FREE DELIVERY ON ALL ORDERS OVER £350 Engineered Wood Floors
Engineered wood flooring is becoming ever more popular due to its stability and ease of fitting. It is possible to use engineered flooring in various applications as they can be fitted in any of the three normal laying methods. They can be fitted as floating ( by gluing the tongue and groove ), fully bonded or bonded on liquid battens for example with Rewmar MS Polymer adhesives, or they can be nailed to joists as structural flooring without the need for any flooring material below. This method will require a 20mm thick floor to be used. 18mm is also used but once sanded they become less stable and structurally weaker so it is best to avoid these and use 20/21mm products.
The latest development in engineered flooring is the multiply type, which gives more stability than the old 3 ply products and, when used as a structural floor, also provides more strength due to its construction.
At wood 2U we only sell European specification flooring made with the best quality Birch Plywood to ensure stability and strength and to guarantee the source of the supply. We do not sell Chinese products which are generally made with mixed specie plywood and which are less stable and prone to delamination problems. When you buy an engineered floor you need to ensure that you are buying 100% Birch plywood not just the Birch faced plywood. The Birch faced plywood is often sold as Birch but is made with lower grade and less stable materials and can lead to problems once installed. In our experience there is a vast difference in varying quality of the mixed plywood products that are usually made in China and because of this problem we ensure that we do not sell any of these products.
It is easy enough to identify Chinese products as they are usually 189mm wide (beware of the 190mm wide flooring as you will probably find it is 189mm and disguised as Non Chinese by claiming 190mm width). The 189mm products will also usually be 1860mm long and will come with a split board in the pack.
Another common size to watch for is the 220mm wide and 2200mm long products which are now being sold into the UK from China. Again the plywood is the main problem and it is usually too late once you've made the mistake. We note that there is now a move to using Eucalyptus plywood in an effort to keep prices down, but this is as yet untried in use and is unlikely to be as stable as the industry recognised leader in stable plywood i.e Russian and Finnish products made from full Birch.
On the engineered wood flooring products sold by Wood2U we only sell flooring that has been finished with the highest quality products. So, when you buy one of our oiled floors you can rest assured that the floor is finished with OSMO oils not some cheap oil that will show you footprints in white once in use. All our product finishes are safe and easy maintenance.
Hopefully this information will help you to avoid what are likely to be inferior products and you will be able to identify European flooring that is made with the highest quality materials and manufacture methods.