Engineered Garage Coatings College Station is rapidly increasing in popularity throughout the world as a viable alternative to solid wood flooring. While being considerably cheaper than a solid wood floor, engineered flooring performs better in a number of ways which goes to explain its increasing market share. Unlike laminate flooring, engineered features 100% real wood and the surface layer of the floor is an authentic, prime cut of hardwood. The difference lies in the fact that engineered flooring boards are made up of a number of different layers, the surface layer of expensive oak or walnut and the core layers of cheaper, highly durable plywood. It’s this layered construction that makes engineered flooring both cheaper and more stable as it is less prone to the expansion and warping that can befall solid wood flooring.
When it comes to laying engineered flooring, it’s possible to lay it as a floating floor as long as the substrate is suitable and an appropriate underlay is used. Laying a floating floor is often cheaper than opting for a glue or screw down approach and allows you easy access to the subfloor if needed. However, to lay a floating floor, the substrate will need to be both level and damp proof. An uneven concrete subfloor can be easily fixed through the application of a self-levelling compound that automatically fills lower areas while runny and dries to give a perfectly smooth surface.
If laying your floating engineered floor on a concrete base, a damp proof membrane will be required to prevent moisture from the subfloor rising and affecting your floor. Luckily, many underlay have been developed that incorporate a damp proof layer and provide this protection while forming a cushioned base for the floor. Many varieties of underlay are available, some with heat flow properties, and some designed to sound proof your floor but all have the same basic principle of providing a cushioned surface for your floating floor to rest upon.
Now that you’ve selected the appropriate underlay and your desired engineered flooring, you’ll probably be pretty keen to get started right away but it is absolutely essential that you allow your floor to acclimatise to its new setting before starting the installation. During production and storage, chances are that your floor will have been in different humidity and temperature conditions to those it’ll find itself in your room and while adjusting to these new conditions, your floor is likely to either expand or contract. Most tradesmen would advise leaving your wood flooring in the room for around 10 days prior to installation to allow for these adjustments as it would be disastrous if these variations occur after the floor is laid.
Engineered flooring often comes with tongue and groove edge profiling making it easy to slot planks together but most modern engineered flooring now features the easy click installation system which works on a similar principle but causes the planks to lock together once slotted removing the need for adhesives. When laying your floating floor, it’s important to leave a 10mm gap between the walls of the room. This is because although now acclimatised, it is still likely the your floor will contract and expand throughout its lifetime and needs space in which to do so to avoid cupping or splitting. This 10mm gap can be discretely hidden through the use of a scotia or skirting board under which your new floating engineered flooring will have space to expand.
