14 Things not to do to your wood floor

1. Never fit a solid wood floor over a new concrete screed. It will need a minimum of 28 twenty eight days to dry after closed in, before a special installation method should be used or products applied, before you can install a solid wood floor. To make a concreete floor suitable for a solid wood, you need the knowledge and test equipment to check it, you need to be able to check the moisture in the wood, the moisture in the sub floor too. More importantley, you need to check the air humidity, and you need to check the air temperature, Call us now and talk to us about this. We have found most failures are as a result of builders and carpenters having a go, thay get into trouble with this aspect, as while they have all the skills at hand, they do not posess the measuring equipment or the knowledge that properly trained floormen have, We have found this is one of the biggest problems in our industry, especially with the popularity of wood floors that continues to grow, Please call us, do not make the same mistake as others do.
2. Never glue down solid wood flooring over 16mm thick to under floor heating.
3. Never fit electric under floor heating under solid wood floors.
4. Never fit a solid or engineered wood floor without checking the humidity in the sub floor without a moisture barrier.
5. Never fit a solid wood floor with less than 15mm expansion across the planks to exterior walls.
6. Never glue down any solid wood floor down over 160mm across the plank width (they expand too much and are too strong, for the glue to hold it down).
7. Never fit any wood floor in a room with any form of Primary heating.
8. If you have a flood never turn on heating to dry it out, it can take weeks, and it’s always advisable to remove the centre plank in the room, and have a window open regularly.
9. Never wet mop a solid wood floor.
10. Never wet mop any floor, always use oil for cleaning an oil floor and neutral PH cleaner for a lacquered floor, ask us for details.
11. Never acclimatise a floor within three weeks of plastering taking place in the same room.
12. Never try and acclimatise a floor with heating.
13. Never acclimatise wooden floor boards in a room temperature less than 15 degrees as they will take on water moisture and over expand. Then when fitted they will dry out, shrink, and the appearance will be ruined.
14. Most wooden floors will last 1 to 200 years with reasonable levels of maintenance, poor fitting can reduce this drastically, so get it fitted by a specialist floor layer. Normal carpenters and builders have all the right tools and skills but do not possess the knowledge or test equipment to do it properly.