Woodloc is a great idea, it keeps itself tight. Its a real bugger to fit around obstacles like radiatior pipes as a whole run has to clip down in one go.

 

[Alexfn]

Sorry. Im in poland at the moment and tapping this out on the mobile with autocorrect and the local vodka in full effect.



Floating floors

Avoid floating floors. Nail down t&g running in the opposite direction to the existing flooring.

 

[chippy1970]

My daughter is considering having an engineered oak floor laid in her 1930's semi in Kingston Upon Thames. She's busy getting quotes, and her favoured one gives 2 prices, one of about £20/sq-m using a Wickes product, and the other in European Oak for about £50/sq-m, plus fitting in each case. Not done any flooring but I know many of you guys have done. She's been told that the Wickes product uses a soft Chinese oak look-a-like which marks easily, and that the European Oak is a far superior product that is far harder wearing, all of which sounds like sense.

Which brands of engineered flooring should she be looking at? I've heard good things about Kahrs, but there must be others. The floor is intended for a kitchen diner over underfloor heating, the hallway and lounge to cover the existing suspended pine strip floors (not t&G) which are shoddy and which have wide gaps between the boards through which the wind howls.

I've suggested a carpet and decent underlay, but that's not the look they want. They have no dogs and one small child. They intend to live there for the next 5 years or so, but probably not much longer.

What should I be suggesting she looks at to get the best product at the best compromise on the price/quality curve? Ideally doesn't want to spend more than £50/sq-m unless there is a clear reason to do so, and if she can get away with less then so much the better.

Roger I use www.flooringsales.co.uk

They're based right near your daughter in Chessington. She will have to open a trade account as it's really a trade only place. But I'm sure she could just knock up a quick letter head or something.

They sell most floors but I highly recommend Boen. They make sports hall floors and are very good quality for the price.

Chris