Solid Wood Flooring

A solid wood, or “hardwood”, floor can add a timeless, elegant look to most rooms and properties. Solid wood has long been a popular choice for property owners looking to add a touch of class, uniqueness and longevity to their room.

It might seem obvious to say this, but solid wood floors are made from blocks of single pieces of timber. This differs from engineered wood floors, which are made from blocks that are layered from several different wood, which are bound tightly together to form the block.

At Wood Floor Solutions NW, we offer many choices of wood for your solid wood floor, each one of which gives the room a different look and feeling warmth:

• Oak is a very popular choice and available in a large range of colours. It is distinctive for its straight and swirling graining patterns, and gives a traditional look.

• Walnut gives the floor that luxurious dark timber look, which many homeowners now prefer.

• Ash flooring is a light, creamy wood colour, often with darker and distinctive knots and patterns. The wood is both flexible and very strong, and often an ideal choice for floors that need to withstand heavy foot traffic.

• Beech flooring is pale with a slight hint of pink, to give the room a warm feeling. Beech is great at resisting dents, and has a straight, regular grain.

• Maple is generally light and pale in colour, with darker graining to give the room a clean and airy feel. Maple is one of the hardest woods available for flooring, and is very durable to dents and knocks.

Whichever you choose, the fully qualified fitters at Wood Floor Solutions will ensure your new solid wood floor is installed to an exceptionally high standard, built to last and the wood is right for your room.

The main difference between solid wood and engineered wood flooring from a “performance” point of view is that repairing solid wood blocks is easier than other types of floor, including engineered wood or laminate.

Future repairs are relatively easy and cheap, especially as the material can be sanded, resurfaced, oiled and refinished many times. With engineered wood, repairs and maintenance can be more difficult and expensive, depending on the thickness of the top layer.

All of this is important to consider, as it’s almost inevitable that the floor will pick up scratches and dents over time. And become a little worn in the places that receive the most footfall. You might be unlucky and have a bigger repair job to do.

So, as part of your decision, have a think about how you will repair the floor as it develops dents and scratches.

You can choose solid wood blocks for your parquet floor. Parquet flooring is a traditional and classy style of wood flooring, characterised by geometric mosaics of squares, triangles or lozenges. The style has grown increasingly popular in recent years, as people look for that timeless feel to an otherwise modern room, or as part of a renovation to an old property.

If you choose solid wood blocks for your floor, you also have the choice of either new wood or “reclaimed” wood.

The difference between new and reclaimed wood flooring is whether the wood is from new trees or has been used for another purpose already. They’ve become an increasingly popular choice amongst our clients, as they are more eco-friendly than new wood, and reclaimed wood is usually harder due to pressures it has already sustained.

Below is a complete solid wood flooring installation we carried out in North Wales (Rhyl) using individual engineered wood oak planks measuring 110mm long.

We used Wakol PU 280 Polyurethane Primer, which acts as a moisture barrier, and Wakol MS 260 Parquet Adhesive to really secure the oak planks into place.

Below is a complete engineered wood floor installation we carried out in North Wales (Rhyl) using individual engineered oak wood planks measuring 110mm long.

We used Wakol PU 280 Polyurethane Primer, which acts as a moisture barrier, and Wakol MS 260 Parquet Adhesive to really secure the oak planks into place.  

This kitchen in North Wales (Conwy) was transformed with an oak engineered wood floor. The white matt walls contrasted with the rich colour and tones of the oak wood to give a fresh, classy look to the room.

The grain and knots within this oak variety gave the floor a really sense of character. Each oak plank measured 120mm wide and 18mm thick.

We used Wakol PU 280 Polyurethane Primer and then Wakol MS 260 Parquet Adhesive to bind the planks to the floor. 

Using 120mm wide, 20mm thick engineered wood, this flooring was stripped back and then made new by Wood Floor Solutions NW, in an old building in Cheshire (Handbridge, Chester).

The process included using Wakol PU 280 Polyurethane Primer, followed by Wakol granular primer (self-levelled), with the planks being glued into place using Wakol MS 260 Parquet Adhesive.