Call 0114 247 2534 or visit www.JoineryStore.com

Joinerystore is part of the Heritage Doors & Floors group, one of the most respected flooring manufacturing companies in the UK. We manufacture a range of solid hardwood flooring as well as importing our own designs of engineered flooring direct from the best manufacturers in the Far East. This means we can bring you superb quality at the UK’s leading prices.

Below are detailed instructions for fitting our flooring products including preparation and finishing. If you have further queries, please don’t hesitate to call our experienced team on 0114 247 4917

Engineered Hardwood Flooring Introduction

We supply engineered hardwood flooring in a range of timbers and size choices. We import this direct from our partner factory in the Far East where we work closely with them to ensure both strict quality control and excellent pricing. As a final quality check, every board is inspected in the UK and all grading is carried out in our own factory by experienced technicians.

We supply engineered oak flooring is two grades, rustic and prime. Each grade tends to suit a different property style, with rustic perfect for period properties as it recreates the oak floorboards that would be seen in those homes. Both grades will have natural colour variations and features that mark them out as a solid wood floor.

Rustic Grade Prime Grade

Engineered Flooring Installation Instructions

Rustic grade will contain various features common to oak timber such as knots, small splits and cracks and other character. When oiled this creates a stunning character floor that will be a real feature in your home. Where there is a feature in the board that you prefer not to have, you can simply trim this section out.

Prime flooring is specially selected to have the minimum of knots and other character. Although it is not economically viable to have completely clear solid flooring, this will provide a much cleaner look and is perfect for the more modern property. Prime boards represent around 15% of the total timber so they are a bit more expensive.

Unlike most other engineered floors we do not fill knots and small splits in the timber surface. We believe that these features represent the natural character of oak and closely mimic our solid oak flooring. We recommend that you leave these unfilled and simply oil over them to bring out the natural beauty of the wood. Of course if you prefer, you can fill the board as desired and we can provide advice on how to acheive a natural look.

Engineered Flooring and Underfloor Heating

Engineered flooring is perfect for use over underfloor heating as the cross laminated base board makes it extremely stable and resistant to movement.

Call 0114 247 2534 or visit www.JoineryStore.com

Flooring Installation Instructions

Installing Engineered Hardwood Flooring

Your new engineered hardwood flooring will give a lifetime of service, but it’s important to ensure it is installed correctly to ensure that it can perform properly. By following the simple instructions below you can ensure a perfect installation.

Remember that timber is a natural product and will react to the environment around it. Specifically with flooring, this means that moisture in the atmosphere will be absorbed into the wood, which will expand slightly as its moisture content increases. Although engineered flooring is the best type of flooring to resist this movement, adequate precautions must still be taken. It is important to ensure that your area is correctly prepared and the flooring installation allows for room for the floor to move.

Preparation

Our engineered hardwood flooring can be laid onto any structurally sound even and solid surface, such as existing floorboards or chipboard boarding. If you prefer you can also lay our 20mm flooring direct to the joists as it is thick enough to be considered a structural floor. Our 15mm flooring must be laid onto a full subfloor. You should ensure that your subfloor is even and all obstructions such as protruding nails are hammered in level and any squeaks are dealt with.

The flooring can also be laid direct over a concrete screeded floor but in this instance it is absolutely critical that the floor is thoroughly dry. You should always work to your screed manufacturers instructions but as a basic guide, a traditional screed will require 1mm per day or an inch per month to dry out. If time is an issue then there are much faster drying screeds that will dry at anything up to 10-15mm per day. Before flooring is laid, the moisture content of the screed needs to be under 3%. It is possible to lay solid hardwood flooring over under floor heating and if special precautions are taken then problems can be minimised although we cannot guarantee this installations. Please call us for further details on how to lay engineered hardwood flooring over underfloor heating.

Whichever screed you use, you MUST ensure that the screed is dry enough to lay the flooring on. Excessive moisture ingress is the only common reason for solid flooring to fail. With excessive mositure ingress the flooring will swell and joints will open up. In severe cases the floor can buckle and lift. Over concrete floors we always recommend to use a damp proof membrane style barrier underlay.

All of our flooring is specially kiln dried to 6-10% and under normal circumstances will not need to be left in the installation area to acclimatise. If you are storing your flooring prior to installation then it must be stored in a dry and protected environment indoors, ideally at normal room temperature.

Installation

Where ever possible we always recommend that our engineered flooring is laid as a floating floor. This means that the tongue and grooves are glued together, but the flooring is not fixed down to the subfloor. This helps the floor to expand and contract as a single unit, and helps to ensure that joints do not show a slight opening up. Our engineered hardwood flooring can be laid as a floating floor over all common subfloors, with the exception of only direct fit to joists (covered later). When laying as a floating floor use of acoustic underlay beneath the floor will help to deaden sound.

Our engineered flooring is supplied in primarily 1860mm length although you will also find around a quarter of the boards are shorter lengths. This is to allow you to create the look of a solid oak floor by helping to stagger joints and prevent repeating patterns of boards. Before you start to lay the floor it is advisable to seperate the boards and ensure that you use the shorter lengths evenly throughout the installation.

When planning your flooring installation, remember that there should be a 15mm expansion gap around all sides of the floor, including under door frames. This is to allow the floor space to expand and contract as it reacts to the changing moisture content and temperature of your home. Normally this space is hidden by installing the skirting boards over the top of the flooring.

Starting in the corner of the room, floor boards can be laid, ensuring that the tongue and grooves are glued carefully together with an appropriate wood adhesive. You may find that for the first few boards it helps to place 15mm offcut between the flooring and the wall to hold it steady and in the correct postion whilst you add boards. Stagger the joints between boards to acheive a pleasing look ensuring a minimum of 200mm/8” between joints . For the final two rows it is often easier to drop these into place together. With the flooring installed, you should leave if for 24hrs for the glue to set.

For installation onto joists your 20mm engineered flooring should be secret nailed through the tongue direct to the joists. You can either trim the boards so that each joint is over a joist or wher your joist centres are no more than 500mm apart the joints can be left to fall where they will. The tongue and groove ends will provide the necessary support at these points.

Once laid your floor will require finishing to protect it and to enhance the natural beauty of the timber. Further details on finishing can be found on the next page.

White on OakNatural Satin on Oak Natural Matt on Oak

Silver on Oak Gold on OakBlack on Oak

Terra on Oak Graphite on OakHoney on Oak

Call 0114 247 2534 or visit www.JoineryStore.com

Flooring Installation Instructions

Finishing

Once your flooring is installed, it will need to be finished to bring out the character of the timber and to protect it from wear and tear. At Joinerystore we only use and recommend Osmo Polyx oils as the best finish available for engineered hardwood flooring. This creates a strong water and dirt resistant finish whilst increasing the durabilty of the floor. You will need approximately 1 litre of finish for every 9m2 of flooring which will allow for two coats.

You can either leave the flooring in its natural colour and apply a clear finish straight away, or if you prefer a colour stain can be added first to subtly age or change the colour of the oak. Osmo Polyx oil can be applied either with a brush, rag or a microfibre roller. You will need a single coat of stain if desired and two or three topcoats of oil. The oil will dry to a usable finish in 8-10 hours in normal conditions. Our flooring is machined to a fine finish however the oil can sometimes raise small area of the grain which should be given a light denibbing between coats as necessary.

Oils are much more durable than lacquers as they penetrate the wood, and so do not show scratches in the same way that a lacquer can. Where the floor is deeply scratched then further oil can simply be applied straight over the top to refurbish the floor.

Thankyou for purchasing a Heritage Group floor, with the right installation and finishing it will provide you with a floor that you can be proud of for generations.