By interiors expert Liz Dennys, March 2010
There are three types of wood flooring to choose from: solid wood, engineered real wood and laminate.
Solid wood
Each board is made from a single piece of timber with a tongue and groove joint on the ends and long sides. The woods typically used are oak, maple, cherry and walnut - these give different colour variations but are also graded to achieve different looks. For example, prime grade is clean, straight grained, even colouration with no knots whereas rustic grade has lots of grain and colour variation, large knots, can have filled cracks and dark streaks etc. You can also choose board style i.e. a single strip of wood, or you could opt for different lengths, bevelled edges, different laying instructions etc. There is also surface finish to think about; lacquered surface, natural oiled surface, hardwax oiled, brush matt lacquered. There is a long list of options when choosing your solid wood floor! Prices start from approx £40 sq m.
Engineered real wood
This basically means multi layering with a top layer of fibreboard, soft wood core and ply backing. The advantage of this over wood is that it offers added stability, greater variety of design and works much better in centrally heated houses - it can handle moisture in the air, it can be laid and re-laid many times, works well with under floor heating and is laid much faster so in essence it is cheaper to fit. Prices start from approx £25 sq m.
Laminate
Good high quality laminate flooring is made from High Density Fibreboard and finished with a decorative wood grain foil beneath a transparent but hard wearing melamine surface. It is extremely durable, very practical and easy to maintain. A good quality laminate start from approx £13 sq m.
