Engineered Wood Flooring

Hi all

Quick q or two on the use and install of engineered wood flooring. How does it stack up for use in a hall with two teenagers blasting through on a regular basis? Is it available in click form, or is it all clamped/glued? Any links to recommended manufacturers, or those to avoid? Where the floor goes "through" the door frame to a threshold on the far side IYSWIM, what to do about gaps (and concealing them) between floor and door frame - yes I know that architraves and skirting will have to be fitted above top of floor.

TIA

Phil

Reply to
TheScullster
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Reasonably OK. Worst damage comes from dog claws, stiletto heels and furniture.

It is available in click form.

I used Kahrs. It worked as advertised.

I used flexible mastic. Or a hardwood threshold.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Noisy.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

The Natural Philosopher coughed up some electrons that declared:

Was that a click form or glue together? Oiled or laquered?

I'm looking to buy some asap, so am keen for recomendations.

The Kahrs I just found has a 0.5mm veneer - is that the same as yours? I noticed that engineered flooring seems to be available with a wide range of wearing surface thicknesses, going up to about 6mm.

I have to lay it floating on a solid floor (glue down is not an option, neither is battening and nailing) - I'm tending towards an oiled finish to make it more possible to touch up damage down the line without having to resort to sanding and starting again with a new finish.

Cheers

Tim

Reply to
Tim S

I had Kahrs in the past (laid for me). It was click together and sealed not oiled. Certainly it has to float to allow expansion. Ours was laid on fibre underlay mats. There was no problem with physical damage and it looked great (aside from a few pieces where plane pulls had been filled). Open fires are a menace though as cinders make black scorch marks you can't eradicate. Better to lay through doorways if possible. The surface was 6/7mm veneer that would, if required, take 3 complete resands. I would have their stuff again but inspect each panel and be prepared to reject a few.

Reply to
Bob Mannix

Also very quiet compared with laminate flooring.

Reply to
Bob Mannix

Bob Mannix coughed up some electrons that declared:

Thanks Bob - that sounds very encouraging. I have two solutions to stated problems, inherently:

My fire is going in a tiled room - so that avoids that problem :)

and - every door has a change from tiled to wood (eg hall will be tiled, bedrooms only wood and kitchen and bathrooms tiled. I'm thinking about having a solid timber threshold at each door as a visual feature, also that will tend to mask slight differences in height that will be inevitable with different floor types (though I'm also laying Marmox under all floors, so I can use different thicknesses of that to get a 10mm tile to be roughly on a level with a 15-20mm wood floor).

How do you find the sealing of yours is holding up to wear - if I may be so bold - do you have young kids or animals? I have teh former so it's going get a beating so the ability to touch up the finish is important.

Cheers

Tim

Reply to
Tim S

Ah slight problem with that. No longer in that house. Laminate is either perfect or is made sh*t by any damage. Engineered floor with a thick veneer damages gracefully and generally unnoticed. It's more dropping heavy objects than young kids (an iron isn't good). It is slippy in socks though, so there is the danger of damagaing the kids! The standard door threshold is a strip of hardwood. I do have one tip, if you are having painted skirting boards, fit them new over the flooring. Either leave a small gap or you can make one by pressing the underlay flat by leaning on the floor, amd slide lining paper underneath. Paint down to the lining paper. When dry, break paint joint to lining paper with a screwdriver and remove lining paper. Slightly rough paint edge then can be "disappeared" by brushing with a toothbrush (or similar) and it looks a treat.

Reply to
Bob Mannix

Click. Lacquered I think. Oil available.

Not sure. I would have said more like 1.5mm

Dont worry about damage. It adds to the look..

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Dog's get a lot of understeer and than rapid oversteer on it. Plenty of scuff marks.

But don't look too bad - use a rug!

Worst damage is cat pee. Soaks in and goes black...

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Don't know about teenagers, but ours has stood up to several years hard family use - including from my (now deceased) 90+ year-old father-in-law, who was pretty clumsy, and also dribbled all over it. What it *doesn't* like is having heavy furniture on castors wheeled over it - the castors leave permanent marks.

It's available both in click form and with parallel tongues and grooves. The latter definitely needs clamping and glueing. Click type is probably better glued - although you don't always have to glue it.

Khars and Junckers (sp?) seem to have reasonable reputations for the click-type, but are quite expensive. I used some parallel-grooved wood which I got from my local builder's merchants - made in Germany. I can't remember the brand name - but it wouldn't help 'cos I recently wanted to buy some more to match and couldn't find any!

You need to undercut the doorframes [1] so that the boards slide in underneath. Getting the boards in under these circumstances is far easier if the tongues and grooves are parallel - so that you can just drift them together horizontally. With click, the back edge normally has to be lifted to engage the tongues, and then pressed down. You can't do this if there's a door frame above it - so you have to fit this bit *first*.

[1] You can do this with a flexible hand saw, using a bit of scrap board and underlay as a guide to get the height right. Alternatively, you can do it with a Fein Multimaster (or equivalent) or even (apparently - though I haven't tried) with a biscuit cutter.
Reply to
Roger Mills

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