Advantages of wood flooring

This is the article 133 of YEATION Home Division.

When Andy's home was first renovated, his parents quarreled over whether to lay tiles or floors. It's really "the public says that the public is right, and the woman says that the woman is right", which makes Andy the first two.

In fact, tiles and floors have their own advantages, so we can't generalize.

▲ Ceramic tiles are clean and convenient, with high hardness, wear resistance and strong compression resistance, but they are slippery when exposed to water, so people with old people and children need to be especially careful.

▲ The floor has natural beauty and texture, good thermal insulation, and can create a warm and comfortable atmosphere, but it is not easy to take care of, and the cost is generally higher than that of ceramic tiles. (Image from ins)

Which one to choose depends on your actual situation. About how to choose and lay tiles, Andy has already introduced it before (friends who haven't seen it can poke: portal), so I won't say much. Today, I mainly want to tell you about the wooden floor.

Types of wood floors

There are generally five categories of wood floors: laminate flooring, solid wood flooring, multi-layer composite flooring, cork flooring and bamboo flooring. Many people will be confused about the first three.

0 1 laminate flooring

The laminate flooring consists of wear-resistant layer (alumina), decorative layer (paper impregnated with melamine resin), base layer (high-density board, also called high-density fiberboard) and balance layer (kraft paper). You can think of it as "Snickers" (the attribute of eating by mistake comes out, haha), which is more suitable for rooms with floor heating system.

(Image from the Internet)

Advantages and disadvantages: the biggest advantages are wear resistance, rich colors, strong compression resistance, simple maintenance and low price, but the foot feel is not as good as that of solid wood floor, and the repairability is poor.

02 chun solid wood floor

Solid wood floor is a floor directly processed from solid wood, which has the texture formed by natural growth of wood and the structure is a bit like "pure chocolate". Andy likes it, but this kind of floor will be more expensive ~

(Image from the Internet)

Advantages and disadvantages: the feel and texture are very good, and some wood species will emit light wood, but it is very troublesome to maintain. If the tree species is not hardwood, the surface layer is easy to scratch and not resistant to collision; Not suitable for use in places with large humidity changes, otherwise it is easy to arch.

03 multi-layer (solid wood) composite floor

Multi-layer composite floor is based on multi-layer plywood, which is made of criss-crossing wooden plates by high temperature pressing. The surface layer is solid wood board, and the side looks like layers of "wafer cakes".

Advantages and disadvantages: good stability, not easy to be deformed by moisture, but poor wear resistance, not resistant to collision, easy to hide evil in the gap; Due to high technological requirements, complex structure and uneven quality.

(Image from the Internet)

There are generally three kinds of solid wood composite flooring, 12mm, 15mm and 18mm. 15mm is used the most, which is very close to the solid wood floor visually and has a good foot feeling; 12mm has worse elasticity, and 18mm is more expensive and not commonly used.

cork flooring

The raw material of cork flooring is oak bark which grows along the Mediterranean coast and the Qinling Mountains in China. The bark of this tree is not renewable like ordinary trees, and it is usually picked once every 7 to 9 years, so it is very expensive ~

There are mainly two kinds of this kind of floor: adhesive (three-layer structure) and locked cork floor (six-layer structure).

I believe that when many friends first hear this kind of wooden board, they will think it is as soft as Andy's, but it is not. A cork used for red wine. You can think about the texture.

Advantages and disadvantages: comfortable feet, good anti-slip, it is safer for the elderly and children to walk on it, and it can absorb some domestic noise, but it is difficult to clean because of its poor wear resistance and pressure resistance, and its waterproof and anticorrosive performance is not as good as that of reinforced floor.

(Image from the Internet)

05 bamboo floor

Bamboo flooring is made of bamboo as the main raw material, spliced with adhesive and pressed at high temperature.

Advantages and disadvantages: warm in winter and cool in summer, small color difference, high aesthetics, mildew and moth prevention, but because it is a natural profile, it will still deform with the change of humidity.

(Image from the Internet)

Laying method

There are three main ways to lay wooden floors: straight laying, flat laying and raised floor.

0 1 direct paving method

If the original ground is flat enough, Andy suggests sticking bricks, because it saves time and effort: first lay a moisture-proof mat or transparent plastic moisture-proof cloth (the moisture-proof mat is better and has sound-absorbing effect), and then directly lay the wooden floor.

(Image from the Internet)

It should be noted that the moisture-proof mat must be paved completely, and each piece should overlap, with no gap in the middle. If the home environment is humid, it is best to overlap between 20-30cm. (Actually, damp-proof cloth is not expensive, so it doesn't need to be too economical. )

02 tiling method

If the floor is uneven or nailed, it is necessary to add a layer of 12mm multilayer board on the damp-proof cloth before laying the wooden floor. This paving method is called "tiling method".

Most multi-layer composite wood floors and solid wood floors adopt this method. Glue more when laying and fix it with nails.

03 high floor

Another way to lay is to build a very high wooden floor. After the moistureproof mat is laid, add the keel first, then add 12mm or 18mm multi-layer board, and then lay the wooden floor. The process will be a little more complicated.

(Image from the Internet)

Edge closure mode

There are roughly three ways to close the edge of the wooden floor:

The first one is to directly fill the expansion joint in the corner with glass glue or elastic caulking agent without wrapping;

The second is to use edge banding (the edge banding should also be sealed with glass glue after installation), which has T-shaped, linear, arc-shaped, L-shaped and other styles, and can also be used at the joints between different materials or different floors;

(Image from the Internet)

The third is to use the skirting line to close the edge.

Generally speaking, in fact, it is enough to seal the edge with glass glue, and adding the edge is only a matter of beauty, depending on personal needs. However, whether it is gluing, sticking edges or kicking lines, we should pay attention to the construction quality of workers, otherwise it will be really bad after moving in.

Other questions you may want to know.

0 1 About expansion joints

The board will swell when it is wet and shrink when it is dry (it will swell when it is wet and shrink when it is dry), so it is necessary to leave expansion joints, and they must be large enough to be useful.

Some owners will ask the seams to be as small as possible, preferably seamless, and the expansion joints around them should be small, which will look better, but the wooden floor is easy to arch or make a sound when stepped on. Not only do people need comfortable stretching space, but the floor is also very important ~

There are two places to reserve expansion joints. First, before the floor and wall, it is about 8~ 12mm, depending on the size of the board used. The other is the gap between plates, and the gap size of different substrates is also different, some are about 1~2mm, and some are close to seamless.

02 floor noise problem

Newly made wooden floor, will there be noise when you walk? There are four main reasons:

1, the wooden floor is unpaved, leaving a gap;

2. The plates are loose and the connection is not tight;

3. The plate connection is too tight;

4. Insufficient expansion joints (Andy mentioned above in principle).

(Image from the Internet)

If this happens, you can ask the master to repave it. Pay attention to the places where different materials meet, such as the places where tiles meet the floor, because these places are more likely to produce sound.

There is a height difference on the floor.

The calculation of story height is easy to be ignored by us. The main purpose of calculating this height is to balance the height of tiles and floors. Some families have tiles in the living room and floors in the bedroom. If you don't pay attention, it is easy to have a height difference.

(Image from the Internet)

If the way of sticking bricks is adopted, besides the height of the floor itself, the height of the bottom multi-layer board should be added.

For example, the height of the board itself is 15mm, the height of the multi-layer board is 12mm, and the moisture-proof pad is 1mm, so the total height is 28mm (if floor heating is required, it is necessary to confirm the height with the construction team separately).

Simple repair of wooden floor

Some friends may ask, what if the wooden floor is slightly damaged? You can try the method described by Andy below first.

Small scratches on the solid wood floor can be polished and painted slightly; If it is a multi-layer composite floor, it can be pushed with floor wax like a common mop, which can basically handle traces that are not particularly deep.

(Image from the Internet)

Some shops also sell floor restorers. Fill it out, color it with a touch-up pen, and finally polish it.

If it's a big scratch, it depends on your acceptance, but if you want to change it, it's not just the scratched one, it's also very troublesome to change everything around. Don't change it if you can't.