Hardwood floors, their types and Laminated floors by Richard Conard


Hardwood floors, their types and Laminated floors by RICHARD CONARD
Article Posted: 08/23/2015
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Hardwood floors, their types and Laminated floors

Home Improvement

Flooring is one of the important aspects in building construction and innumerable options of flooring techniques are available today. One such flooring technique is the hardwood flooring; where the floor structure, built above the sub-floor or the base-floor(which is mostly concreted) is made of planks of hardwood i.e wood of deciduous trees like Oak.

Types of Hardwood floors

There are basically two types of hardwood floors.
A) Solid wood floors
B) Floors of Engineered wood

Solid wood floor: They consist of wooden planks milled from a single piece of timber that is air dried before sawing. They have a thicker surface and can be finished more number of times than an engineered wood. Many houses in the European countries and Canada have the original solid wood floor that was laid several decades or a few centuries ago.

But solid wood has its own limitations also. Humidity is a major factor posing danger to solid wood. Excessive humidity can cause “crowning”; an occurrence of “convex curving” or curving upwards of the surface. “Cupping” is another thing that happens wherein the surface has a “concave” or dished appearance, when the height of the plank along its longer edges is more than that of the center. “Gapping” occurs when there is excessive space between the planks.

Floors of Engineered wood: Floors of engineered wood are made by pressing two or more layers of wood together to form a plank. In most cases there are three layers. The top layer called “Lamella” is the wood visible when the flooring is done and adhered to the core. It is the face of the floor.

The “Core” is usually the layer or layers below the Lamella. It distinguishes one engineered wood floor from another, depending on the construction of the core. In Wood ply core construction several thin layers of wood are adhered together so that the floor is resistant to climatic changes, thus increasing stability. In the Finger core construction small pieces of wood (granular form), are spread in a perpendicular way to the top layer ( Lamella) of wood. This layer becomes the middle layer if the wood is intended to be 3-ply. The lowermost layer (which is the third ply) is often plywood, arranged parallel to the lamella. In the Fiberboard construction, the layers below the topmost layer (the core), is usually made of dense fiberboards. This is relatively less stable , as exposure to moisture (either water or oil) or high humidity, makes the wood to lose its stiffness( form). Another method of flooring using engineered wood, popular in some European countries, is where the top layer is made of hardwood, and the middle layer is laid perpendicular to the top layer by softwood, and a final supporting layer is given using the same wood that was used for the initial layer (lamella).

Laminate flooring should not be confused with engineered wood floors. In Laminate flooring, synthetic materials are fused together and the floor simulates wood (or sometimes stone) on the surface. The below lying layers (core) are usually melamin resin or fiberboards.

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