Gaps appearing in floorboards

It's that time of the year again: gaps appearing in floorboards

In this period our web site is being found by a lot by people "Googling" on: floorboard gap; floorboard gap filler; gaps in floorboards, etc.
We "wood like" to explain that in this time of the year and with this weather that gaps appearing in floorboards is pretty usual. We keep track of the air humidity in our house and shop on a daily basis and during the end of autumn and winter it can drop as low as 35 - 40%

Wood works all year round and when the weather (climate) gets dryer, wood will get dryer also (as will your skin). Then it is very normal for floorboards to shrink and for gaps to appear. These gaps will disappear again when the air humidity gets higher

It's no use to fill them; it's part of the way wood works.

What you could do (to keep the wood and also yourself healthy): hang ceramic water containers on radiators (check regularly that they are still filled with water; you can also add a few drop of a fragrant in for a nicer or fresher smell) or hang a damp tea-towel (not dripping wet!) on radiators; that will increase the humidity slightly.

For more on wooden flooring and house-climate see here

Wooden flooring finished with lacquer or oil: differences and advantages

One of the hardest questions to answer is: what makes a better finish, lacquer or oil/HardWaxOil?

First of all it’s down to personal taste and secondly to what is expected of the floor, e.g. easy maintenance, shiny look or natural appearance of the wood.

Historical the wax floor is still seen as very labour intensive to maintain, who doesn’t have memories of caretakers buffing away endlessly week after week after week (be it your “Gran” or the school caretaker). Then came the ‘modern’ lacquer (and synthetic and affordable wall-to-wall carpets) and the original wax floor almost became extinct.

For many decades most of the wooden flooring in the U.K. was pre-finished lacquered or lacquered/varnished on site. Maintenance became simple, buffing a thing of the past and there is a choice between high gloss and matte appearance. The newest innovation in lacquer even has the same appearance as an oiled floor to make the wood look more ‘natural’.

The biggest disadvantage of a lacquered finish on a wooden floor is that it ‘sits’ on the floor. When damaged with a sharp object or due to the long term abrasive effect of dirt (‘dirty’ shoes ‘sanding’ away in heavy traffic areas or under chairs, tables) the lacquer doesn’t protect the wood anymore and dirt/moist will make the wooden floor look ‘grey’ regardless of maintenance efforts. In fact, cleaning damaged areas with a moist cloth will make things worse.
The only proper solution would be to sand the complete floor and to apply a new finish. Applying a proper lacquer layer is a job for the specialist, lacquer is not very forgiving to mistakes made.

The labour intensive maintenance of the old-fashioned wax-floor has now become a thing of the past: oils replaced the many layers of wax. The oil penetrates the wood deeper than lacquer and makes it moist resistance, but allowing the wood to ‘breathe’. A hardwax layer is applied afterwards to make the wear and tear layer water repellent.

Nowadays most oiled floors are pre-finished (or finished on site) with HardWaxOil, combining the natural oil (long term protection) and the carnauba or bees hardwax (wear and tear layer) in a two-in-one product. It’s very easy to apply and a very forgiving product when some mistakes are made, in fact an ideal DIY-finish (but we strongly recommend you read the instructions thoroughly and use the right equipment).

It has a great surface density and therefore very resistant to abrasive movements. Besides that, any (small) damages are very easily repaired with some wax or maintenance oil without the need to sand the whole floor.

The appearance of the finished wooden floor is matte satin with the advantage of making the floor look warmer, deeper in colour over the years.

An oiled-waxed or HardWaxOiled wooden floor requires slightly more maintenance than a lacquered floor, but not on the level of the old-fashioned knee and backbreaking wax floor, the modern maintenance products have taken care of that.

For advice on proper maintenance see our extensive tips and advice page.

Have we answered the question of what makes a better finish? No, sorry we still can’t; it’s still down to personal taste we’re afraid.

BTW, our personal taste is HardWaxOil.

What's in a name: laminated, engineered, composed etc

As a member of the DIY-not forum we frequently give free advice to any "would be" wooden flooring installer. We do notice there is a lot of confusion about names of products and Wood You Like would like to introduce a more righteous terminology in types of floor covering; most times it can help to answer a question about ‘wooden’ flooring better.

The most confusion is about laminated flooring, used by DIY-ers (and even some suppliers) for both Melamine Laminated Flooring (the ‘plastic’ – Melamine’ stuff with only a photo-copy of wood) and for Wood-Engineered and Wood-Veneered flooring (flooring with a solid wood top layer between 0.2mm and 6 – 8mm with a crossed-backing of pine/plywood or mdf).

In the (English) wood-flooring profession laminate is used to describe the Melamine flooring (like Pergo, Quick-step etc).

The term Wood-Veneer is officially only used when the solid wooden top layer has a thickness between 0.2 to 2.5mm but frequently searchers mean all Wood-Engineered flooring when using this term.

Wood-Engineered covers the rest of the ‘engineered’ flooring where the solid wooden top layer is more than 2.5mm thick (and can go up to even 8mm), but has a crossed-backing of a different material than the top layer.
Solid wooden flooring with cross-backing of the same wood (to make it more stable) is called ‘composed’ wooden flooring.

Real wood is sometimes used to describe Wood-Engineered and Wood-Veneer flooring as opposed to the Melamine Laminated flooring.

Another rule of thumb with Wood-Engineered is that the backing material is minimum twice the thickness of the solid top layer (i.e. 15mm total thickness of the board means that the top layer should not be thicker than 5mm). Thicker than that will cause too much tension on the board because the solid wood is much stronger than any backing. 8mm solid top layer on a 14mm plywood backing is wrong and can cause the board to buckle/cup and even split the whole board.

Miss-use of Parquet term. Where in the mainland of Europe Parquet (Parket) means wooden flooring (any wooden flooring, from solid, wood-engineered to wood block design patterns like herringbone) in the UK the term Parquet is commonly used to describe the latter: wood blocks in any design pattern.
We have noticed however that some manufacturers and retailers use the term Parquet in the UK to promote the 3-strip Wood-Engineered (or 3-strip Wood-Veneer) flooring, which does lead to disappointed customers expecting a real (solid) ‘old-fashioned’ parquet floor instead of the T&G (or click) boards they are in fact purchasing.


For more info or quotes visit our showroom in Brenchley Mews, Charing
or one of our websites:
www.woodyoulike.co.uk
www.woodyoulikediy.co.uk