Oak Floors Online talk about rustic oak flooring and Prime Grade oak flooring and how they 'fit' with various designs

Different design styles of the home are created by mixing different textures, colours and appearances of the items within, much of which come down to the personal preference of the owner.

Some people prefer to live in homes that ooze with character and 'rustic charm', whereas others opt for a more contemporary or modern look; it all really depends on the individual who's making the design decisions.

The range of flooring available from Oak Floors Online is capable of meeting most personal choices when it comes to flooring, ranging from narrower Solid Oak that's available as 120mm or 150mm wide and in mixed lengths of 300mm up to 1800mm (mostly shorter lengths because of the grading process it undertakes) to Engineered Oak that's wider and longer because of the extra stability it provides.

The Engineered Oak is supplied in 15mm or 21mm thickness, and in widths of 189mm and 240mm, with 85% of lengths being the full 1830mm (the remainder is made up of shorter lengths to simplify the staggering of joints within the finished floor).

For the more Rustic or Character appearance, here are a few choices that may be of interest;

Solid Oak Finishes;
18 x 120 Double Brushed & Dark Oiled
18 x 120 Hand Scraped Antique
Engineered Oak Finishes;
15 x 189 Double Brushed & Dark Oiled
15 x 189 Hand Scraped Antique, Oiled or Lacquered
15 x 189 Hand Scraped Vintage
15 x 189 Celtic Character Rustic
21 x 189 Double Brushed & Dark Oiled
21 x 189 Celtic Character Rustic

Engineered Celtic Character Rustic

The Celtic Character shown above is a CD and below mixed grade, where all the natural features are actually enhanced and 'shown off' by being filled with dark filler and then sanded, before being finished.
This creates a stunning character grade finish that can 'fit' with both classic and contemporary designs.

You can also add to these character bursting finishes, the Brushed & Natural Oiled finish that's appearance can be changed very easily by applying another coat of waxoil in the colour of your choice, so the range is varied and flexible.

For an oak floor that fits into a more modern design appearance, maybe a completely clear grained finish is preferable, like the 21 x 189 Brushed & Natural Oiled Prime Grade A, which has very few natural features (also available as Unfinished that can be finished on site).

The vast majority of the flooring held in stock is a mix of ABCD grades, because at Oak Floors Online we believe this offers a true 'oak-like' appearance after installation, with some character features, colour and grain variances but without being too rustic.

This mix of grade can also be 'self-graded' on site if a clearer floor appearance is required by simply cutting out any unwanted features from any single board, and then using the two ends as starter and end boards for a run. this will minimise wastage whilst helping to achieve a 'clearer' floor appearance.

To see the full range of finishes available please click HERE and if you see anything that interests you, please simply click through to the product detail and then on the Order Free Samples button for a free sample via Royal Mail post, and within a couple of days.

We are continuously trying to improve our range of products, both with regards size and finish but we don't want to create a 'market place' that is simply too busy and confusing for our customers.
Watch out for a range of long and wide engineered oak that will be arriving early next year, widths up to 400mm and lengths up to 5 metres!
   

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Oak Floors Online talk about the different installation methods for wood flooring

Here at Oak Floors Online, we often get asked; "what's the best way to install my flooring" but it's just not as simple as that.
Many of the most important factors that decide 'the best way' can only be decided upon from a site assessment, and the results of certain checks, so it's usually best to take the advice of your floor installer.
The 3 most popular installation methods are;

• Glue Down
• Nail Down
• Float

Gluing down usually requires a flexible adhesive to be applied to the subfloor for the oak flooring above to be bonded to it. An advantage of using this method is that thinner flooring will 'take on' the strength of the subfloor and always feel like a solid oak floor (as long as the subfloor is strong enough, obviously). This method is most commonly used when the subfloor is concrete or solid.
Nailing down usually means 'secret nailing' where a nail gun is used to fire in a nail (preferably a barbed cleat that grips the timber subfloor beneath) at 45 degrees, at a point just above the tongue of the board, so that when inserted fully the next board slots over it and conceals it. Again this helps the flooring to 'take on' the strength of the timber subfloor beneath.
Floating a floor means that the flooring is not actually 'fixed' down at all. The boards are simply glued together to form one complete 'floating' surface that sits above the subfloor, usually over a suitable underlay. This method can allow some movement of thinner flooring when walked upon but this challenge can usually be overcome by installing a structural grade floor board (our 21mm engineered or our 18mm solid oak).
Other things to consider before deciding whish installation method is best for you include;

• The expected usage and 'traffic' that the flooring will have to take
• The condition of the subfloor; is it level and flat?
• Is it solid or engineered flooring that's being installed?
• Where in the house is it being installed?

One last point...
Beware of installers who have their own 'favourite' installation method. Some will always recommend gluing down because they 'can get a good deal' on the adhesive that's needed... and then they make extra money from you for doubling what it cost.
Others may say "oh I always float a new floor..." but when your flooring moves and creaks after installation is complete, where are they then?
There's no doubt that in most cases fixing the flooring down to the subfloor is the best option but it's not the most cost-effective in some cases.
If you have any doubts, simply send us an email with as much detail as you can include about your site situation, and we'll do our best to advise you what methods are suitable.

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Oak Floors Online write about how the cold winter months can have a bad effect on wood flooring

With summer looking like it's well and truly over and the dark mornings and nights upon us, it's time for us to start talking again about what happens to oak flooring during the cold winter months.
I know we've harped on about this all year already but the way we look at it is that an oak floor that fails doesn't just harm the owner's pocket but also the reputation of the whole industry itself.
We all know that bad rumours spread much quicker than good ones, so when someone experiences challenges with their oak floor, there's only bad that can come of it.
It doesn't seem to matter who's fault it was for not looking after and maintaining the floor correctly, or not installing it properly, or even not manufacturing it properly... the only sure result is that it's going to cost money to put right and it's going to reduce the consumer confidence about having an oak floor installed, which damages the industry.
Anyway, let's emphasise this again...
Wood flooring will change dimensionally during the different seasons of the year and as humidity levels vary within those seasons.
It's the humidity that surrounds your flooring that'll determine how much it moves because if it's allowed to vary too much one way or the other, then your flooring will be forced to either 'lose' or 'take on' moisture.
We recommend keeping the Relative Humidity at between 35-60%, which is best for wood flooring and also the best level for our bodies too.
With the ever increasing popularity of engineered oak flooring , mostly because of the extra stability its construction and design provides after installation, this humidity challenge becomes even more important.
You see, an engineered oak floor board has a solid oak wear layer that's bonded to a plywood underside (ours are all plywood based but you can find bases that are made from softwood or MDF, which are simply not as good), so no matter how strong the bond is between the two, when that oak wear layer is forced to change with regards its moisture content... it will move and something will have to give.
That something will either be the bond between the oak and the plywood or the bond between the individual plies within the plywood itself.
This is not 'delamination' from production or product quality faults as some people will claim... it's purely down to the oak either losing or absorbing moisture and changing its dimensions through doing so.
During the cold winter months it's most likely to be the losing of moisture that's the problem because as the air outside gets colder, it becomes 'drier' and contains less moisture in the form of humidity.
When that air is then brought into our homes and warmed up, the amount of moisture drops further, thus reducing the humidity even further.
EVERYONE that owns an oak floor (or any wood floor for that matter) should invest in a Thermo-Hygrometer (preferably, one for every area of their home that has wood flooring) to enable them to constantly measure and monitor the temperature and humidity levels that surround their beautiful wood floors.
Then, when the humidity levels become too low, measures can be taken to increase it before any lasting damage to the flooring is done.
You don't have to buy a Thermo-Hygrometer from us, we don't really mind where you buy one from... just make sure you buy one!     
 

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Oak Floors Online emphasise that changes in moisture content force dimensional changes within oak flooring; so buy a Thermo-Hygrometer

As we’ve emphasised before, and leading on from our last blog article about how timber is dried, let’s explain a little about how it changes dimensionally when forced to ‘take on’ or ‘lose’ moisture when installed within the home.

Remember that when wood is in its natural state, living and growing as a tree, it’s made up of lots of cells that contain moisture in the form of ‘free’ and ‘bound’ water (see previous blog).

When the tree is felled and dried for usage, it’s obviously forced to lose this moisture to some extent, in an effort to make it more suitable for modern living conditions within our homes. As it loses this moisture past its FSP level, it will shrink dimensionally but this shrinkage will vary across length and width.

The least dimensional change will be along the length of the timber (length being the direction of the grain) and can be as little as 0.1% during the drying process.

However, the dimensional change that should be of most interest to every wood floor owner is the change across its width (at 90 degrees to its grain direction) because this can be as high as 8-9%.

Can you imagine installing a floor that consists of 30 boards across its width, that are each 150mm in size, and every board is forced to shrink by just 2% due to poor or insufficient acclimatisation? What would happen? What's 2% of 150mm?

Every plank would shrink by 3mm that’s what…creating huge gaps between them and this will usually cause the owner to claim that the flooring is 'faulty', which it's not.

What about that same floor when the situation is reversed and the finished floor is forced to absorb moisture?

A 2% expansion would mean that every plank will expand by 3mm now, causing the floor to buckle and possibly even move structural walls as it expands outwards.

Every natural wood floor owner should be aware of this information to some extent, and at the very least know and understand that their timber flooring is hygroscopic, and will change dimensionally when its moisture content is forced to change.

Why risk this potential time-consuming and costly situation when you can buy a simple device called a Thermo-Hygrometer that will constantly update you with the temperature and humidity level of any room, arming you with enough information to prevent any damage from dimensional movement within your floor?

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Oak Floors Online explain how the drying of wood affects its size and dimensions

Because moisture content is so important and will always define the size of any piece of timber (oak flooring or other) we at Oak Floors Online feel that it’s important to explain what happens from the time when the tree is cut down and then the process that it goes through before it arrives on your doorstep as beautiful flooring.

Hopefully by providing you with this information, you’ll understand why we advise everyone who owns an oak floor to monitor and control the conditions with some kind of Thermo-Hygrometer, especially the relative humidity, that surrounds their floor.

When a tree is alive and growing, it can be completely ‘full’ of water, sometimes to the extent of having a moisture content of more than 100%, and the moisture within weighing more than the wood itself.

The moisture content of timber is calculated by the weight of the water divided by the weight of the dried timber, and then expressed as a percentage.

Timber ‘holds’ moisture in two ways;

• Moisture called ‘Free Water' is held within the space between the cells of the wood, and is the first moisture that’s evaporated during the drying process.
• Moisture called ‘Bound Water' is attracted to the cell walls by a chemical reaction, making it more difficult to dry, thus making it the moisture source that’s most relative to the size of the timber section, as it either increases or decreases. The bound water has positive hydrogen atoms, which are attracted by the negative charge within the cell walls, and it’s this ‘attraction’ that makes it most difficult to dry.

When you dry any piece of freshly felled timber, it doesn’t start to shrink until all the Free Water has evaporated, which then forces the Bound Water to then start to evaporate as the drying process continues.

When this starts to happen, this stage of the drying process is called the Fibre Saturation Point (FSP), and timber doesn’t start to change dimensionally until it reaches its FSP (different species of timber have different FSP levels but in most it’s between 25-30% moisture content).

This is hugely important to understand and accept because it’s this FSP that will define how your oak flooring ‘behaves’ dimensionally after installation, as it’s forced to either ‘take on’ or ‘lose’ moisture.

Wood used as flooring within the home, timber will sometimes ‘live’ at well below its FSP level (depending on the living conditions like heating, insulation, ventilation etc…), so this is why a period of acclimatisation is necessary to allow it to reach equilibrium with the room it’s to be installed… before installation rather than afterwards.

If your floor is installed before the flooring has reached this level of equilibrium, it will be forced to reach it after installation is complete, thus forcing it to move dimensionally one way or the other.
This is why acclimatisation is so important before installation, and then maintaining the conditions as consistently as possible afterwards, to avoid excess dimensional movement of each floor board within the finished floor. 

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Oak Floors Online provide ways of stopping a wood floor from creaking

There’s nothing more annoying than having a beautiful new oak floor installed that then creaks or squeaks when you walk on it, so we’re going to try to help you to either avoid this from happening in the first place or at least do all you can to stop it from happening if it starts.

Creaks and similar noises are always caused by movement of the floor, movement of the subfloor, or a combination of both, so the first task before installation even begins is to make sure that the subfloor is strong enough and doesn’t ‘give’ or 'flex' too much when walked upon.

If it does ‘give’ too much, then it needs to be reinforced and strengthened by adding extra supporting struts or even full joists beneath, or maybe adding another surface layer of plywood. The plain fact is that if the problem isn’t solved and fixed at this stage, your finished floor will always have further problems because no matter how good a quality your oak flooring is, it will only ever be as good as the subfloor beneath.

If the subfloor wasn’t tested and proven as being suitable, and now you have a squeaky floor, then you need to firstly walk across the floor and find the areas where the problems are.

Make a full inspection of the floor areas where the problem is apparent (above and below if possible) and assess what the cause of the problem is.

If it’s a loose or under-strength subfloor, then this can sometimes be fixed from below by either filling any voids between subfloor and joists, or by strengthening and ‘beefing up’ the joists.

If it’s determined that the squeaks and creaks are caused by the actual flooring being loose above the subfloor, then you can either fix it down from above by screwing it into counter-sunk holes or better still, screwing up from beneath if possible to avoid any remedial work that's necessary to ‘patch up’ and cover the screw holes left in the surface of the floor.

The biggest challenges to solve with loose floor coverings that creak are when the flooring is installed above a concrete subfloor because there’s obviously no access from below to sort the problems out, and everything has to be done from above on the actual surface of the floor, which can affect its appearance.

If the flooring has been installed using the floating method then there’s not much you can do other than remove the flooring and start again, hopefully not damaging the edges of the boards too much where they’ve been glued together.

When it has been removed, the subfloor should be assessed (maybe it isn’t flat and level, which is allowing the flooring above to move under load) and the flooring should be fixed somehow to the subfloor to avoid the problems occurring again (the subfloor needs to be flat and level for good adhesion).

If the flooring has been glued down to the subfloor already, then that’s another matter completely… loose flooring then means that either the adhesive hasn’t been applied correctly or sufficiently, or it has pulled away from either the flooring or the subfloor (usually it’s the subfloor; not being flat and level enough or simply not strong enough to adhere to the adhesive sufficiently).

Some fitters claim that this can be ‘fixed’ by drilling holes into the flooring and forcing more adhesive through them and into the void between flooring and subfloor to bond both together again but in reality, not only does this virtually ruin the appearance of the floor but if it’s the subfloor that’s failing, this just isn’t going to work. The flooring will have to be ripped up and re-installed, costing everyone involved time, effort and money.

Creaks and squeaks can also be caused when a nailed down floor isn’t fixed sufficiently by either using nails that are too short, or simply not enough nails being used (NB: barbed cleats are always better than standard nails because they grip the subfloor and won't work loose over time).
This can be remedied by drilling and screwing (or nailing) into counter-sunk holes, and those holes are then filled, sanded and re-finished… but this is one hell of a lot of work that should never be necessary if the floor is fitted correctly in the first instance.
You never want to rip up a nailed down floor with an aim of using it again because of the damage that can be caused to the edges of the boards where they've been nailed. If the flooring has been screwed down initially, then this is a simple but time-consuming process to increase the number of fixings used.

The plain and simple fact that we want to emphasise here by highlighting all of the above… is that proper assessment of the site and sufficient preparation of the subfloor and the flooring, are all vital components to a reliable and effective floor installation project.

If you try to cut corners in an effort to save money when installing an oak floor, it will invariably end up costing you more money and time in the long run.

Always remember one of our favourite sayings; “when installing a new oak floor, you want to do it once not twice”.

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Oak Floors Online explain how to replace a single board within a finished floor

From time to time, no matter how good a quality the flooring you buy is, there may be a need to replace a single board within a finished floor.
This could be down to it getting damaged or because it is what we call a ‘rogue’ board that behaves differently to others (this is simply down to it being a natural product and not a product or manufacturing fault) but no matter what the reason, it can be done quite easily, depending on the finish and the length of time the floor has been installed.

If the floor has been installed for some time, it may be necessary to re-finish the whole floor after the board has been replaced to enable the new piece to match up with the surrounding, 'older' and used boards.
If the floor has been recently installed and hasn’t received much wear, then the new board will probably match up fine without any extra work.

Although the process is quite simple, it does require some specialist tools, so an experienced floor fitter (or good carpenter) should be employed to do this work, and in our opinion it’s always easier to replace a complete board than to try to cross-cut it part the way along its length.

 

This process is suitable for solid and engineered oak;
Step 1
Cut both ends of the board that needs replacing about 60-70mm from each end, with a suitable saw but make sure the cuts don't reach the surrounding boards either side (something like a Fein Multimaster is a perfect tool for doing this).
Step 2
Use a circular saw (or similar) to cut two parallel cuts along the length of the board, deep enough to cut through the whole thickness of the board being replaced. Make sure you make these cuts far enough in from each edge to miss any possible nails that may be fixing the board down.
Step 3
Using the circular saw again, cut some diagonal cuts between the two parallel cuts about 50-70mm apart, so that the pieces of board between become loose and detached from the actual board. Be careful not to cut too far and into the boards at either side of the board that’s being replaced.

Step 4

Use a chisel (or similar) to break up the board and remove the loose pieces between the parallel cuts, until both sides become loose enough to remove also, leaving a clear board ‘space’ within the floor. Be careful not to damage the edges of the surrounding boards when removing the pieces of old plank.
Step 5
Remove the bottom lip of the grooved side and also the end of the new replacement board, and also chamfer or angle the remaining bottom corners of each.
Step 6
Then machine off the tongue at the end of the board to allow it to ‘hinge’ down into the space available for a perfect fit.
Step 7
After making sure that the replacement board fits well into the space within the floor, remove it and apply the adhesive (either the flexible adhesive to the underside for gluing the board to the subfloor or the joint adhesive to glue the board joints to the surrounding boards).
Step 8
The new board should be tapped down to ensure a good fit, and then a heavy weight should be used to weight it down until the adhesive has set completely. Make sure any excess adhesive is wiped away now before it sets.
Step 9
Finish as necessary to blend the board into the surrounding boards and that’s it.

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