Tuesday 23 February 2021

What Is An Engineered Wood Floor Wear Layer?


Arguably among the most mis-understood flooring options available now, engineered wood flooring is also probably among the most popular and most flexible solutions you can choose for your house. So why is engineered wood flooring mis-understood and what makes it so common?

First and foremost it's mis-understood because individuals have a propensity to confuse it with the likes of laminate flooring, which could not be further from the reality. Engineered wood flooring is a man-made solution, but it is made from natural ingredients, using a method that has been developed to make a highly stable and durable product. Made up of layers of yarn, topped with a solid wood lamella or surface, engineered wood floors is extremely resistant to expansion and contraction, even if subjected to quite extreme fluctuations in temperature and moisture.

Secondly, due to it's resistance to moisture and temperature rises and drops, engineered timber flooring could be fitted in rooms where solid wood flooring would not normally be advocated eg. Bathrooms, kitchens and rooms in which you have under floor heating. This signifies is that engineered wood flooring may be used across the house, making it among the very flexible flooring products available on the market.

When people first get introduced into engineered wood floors, they fear that it will be not as resilient than solid wood since, rather than being made of solid oak throughout, it's just topped off with good oak. When you buy engineered wood flooring, you will notice a figure in the dimensions which are expressed like this: 14/3, 18/5 or even 20/6. The first of these figures tells you that the general thickness of the flooring plank and the next tells you that the thickness of the top coating or lamella, which is constructed of solid oak (you are going to see different species, but oak is the most common). This is the wear layer, the coating that is made of solid oak.

Why is it known as the wear layer? It's known as the wear layer, because it is this top layer which will slowly get worn away with time from the passing of toes and the movement of furniture as well as being the layer that will deliberately get eliminated (in part) in case you choose to re-sand and re-finish your flooring. If it comes to daily tear and wear, there are a couple of things that you can do in order to keep wear to a minimum. Ordinarily, you ought to consider investing in a few of superior high quality doormats, one to place outside and one to place inside. Much of the harsh wear which your engineered flooring suffers on a day-to-day basis comes from outside. By putting a scouring doormat outside, the worst of the outside dirt which will eat away at your ground's surface will be eliminated. Thereafter, by putting (and encouraging the use of) a soft, absorbent doormat indoors, you'll be able to remove grit and grime as well as moisture, giving your floor the very best possible prospect of lasting as long as possible.

As you can imagine, using an engineered hardwood flooring, if you removed anything such as 5mm, generally, you would be down into the man-made core plank. Thus, when you purchase your flooring, if you don't have under floor heating (or another fantastic reason not to), choosing a thicker lamella or high layer will give your floor a longer life, due to more chances for sanding. The wear layer function as the upper layer, if it's 3mm thick, you should really only hope to sand it once or maybe twice, however if it is 6mm thick, you're likely going to get off with 5 or so professional sandings in its life. What this means is that you can expect your floor to remain looking good for much longer.

When it comes to choosing the right thickness of wear coating for your particular requirements, you Want to consider three main things:

The footfall in your property.

Whether you have under floor heating.

Your Financial Plan.