Tony Locke talks to us about caring for a flooring
investment.
Wooden flooring has been around as long as man has been able
to chop down trees and it has a timeless natural beauty and warmth about it
that we all love and can associate with. Wood has always been a material that
has been crafted into beautiful flooring and with the many different species
and surface finishes available these days the consumer has a vast choice at his
or her fingertips to achieve any aesthetic look desired.
It’s also easier now than it has ever been to look after a
fully finished floor. Technological advances in oil and lacquer finishes now
mean that a floor surface is tougher than ever before. For example, ultra
violet cured oils have the advantage of hardening the oil’s surface and locking
it into the grain of the wood, giving the popular appeal of a natural oil matt
look, while enhancing the durability of the finish and reducing the need for
regular re-oiling of the floor compared to a natural oil uncured oiled finish.
Similarly, UV lacquered finishes are also highly durable
these days due to their tough chemical composition which includes components
such as aluminium oxides which greatly enhance the abrasion resistance of the
lacquer. All of IDS’s Tuscan wood flooring products have a minimum of five
coats of the finish applied to them, while the hand distressed solid wood
products have a total of seven coats.
Even though the finishes are very durable, it is still
crucial that a wooden floor is sufficiently cared for to ensure the benefits of
all this technology are fully utilised and the installed floor looks good
throughout its service life.
So often damage is caused to the surface finish such as
discoloration or scratches on the surface which are a sure sign of an
inappropriate cleaning product having been used which has abrasive elements in
its composition or actual physical damage to the floors surface.
All this could be so easily avoided because looking after a
wood floor is simplicity itself. Yet so often the consumer damages the floor
when it could have been so easily avoided through greater awareness and
understanding. As the popularity of wood flooring continues to grow, I would
like to see installers playing a greater role in making sure the the customer
understands how to care for a floor before he departs off the job.
The moving or dragging items of furniture is one of the most
common causes of damage to a floorcovering. Felt protection pads are widely
available and are cheap to buy, yet it is common to see large scratches or wear
damage due to furniture feet not having pads on them. It goes without saying
that in every case it’s significantly cheaper to protect the floor with felt
pads than it is to rectify damage caused by not having used them.
Most people have chairs with castors at a working desk, so
it makes total sense to place a rubberised mat underneath to protect the floor
from a continuous backwards-forwards motion of the castors on the wooden
surface.
Wood floors have a number of natural characteristics that
are often not appreciated by the floor-owner and an unrealistic perception of
the finished floor is another common problem. Consumers will have a mental
picture of the look of a finished floor particularly in terms of overall
colour. But an overall colour to a rustic grade floor cannot be guaranteed as
we are dealing with a natural material where the colour of the boards is
determined by a variety of factors including origin of logs, density of the
logs, the cut of the boards and mineral content to name but a few. So, all
wooden flooring items in their natural unstained form will have varying colour
shades which when installed correctly, by mixing boards from different boxes
during installation, results in a naturally blended oak floor without
noticeable colour variances.
Another common misperception is that real wood floors will
act like a laminate floor when installed and be perfectly stable and uniform.
Wood floors are a living, breathing product as they retain a number of their
natural characteristics even after a tree has been chopped down, sawn into
boards, kilned, machined and finished in that wood will still naturally expand
and contract through the seasons of the year in response to changing climatic
conditions. This is why leaving the correct expansion gap facility during
installation is so important. If installed correctly a wooden floor will expand
and contract without the owner ever realising it except perhaps for the
occasional `creak` sound here and there which is perfectly normal with a wooden
floor.
During the winter season one or two small gaps between
boards may appear as individual boards contract in response to a drier than
normal room atmosphere as heating cycles become more prolonged especially in
cold snap periods but again this is perfectly normal and the gaps will then
close up during the warmer spring and summer months as average humidity levels
rise again.
A real wood floor is indeed a thing of beauty but like all
beautiful things in life it needs to be understood, treasured and cared for, to
keep it looking and performing at its best.
Contact IDS on 08457 298 298 or visit www.idsurfaces.co.uk
