Types of Wooden Flooring

There are a number of different types of products on the market, but they can all be grouped into two main categories: solid wood and engineered wood floors.

Solid Wood

Solid wood is one piece of wood all the way through from top to bottom, regardless of width or length. It can be bought unfinished (without lacquers or oils) or pre-finished. An unfinished floor will need to be sanded after it has been installed, to bring the surface of the floor to a level of smoothness that will accept a lacquer or oil. A pre-finished floor will normally have been treated in the factory with several coats of lacquer or oil. It can come in various lengths, shapes, dimensions, etc.

The width of a solid floor will determine how the floor is referred to. Narrow boards up to 90mm in width are generally referred to as 'strip flooring', whereas boards wider than 90mm are referred to as 'plank flooring'. The same applies to the thickness of the floor; 18-22mm thick floors are generally referred to as 'solid floors', and the thinner 10-15mm floors as 'overlays'. Both strip and plank solid hardwood floors will normally be fitted with invisible nailing.

Industry standards state that a solid floor should be no more than 130mm wide (with no restrictions on length) unless face fixing is used to prevent the board from bowing or cupping. However, this is rarely adhered to by most companies, as the current trends are for long and wide planks. The Türgon ranges of planks come in a variety of species, with lengths up to 4 metres, and widths up to 150mm.

Engineered Wood Flooring

The image to the right shows the typical construction of a ply-backed engineered floor. In general it will include:

[1] a real hardwood veneer ranging from 4mm to 6mm single strip,

[2] a base layer of multilayer plywood either 12mm or 15mm thick

Typical board dimensions can be anywhere from 140mm - 240mm wide, 900mm - 2700mm long and 16mm - 21mm thick. The 21mm thick engineered floors are manufactured using the principle described above. These products are considered 'load bearing' and can therefore be fixed directly to existing floor joists in place of traditional pine floor boards.

The Türgon range of planks come in a variety of species, with lengths up to a breathtaking 12 metres, and various widths up to 600 mm, so choosing the right look for your home or project should be easy, and the resulting floor unique.

Ply backed engineered floors are incredibly stable. This allows it to be fitted as a floating floor on top of one of any number of different kinds of underlay, nailed down like traditional solid wood floors or stuck down directly to the sub floor; this kind of installation is in fact the recommended method when certain types of under-floor heating are being used.