Hi All,

I'm looking at re-flooring one (or possibly more depending on how it goes) of my ground floor room/s. I'm considering using flooring called "Bausen" from James Latham (http://www.lathamtimber.co.uk/images/literature/hardwood%20flooring.pdf), but have a few questions.

Current situation - T&G floorboarding down now (but not in a good state) on top of solid wooden joists. The joists are held into the brickwork with about 18/20" gap between the underside of the joists and the ground/earth.

Questions
1) Solid Wood Flooring - felled timber, sawn, planed/thicknessed, T&G's added and stress grooves added to the underneath, (sometimes finished in some way ie stained/lacquered etc) Is this correct, Yes/No?

2) Engineered Flooring - Essentially plywood layered up with the top layer being the best face and again, sometimes treated. Is this correct, Yes/No?

3)If the above is correct, am I right in saying that engineered flooring is likely to be more stable with less of a tendancy to warp and/or shrink?

4) Beyond leaving the flooring indoors for a few days to acclimatise and leaving expansion gaps when laying, do I need to do anything else? Is it just a case of ripping the old flooring up and laying down the new flooring?

5) Has anyone used this product before and is it any good?

Thanks in advance.

Sandy.

We laid 21mm thick Engineered Oak over UFH. Very happy with it. One advantage is that you can safely use wider boards. Ours are 210mm wide. Normally suppliers of solid wood say you have to keep the width down to 130mm ish whan using UFH.

Basically its 14/15mm of good plywood with 6/7mm of oak on the top. The oak goes down to the tounge so it can be resanded about the same number of times as solid before the T7G fails.

We went for Osmo Hardwaxoil  finish. Highly recommended as it can be recoated without the new and old looking too different. Got ours from Kenton Jones/Woods of Wales...

http://www.woodsofwales.co.uk/

I looked at samples from about 20 different companies and the finish ranged from a nice brown to a horrible orange so well worth the exercise.

They supplied mixed length packs but about half of ours is around 2.9 meter. I've no issue with the length.

Don't forget to add insulation if taking up the floor. Perhaps nail gun battens either side of the joists to form a rail to rest solid sheet insulation on. Will need to comply with building regs.

the correct link!

http://www.lathamtimber.co.uk/images/literature/hardwood%20flooring.pdf