Some people adjudge engineered oak flooring to be a lesser
quality product to solid oak flooring because they consider it to be the same
as a laminate but that’s completely wrong.
Quality has nothing to do with the actual construction and
all to do with the actual products and methods used within the process of that
construction.
Saying that solid oak is better quality than engineered oak
is like saying chalk is better than cheese… in some situations it is (it’s
difficult to write on a blackboard with cheese!) and in some cases it isn’t
(have you ever tried a chalk sandwich?)
Engineered oak flooring has been designed and introduced to
the market place to provide a floor finish that appears exactly the same as
solid oak (it is actually the same oak) but also provides much better stability
after installation.
The engineered oak flooring supplied by Oak Floors Online
all has an underside made of high quality plywood, each layer being at 90
degrees to the next and so creating a very rigid and strong layer that’s then
heat bonded to the wear layer of oak on top of it (4mm on the 15mm boards and
6mm on the 21mm).
Details of all the engineered oak flooring available can be seen by clicking this link: http://www.oakfloorsonline.co.uk/?template=searchProducts.html&category=engineered-oak
This construction enable home owners to install engineered
oak flooring in virtually any room of their homes without worrying about the
risk of ‘cupping’ or ‘crowning’ of each plank (these terms mean that the solid
piece of oak is either absorbing moisture or losing it, I turn forcing the
board to change dimensionally).
Having said all of the above, there are some situations
where oak flooring cannot or should not be installed because of continuous high
or low moisture or humidity levels.
Even with all the excellent stability qualities that plywood
backed engineered oak provides, one very important note to remember is that
high or low humidity can still effect the structure of the board itself because
when the solid oak wear layer is forced to gain or lose moisture… due to the
strength of the oak, something has to give, and it’s usually the bond between
the wear layer and the plywood.
Monitoring and controlling the relative humidity is vital
for continued floor performance (see http://www.oakfloorsonline.co.uk/?template=acclimatisationInfo.html
and http://www.oakfloorsonline.co.uk/?template=product.html&category=floor-protection--maintenance&productKey=pro-7a393698000104
)
