Woodpecker® Flooring - How to choose the right floor
Kenton offers four types of flooring:
- Solid wood: Each board is made from a single piece of timber, usually with a tongue and groove joint, on the ends as well as the long sides. We normally recommend that all of these floors are fitted by an experienced floor layer. Wood is a natural product and is susceptible to dimensional changes due to moisture and humidity – each installation needs to be professionally assessed and the floor acclimatised before installation commences.
- Real wood engineered: These floors offer added stability and a greater variety of design. They are normally constructed in 3 layers, using the chosen species as a top wear layer, with a central core of either softwood*, high density fibreboard (HDF) with a balancing spruce veneer, or birch plywood. The top wear layer can vary from 0.6mm to 6mm depending on the product.
- Laminate: These floors are made from HDF board coated with a decorative wood grain foil beneath a transparent but hard wearing melamine surface.
- Cork: A beautiful, practical sustainable floor. Cork offers a perfect combination of comfort, aesthetic appeal, environmental and practicality credentials at a very reasonable cost.
*Expansion and contraction of the softwood core due to seasonal changes in humidity may produce a squeaking sound if the subfloor is not perfectly flat. Waxing of the joints can eliminate this.
There are a number of different factors that will affect which floor is the right one for you:
- Colour: how each timber species creates an individual atmosphere.
- Grading: the grade of timber describes the characteristics of the floor that you choose, i.e. grain type, likely colour variations, quantity and size of knots.
- Hardness: depending on the usage of your installation, you will need to choose a timber with an appropriate hardness.
- Style: do you want long wide boards or do you want a 2 or 3 strip floor that gives a busier feel to the floor? If you want planks do you want to accentuate them by having micro bevels on the long edges, or on all four edges, or do you want a flat surface?
- Surface finish: do you like a hard shiny surface to the floor or do you prefer a more subtle, lower sheen? Do you want to feel the grainy surface of the timber or do you want it smooth?
We have tried to help you answer these questions and guide you through the following pages, where you will certainly find the floor that will suit your tastes and create that special feel and atmosphere that will be unique to your home.
For technical reasons it is not always possible to obtain an exact colour match between different production batches which have the same colour description. The Company therefore recommends that all products should be of the same batch particularly when adding to an existing floor. The Company will be under no liability whatsoever in respect of any mismatching of planks or tiles where there are variations in colour.
You must ensure that your installer establishes the subfloor moisture content if fixing your new floor directly to it. This is essential with both a concrete and a wood subfloor.