Hi,
I have stubbled across this forum in my atempt to research timber flooring, although I have come to the point where everything is becoming very confusing!

So I am hoping I can get some help from all of you experts out there. Here is my situation, we currently have carpert on a slab and are looking at putting floorboards down, I believe our options are; floating timber floorboards or veneer. At this point I think we are thinking timber, my question is, is hardwood prefinished floorboards the same as engineered hardwood floorboards, if not what's the difference? Can hardwood floorboards be laid on a slab? We have an area of about 56sqm (we have childern under 8yo in the house, which may make a differnce in what we choose also) and our budget is not huge maybe around $5000 laid, can anyone suggest any good quality products that we should consider please.

I think that's all of my questions at this time, hopfully I can get some clarity, because at this point I am very confused.

G'day.
Ummm....Where is roxburgh park?

__________________
Hooroo.
Regards, Trevor
Grafton

Oh sorry.... in Melbourne's northern suburbs, Vic

Whilst its been a while since I been involved in flooring, yes you can on a slab. You have three options that I'm familiar with.
1) You can glue parquetry directly to the slab. Will increase floor level by 19-12 mm depending on block chosen and needs to sanded and polished later.
2) You can lay pre finished boards on an acoustic blanket. Easy enough and don't need sanding and polishing .The few times I have used this system a long tome ago it seemed a bit "Cracky" underfoot though I dare say the current systems are improved over the old "Siama " systems..
3) Lay a vapor barrier then battens and then strip flooring. Raises the floor level the most and needs to be sanded and polished later. I have successfully laid yellow tongue and glued and secrete nailed flooring. This method will only raise FFL by 40mm , but a 3" board is more appropriate in this application.

Or, you can direct stick 12mm T&G overlay flooring to the slab and then have it sanded & sealed in the usual manner.

Give Connollys a call at Coburg..(G'day Craig)

__________________
Hooroo.
Regards, Trevor
Grafton

Ok, this is starting to go a bit above my head here ...are we still talking about floating floors? and any ideas on pricing?

I'm not. 12mm overlay is real hardwood flooring that has to be fixed to your substrate.
Give Connollys a call. They are in the book. Or go to www.atfa.com.au and follow the link to their site.

Self education can be had at www.timber.org.au and download the flooring data sheets. You will be better informed after reading them.

__________________
Hooroo.
Regards, Trevor
Grafton

With the budget you have in mind, you would be restricted to maybe a standard grade 12mm overlay glued direct to sub-floor and sanded and polsihed, Mosaic Parquetry, or a 2 or 3 strip Pre-finished engineered floor either direct stuck or floated. Unfortunately the budget doesn't allow for much.

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Regards,


www.marquesflooring.com.au
Your One Stop Shop For All Your Flooring Needs...

Ok, so from what I can gather so far, I think we would be looking to go for a prefinished engineered flooring. I have read that this flooring can only be sanded once or twice, is this correct, if so, wouldn't timber veneer flooring be better? Since when there is damage done the boards are replaced...is that right?

Also a question about the hardness of the timber how does kempas or brazilian cherry stack up?

Sorry....so many questions, but after all these are uncharted waters for me and I am a female

thanks!

Mate for your budget I think you'll be confined to a timber floater/direct stick overlay. The only real way to go about this is the old fashioned jumping in the car and shopping around to see what the best system you can get for $5000. For 56 squares you'd be looking at max $90 per square metre, even a timber floater of reasonable quality with a descent underlay installed will quickly get up to that price (and pray you don't need any prep).

Happy hunting, oh yeah and timber floaters still "creek", Laminates are the only floaters that are quiet.

Thanks guys for all your suggestions, am starting to s-l-o-w-l-y get my head around this. We have decided we may have to up our budget by one or two thousand and we are currently looking into the Boral Silkwood 80mm in Sydney Blue Gum. By the sound of things this Australian one is a better product.
Was also looking into the Interloc brand, but not sure if this is an Australian hardwood or the quality of the product.

If you're thinking Silkwood, I'd leave that stuff onsite for at least a couple of days unpacked. In my experience, timber products from Premium Floors (no affiliation, I'm not in retail just installations) have been quite reliable. I know Silkwood is quite "pretty" for the price though.

The Click Systems are great too (mostly for the installer), but there also isn't anything wrong with t&g and pva.

Still continuing with my research into floating floors....so many things to take into account!

We have narrowed it down to Boral Silkwood in Sydney Blue Gum and Perfect Timber Floors Australiana Series in Sydney Blue Gum, from what I can tell the PTF product looks like a better product. Any reviews on are welcome............Well apparently not,after more ringing around just found out the PTF product is not happening.....so not sure where to go from here.

My next question is which underlay? The normal 2mm Polyfoam underlay, Dunlop 4mm underlay, Regapol direct stick on concrete with moisture barrier, or.........????????????

Thanks in advance and awaiting your responses!

G'day.
Silkwood is a very good product.

Go to the Boral website and download the fact sheet for Silkwood.
http://www.boral.com.au/Article/Timb...TimberFlooring
Or ring or visit the Boral "walk on wood" store.

Numbers are in the book.

__________________
Hooroo.
Regards, Trevor
Grafton

Thanks glock40sw,
would you say that it is better than the Big River floating floor product? (although I'm not keen on the colours they have)