Wood You Like F.A.Q. & News

Showroom closed for short break

Our Charing showroom will be closed for 4 days from

Friday 16 May till Monday 19 May

(annual short break)

Business as usual from Tuesday 20 May 9.30 am on - emails, comments on this blog and submitted questions will be answered as soon as possible.

Wood Floor Fact Sheet - now available

Do you know how to IMMEDIATELY increase

the value of your house and the comfort of your home? 

Adding new or restored natural wooden flooring will definitely increase the value and comfort to any house and home immediately. Yours included.

It's a known fact - even before the 'credit-crunch' effect on the housing market.

FACT:

According to WoodCare adding wooden features to your home will increase its value between 5 to 15%.

From stripping down wooden banisters and exposing their natural character, re-instating real wood doors and especially installing real wooden floors in the main areas - it will all have an instant positive effect.

And it's not just that you can ask more for your house than your neighbour - estate agents and existing clients tell us again and again that homes with wooden floors sell quicker!

Read more....

Wood You Like, the wooden flooring specialist - Guardian Magazine

In March we reported we had received a request from the editor of the Guardian Magazine - Space Solves - to advice one of their readers on how to take care of a poor parquet floor and of course we did this to the best of our ability as we do with every request for advice.

We are happy to report that in the publication of our advice (Guardian Magazine - Saturday 3 May) we are labeled wooden flooring specialists:

Pity our poor parquet

Our 28-year-old parquet flooring is black where it has been trodden on heavily, while other parts are stained and faded. How can I lift the stains? I clean it with a damp, soapy mop.

'I'm afraid the black areas are a result of not treating the floor soon enough when the finish had worn off,' says Karin Hermans of wooden flooring specialist Wood You Like (01233 713725, woodyoulike).

Read more............

At your service, as always. And while we're on the subject of maintaining a valuable parquet floor properly - read our "3 Easy Steps to Clean and Maintain Your Parquet Floor" to make sure your own parquet floor doesn't need the 'drastic' steps of resanding - or worse, being covered up with carpet!

DIY-Triumph Contest - winning entry April 08

Our congratulations to T. Brennan for winning the DIY-Triumph Contest for April 08

His triumph -  a 10 day labour of love (read his whole story) - is a lovely restored Oak herringbone parquet floor (see pictures below) and he can now select a suitable maintenance product as prize.

While we're on the subject of original parquet floors, if you are in the process of repairing, restoring a beautiful and valuable floor our Wood Floor Guide:

7 Easy Steps to Repair/Restore Your Parquet Floor

helps you on your way.

Installed a wooden floor recently and you're darn proud of the result - enter our DIY-Triumphs Contest yourself and your pictures might end up here in our Hall of Fame too.

 

New Wood Floor Guide: "3 Easy Steps to Clean and Mantain Your Parquet Floor"

3 Easy Steps to Clean and Maintain Your Parquet Floor (or any other wooden floor)

What is a nicer surprise than to remove the carpet from a room in your home and to discover a valuable original parquet floor is hiding beneath it! Especially when you consider that installing a brand new parquet floor costs around £ 125.00 - £ 145.00 per sq m. And that’s just for a simple herringbone or basket weave pattern.

Your new discovery will at least need some TLC to bring back its grand lustre it had before it was ‘covered-up’. Follow our “3 easy steps" below and you will start enjoying your valuable, easy to clean and anti-allergic original parquet floor in no time at all.

Read more......

New Wood Floor Guide: "7 Easy Steps to Repair/Restore Your Parquet Floor"

7 Easy Steps To Repair/Restore You Parquet Floor

What is a nicer surprise than to remove the carpet from a room in your home and to discover a valuable original parquet floor is hiding beneath it! Especially when you consider that installing a brand new parquet floor costs around £ 125.00 - £ 145.00 per sq m. And that’s just for a simple herringbone or basket weave pattern.

Your new discovery will at least need some TLC to bring back its grand lustre it had before it was ‘covered-up’, see our “3 easy steps to clean and maintain your parquet floor” for this.

If your floor is missing some blocks, has damaged blocks – damages from plumbing comes to mind - or you notice areas where the blocks no longer stuck firmly down on the underfloor just follow the 7 Easy Steps below to repair/restore it and start enjoying your valuable, easy to clean and anti-allergic original parquet floor in no time at all. For all materials needed we’ve included a list of quality products underneath.

Read more....

Amorim (Wicanders - WicCork manufacturer) awarded 3 prizes

Corporate Register (online directory for corporate non-financial reports) recently awarded Amorim 3 prizes for its 'sustainability report':

• 3rd in the category "Openness and Honesty"
• 5th in the category "Best First-time Sustainability Report"
• 6th in the category "The Relevance & Materiality award"

Amorim's report - checked and approved by an independent institute - describes very openly the company's strategies, effects and influences on the environmental and social-economical developments. With these prizes Amorim receives international recognition for its contribution to an effective sustainable development.
(Amorim's report was selected out of over 300 companies from more than 40 different countries.)

Source: Parketplein/Amorim 24.04.08

Part of Amorim's sustainability report explains the biodiversity and the fight against desertification:

Cork oaks are evergreen trees that play a fundamental role in the fight against desertification of large areas, not just in Europe but also in the Northern African countries of Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria where cork forests are often the only obstacle to the fast-advancing Sahara Desert.

Cork oaks, through their unique ability to thrive in sandy and low-nutrient soils, allow for the crucial fixation of organic matter and water-retention capabilities. The resulting environmental balance creates the ideal ecosystem where countless animal and vegetal species prosper. These include some of the world’s most endangered species, such as the Imperial Eagle, the Black Stork and Europe’s last wild feline, the Iberian Lynx.

While biodiversity is crucial, its co-existence in harmony with human economic and social activity is also fundamental. By providing environmentally sound jobs to countless farming communities, cork forests not only foster biodiversity but also provide the means to sustain and fix populations to the land, preventing additional migrations to already-crowded cities.

Wood You Like congratulates Amorim - our WicCork manufacturer - with this achievement. In our showroom we have a large selection of the WicCork floorboards range on display in many colours and designs. Because besides coming from a sustainable and eco-friendly source, cork doens't have to be boring brown any more!

Testimonial on Eco-friendliness from a very young nature lover

Earlier this year we gifted, through the post, a little miracle of nature – a beautiful, locally handpicked, acorn to many of our contacts (perhaps even you).

We hope they all have given it a honourable spot in their garden and that they will undoubtedly get many years of pleasure from this most magnificent of trees as it matures over the next 40 years.

Now it’s time to share ‘the story’ behind our unusual gift.

In September last year we received an Oak sapling from one of our clients together with a mind-provoking letter:

The letter goes on to thank us for the installation, but of course we gratefully accepted Tom’s gift (see picture right) and have given it a good home.

All our wooden flooring, from Basic Oak to Bespoke, come from sustainable sources, be it FSC or PEFC certified. Thanks to sustainable forest management more trees are planted than are harvested.  In fact, European re-forestation grows by an area the size of Cyprus every year!

You can, just as our little nature-loving son of our client, rest assured that purchasing your wooden floor from Wood You Like will be an eco-friendly purchase – one with a delivery time of 4 weeks, not 40 years!

Ps: all our clients who buy a natural wooden floor during our 5th Anniversary Celebrating year will receive our very popular ‘Walking with Wood’ comfy clog-style slippers – 1 pair for free for every purchase of 10 sq m or more.

How to restore a Parquet floor - what to be aware of

This week we received another question on the subject of a rediscovered parquet floor:

Good Afternoon,

I wonder if I could pick your brains a little.  We have just uncovered a parquet floor - 6 bricks @ 4.5"x7/8" in blocks at 90 degree angles to one another. Floor area is 14'x11' & rectangular - no cupboards or inaccessible areas.  Mahogany wood or so I'm told - the wood is certainly very dark all the way through.  The floor has had some previous repairs after two rooms were knocked together & plumbing works (around 6 years ago).  We are planning on restoring the floor to leave it exposed now.

To do so we need to sand the floor & then seal & varnish it (need a pretty heavy duty finish as the only back door to our garden is through the living room & we have a dog with a number of very scratchy nails on each corner).

I wondered if you could answer the following questions:

1. Assuming that the floor is prepared & suitably coloured already would it be correct to say that I would need to seal the floor first (~4 hours to dry) then varnish 2-3 times (~ 8 hours to dry between each coating).  Is this about right (depending on the specific instructions on any manufacturers products of course)?
2. I am planning on having some quotes for professionals to do this work as well as costing it to do ourselves but I wondered could you give me some sort of 'ball park' idea of the cost of such a renovation?
3. What sort of time frame would you expect such renovations to take?
4. I cannot seem to find anyone registered with the BWFA in or near Wiltshire.  Are you able to recommend (or warn me to avoid) any companies local to me?

Hope you can help me - I'm trying to educate myself sufficiently as I have invited a couple of companies to quote to me.

Thank you so much,

Kind Regards

Mrs S N

Our tips on what any company quoting for a particular job like this should do/use and products we recommend:

Thank you for your question. Nice find a floor like that!

Who ever is going to restore this floor should note the following: any loose blocks? If so with what material were they glued to the floor - presumably bitumen. Any loose blocks should be cleaned off this black stuff as best as possible, likewise with the any visual residue on the underfloor. Then the blocks can be glued back to the underfloor with modern adhesive, but bitumen residue will have an effect on the bonding time (normally 4 - 8 hours, with bitumen involved it could take upto 24 - 36 hours!).

Also, when sanding the floor use a belt-sander not a drum-sander (ask any company who's quoting for this work what type of sander they're plannig to use and insist on a belt-sander).
A hard wearing finish could indeed be varnish - modern varnish sometimes include this so-called sealer - but we ourselves prefer HardWaxOil natural which brings out the natural character of the wood better than varnish, is hard wearing and small damages can be easier repaid than when varnish is used.

It's hard for us to give you a 'ball-park' figure without having seen the floor in situ - i.e. not knowing exactly the amount of work it would involve - but between low-end and high-end of work needed: between £ 35.00 and £ 50.00 per sq m ex VAT including the finishing materials.

Hope this helps

Kind Regards
Wood You Like Ltd

Hi Karin,

Just a quick note to thank you so much for you immediate reply which was much appreciated & which very definitely does help.  I also would like to compliment you on your extensive website which I have found fabulously useful & informative.

Kind Regards

Mrs S N

(If you have a question on this subject, or any other wood flooring related issue, fill in this simple form and we will personally give you our best advice as quick as possible)

Read also our Wood Floor Guide: "7 Easy Steps to Repair/Restore Your Parquet Floor"

Discovering a Oak parquet floor - how to restore?

One of the questions we received last week:

Dear Wood You Like

I have just discovered under carpet a floor of oak wood blocks (in a herringbone pattern and in a generally good condition). The location is the hallway (approximately 9 square meters).

80% of the blocks were loose so I have lifted them all and cleaned them as much as I can, however I haven't been able to remove the bitumen (which is generally only a thin layer) that held them to the concrete floor.

Once I have relaid them I would like to sand and satin a lighter more even colour.

My questions are:

1. What can I use to re-stick them to the floor that will ensure adhesion, ease of application and fairly quick use afterwards. I have had variuous suggestions that include: Everbuild Pink Grip grab adhesive; Everbuild 908 DPM; Ruberoid syntheprufe; Laybond L17 Woodblock. What would you recommend of these or of any other product?

2. What dye/stain product would you advise?

3. What method of gap filling (and product) would be best?

4. What sealing product to maintain a hard wearing finish?

Thank you. I look forward to hearing from you.

Mr G.B.

Our answer:

If there is only a thin layer of bitumen left on blocks and underfloor it is best to use Lecol5500

Be aware that the residue of bitumen will increase the time it takes for the adhesive to bond properly. Normally it takes around 6- 8 hours, it could take up to 24 hours or longer when there is bitumen involved. So be careful when walking on it and when sanding the floor.

As for the finish layer, we recommend a coloured HardWaxOil, this gives a long term protection and a natural look, no matter what colour you use. It stains and seals the wood in two layers - no other products needed.

For filler (to be mixed with sands-dust of the second sanding) we recommend Lecol7500

Hope this helps to restore your rediscovered parquet floor, a valued possession in any house!

See also our Wood Floor Guide: "7 Easy Steps to Repair/Restore Your Parquet Floor"

Introduction offer: Triplank Mammoet Oak Smoked & Aged

Our most popular wood-engineered floor - The Basic Oak Rustic with 4mm solid Oak top layer, brushed & oiled - has been joined with its 'Great-Uncle' as we like to call this new addition to the Triplank family:

Basic (Triplank) Mammoet Oak Smoked & Aged wood-engineered 1-strip floorboards - finished with a natural oil and with micro-bevels on the long sides.

This floor has normal (high quality) T&G construction for easy installation, can be installed floating or glued-down and is suitable for underfloor heating.

Measurements: 15 x 189 x 1860mm, 2.81 sq m per pack.

Our introduction price: £ 49.97 ex VAT per sq m.

Add natural age and beauty to your home in a simple but value adding way, wooden features do add on average 5 - 10% value to your home (or buy-to-let property), is easy to clean, anti-allergic and becomes more beautiful the longer it's down.

Buy it now through our webshop: see article 1WE-OAK-5 (3rd product on the page).

Two questions: one problem, one answer - sort of

Recently we received two very similar questions through our Get Free Advice web form:
Question one (from the chair of a village hall)
I am looking for some advice. We have a village hall floor with parquet floor 17.1m x 8.6m which is in need of some attention. There is a residual lacquer finish on approx 60% of the floor with the high traffic areas with little or no protection.

We have a weekly clean which involves a good brush and then a hard floor cleaning product (Carefree Mop & Shine). The hall itself is well used and the hirers are not necessarily always diligent with sweeping the floor. We are likely to have water spillages on occasions that are cleaned up after an hour, sand spills which are cleaned up but residue could be an issue, finally a dance class who do or don’t dust the floor (depending on who you talk to) with French chalk. Your comments on the above would be useful please.

What would your recommendation be for the finish: lacquer or hard wax oil? Lacquer is what we have had before but hard wax oil might be better because of the ability to keep on top of the wearing areas.

Finally is there any advice you can provide on maintenance regime, cleaners, treatments and equipment. At present we have hand brooms and mops used by both hires and our cleaner. We also have tiled and linoleum floors in changing rooms, kitchen, corridors and reception areas. One thought was we should use some form of vacuuming to improve the cleanliness of the hall and better preserve the floor finishes.

Many Thanks
Mr J N (chair)

Question two (from The Guardian Saturday Magazine):
I write for the Space Solves section of The Guardian Saturday magazine, answering readers questions on their cleaning and stain removal problems. We have had a query in regarding a parquet floor. Could you advise?

"Our parquet flooring was installed about 28 years ago and has a light to mid yellowish tinge. Where it has been heavily trodden on, it is black while other parts are stained and faded. I usually clean it with a damp soapy (liquid Flash - not too much! or Ecover washing up liquid!) string  mop, no more than that.  Then go over with a clean damp mop. Do you have any suggestion for how I could lift the stains?"

Mrs S Z (The Guardian)

To both questions we replied (roughly) with the same answer:

Thank you for your question, we will try to advice you to the best of our knowledge.

A wooden floor with damaged lacquer finish has indeed lost its capacity to protect the wood from water spills and might display dark (blackened) areas where the lacquer layer has vanished almost completely. To keep mopping the floor with water will only make this worse and you might end up with very deep dark patched where the water has had chance to penetrate the wood constantly.

We strongly recommend the floor to be restored as soon as possible to reduce the chance of it being beyond simple repair. We suggest you search for a reputable company in your area that can sand the floor to remove the old lacquer layer completely and to apply a hard wearing, possibly HardWaxOil for easy maintenance and easy small repairs, new finish layer.

Instead of weekly mopping with clean and shine we recommend the use of WoCa cleaning soap (Woodcare Denmark, TripTrap) which contains both a non-abrasive detergent and a polish so the floor will be cleaned and protected against dirt and drips in one go. For such a large area we recommend the use of a professional buffing machine that can tackle both the weekly cleaning as well as the quarterly additional maintenance to feed both the wood as the wax wear layer.

Such a machine can also easily be used on the other floor covering types you mentioned.
As for daily care we would rather advice the use of a soft broom instead of a vacuum cleaner. Two reasons for this: sweeping a floor shows 'optical' proof the activity is a useful one  and secondly to prevent damages to the floor from damaged vacuum cleaner wheels or choosing the wrong 'brush-setting' (causing scratches when the brush has been retracted)

My only concern is the sand spillages, if that happens straight after a cleaning or maintenance round the sand might get stuck into the applied product and show up as dirty patch, resulting possibly in a kind of abrasive effect.

For The Guardian we also added:

Our TripTrap (WoCa) cleaning soap contains both a gentle detergent AND a polish which cleans and feeds the wooden floor in one go. Always use a slightly damp cloth - don't use buckets of water!
Every 5 to 6 months a wooden floor should receive a maintenance service: applying a suitable for the finish (lacquer or oil) used maintenance product to keep wood and finish layer healthy.
For more information on regular maintenance and stain-removals you could redirect your readers to our information pages.

Hope this helps.

We received two emails in reply:

"That's fantastic advice, many thanks."
"Many thanks for you advice – excellent information."

At your service, as always.

The ongoing battle of the floor installation methods: which is best?

Like "which is the best finish type for a wooden floor", this is a question that 'pops-up' frequently in our inbox:
Why does one professional (camp of professionals even) says:

"NEVER try to float a t/g glued solid plank floor. Whether you use slip membranes etc and gaps at edges there is a good chance it will eventually split in a zig-zag fashion following the line of least resistance of a board or a joint. Stresses within the floor do this and makes no difference that the whole thing can move. Apparently called "rafting"

and the other professional (again a whole camp of professionals) says: no problem.

Mr Ray Turner ends his questions with:

"I have 4 months to wait for concrete to dry so hopefully will they have this sorted out by then?"

Afraid not Ray - this is one of those 'battle of the methods' - which one is best? One camp will always follow one method - through own personal experiences with the method that gives them and their clients the least problems and/or the way they have been taught by their mentors during their apprenticeship - and the other camp will keep following their preferred other method of installing solid floorboards.

The best method? As long as the chosen method is done the correct way any method is fine, depending of course on the circumstances, the product and the preference of both fitter and client.

The example above on floorboards splitting when using the floating method is mostly down to incorrect glueing of the T&G's. Wood works and will indeed find the 'weakest' link in the whole construction. T&G's should be glued completely, not just with drips and drops. (See our own article on "The correct way of glueing T&G's").

We have seen fully bonded to the underfloor (concrete or sheet material) wooden floors come away because the adhesive was applied incorrectly - spread out flat instead of using a notched trowel - and we have seen whole floors 'rattle' on their battens when not thick enough battens (installed on concrete) were used with the secretly nail (50mm nails) method.

Will there ever be the one method that is followed by all camps - don't hold your breath I'm afraid. Manufacturers of solid floorboards have their own preferences too, but more and more they give various options in their instructions (fully bonded, floating, secret nailed) as suitable methods of installation, depending on the specific circumstances in your home.

Again, as long as your situation allows it any method is fine ONLY when done the correct way.

Q: Should I sand down a cupped floor?

Wood works, always. It adjusts itself to the moist-content in your home: expands when there is an increase and shrinks when there is an decrease. That's the reason why we recommend to leave a sufficiently wide expansion gap around the whole perimeter of your wooden floor - it gives your floor 'room' to move - and it will, no matter which installation method you use.

Cupping of a floor happens when the floor absorbs so much moist it fills its expansion gap completely - or is 'stuck' in one spot due to very heavy furniture, faulty installation method - and has to go somewhere - up.
Excessive circumstances can happen to everyone: a leak, a flood etc, but those are temporary circumstances. 9 times out of 10 it's a case of 'removing' the cause and the cupped floor will settle again to its normal state.

However, we frequently get the question: "Should I sand down a cupped floor?"

The picture underneath explains what will happen then (click on the picture to see its full size).

It will 'look' fine temporarily, but as soon as the normal house climate is restored the floor will 'crown' - forever!

Best solution to resolve cupped floors: find the cause first e.g. leak, heavy downpour causing more moist than normal in the void beneath the wood floor, new appliance in the room or connecting area that causes more moist than normal - think of a tumble dryer, dish-washer etc - sudden and hefty increase in air humidity outside due to the seasons.
Some of the causes you can resolve, some you can't - or not easy or quickly. But if you don't know what causes the cupping then you can keep having the same problem over and over again.

To reduce the strain in your wood floor that is causing the cupping-effect: remove beading or skirting along one side of the room that runs parallel with the direction the floorboards are installed - wood hardly expands lengthways - and saw or chisel off a small strip of the last row. You'll be amazed how little you need to cut off this way for the floor to 'settle into place again - so start 'tiny', you can always redo the procedure.
A circular plunge-saw comes in very handy in these cases - quick and simple.

Enter the "DIY-Triumphs" Contest

Did you install a wooden floor yourself and are you Darn Proud of it?

Then enter Wood You Like's DIY-Triumphs Contest

Honest and high quality products together with honest and high quality information is always a winning combination. Our own growing band of proud DIY-clients - as far as Scotland - show that time after time.
Installing a natural wooden floor is a labour of love - you'll have to take the right preparations, make sure you have all the right materials and tools at hand and you'll have to take your time: this is not something you can rush. Not if you want a result to be proud of and one that will increase the comfort and the value of your home.

Our own webpages are filled with honest high quality products and high quality honest advice for everyone. We are always more than happy to answer any remaining questions and have installed a very simple online question form for this very reason.

Every time we finish the installation of a wood floor for one of our clients we leave the job with proud feelings and experience tells us that most of our clients who install their own floor feel the same. Job well done!

We are now giving every DIY-er the chance to show-off their DIY-Triumphs in our dedicated photo gallery. Wood You Like is inviting you to enter our "DIY-Triumph" contest.

Read here how you can enter the contest to have your triumph published in the photo gallery. Every month we will select the "DIY-Triumph of the month" who will be added to our "Hall of Fame" and receive 1 ltr of suitable maintenance product as reward.

Enter now!

Wood You Like to get The Doors?

When installing a wooden floor in any type of room there will be doors. At least one. Or seven in one hallway.
Doors are not a problem - tick layers of paint on the hinges, now that's a problem. In our (Dutch) eyes the door frames are most times a small problem - no existing high enough wooden thresholds to bud the new floor against (leaving the needed expansion gap of course!) and a whole layer of wooden (or MDF) strips in various designs as architraves.

But nothing proper tools can't handle to cut underneath or cut to the right new height required so the floor or flat beading slides underneath the door posts and a new solid threshold separates the room from others without the door scraping over it - or causing draft.

All part of the daily job of a floor fitter. Well, wooden floor fitter that is.
We stopped counting the times our clients ask us kindly to cut doors in completely different rooms or areas after a carpet fitter or tiler has finished his/her job without 'closing the door'.

Apparently that's only a wooden floor fitter's common courtesy, getting the doors back in and having them work properly without damaging the new thresholds, floor or causing draft.

FAQ: Can I install wood over carpet?

Question received
Hi
We are thinking of laying a wood laminate floor in our rented house. At the moment it is carpeted, with underlay, on top of concrete. The carpet is quite thin. If we give the carpet a good shampoo, is it ok to put the floor on top of the carpet, to all intents using this as an underlay for the floor.

Our answer:

Using a carpet underlay or a carpet as underlayment for wooden flooring is asking for trouble I'm afraid.
Cleaning a carpet will never get rid of all the dust, dirt (and bugs) it has gathered over its lifetime.

Best is to remove it, including the carpet underlayment and start 'a fresh'.

Wood You Like Ltd

Pre-Spring Offer: Wood-Engineered Oak Rustic 3-strip

Why not have the best of both worlds right now: your own genuine Oak tree and our genuine Oak flooring?

Basic Wood-Engineered Oak 3-strip pre-lacquered - suitable for many different rooms, from narrow hallways or other small rooms - and
make them look wider, to bedrooms - ideal for children and adults
suffering from allergies/asthma.

Normal price of this floor: £ 28.97 ex VAT per sq m -

NOW ONLY £ 24.97 per sq m!

Measurements: 15 x 190 x 1830mm, 3.33 sq m per pack
(£ 83.15 ex VAT per pack during our offer)

Normal T&G construction for easy DIY-installation, or ask us to quote you for our fitting-service (East Kent area only)

Order from our showroom, by phone (01233 - 713725, debit card payments accepted) or online.

Orders above £ 1500.00 ex VAT are delivered FREE

From little Acorns....

"From little Acorns mighty Oaks will grow"

How to ‘Grow your own floor’ - a special gift of natural wonder, from us to you.

On this special occasion of our 5th Anniversary we are gifting you a little ‘miracle of nature’, a beautiful acorn, hand collected from a natural forest locally, so you too can start growing your very own ‘genuine oak flooring’. (Request to have a little miracle of nature send to you by filling the form below, sorry, none left!)

Estimated delivery time for your oak floor - approx 40 years.

Meanwhile, the oak in your garden will provide you with many years of pleasure – and guaranteed, you will get so fond of it you won’t want to chop it down.  So, perhaps a quicker, more reliable way of getting your ‘genuine oak flooring’ is to give Wood You Like, the wood flooring specialists, a call on 01233 713725.

Revised delivery time for your oak flooring - within 4 weeks!

What you need to know about growing your own floor:

• The Oak is part of the Beech family - its Latin name is Quercus.
• Your Oak tree can easily live 200 years and more - the oldest known Oak tree in the UK is said to be about 1,000 years old.
• Only after about 25 years will your Oak start to produce its own acorns.
• It takes, on average, up to 35 years for an Oak tree to reach maturity (approx height of 25 – 30 metres).
• A mature Oak tree can draw up 190 litres of water a day from your garden.
• After felling your tree, it will need to go through various drying processes (lumber stacks, turning, dry-sheds, kiln drying, and more, taking up to 3 years) to reduce its moisture content, in a gentle and natural manner to prevent it splitting, before it can eventually be cut into timber or floor boards – and then dried further before you can lay them, with pride, in your home.
• From 1 cubic metre of tree you might get 20 sq metres of 21mm thick solid boards, or up to 90 sq metres of precision Wood-Engineered floorboards.

Solid Offers: beware of the "short end of the stick"

Wood flooring is a very popular floor covering - besides being easy to clean and anti-allergic, it enhances your home and can even increase the value of it.

But.... being popular has its own down-sides: many are jumping on the 'band-wagon' of its success to make a profit. Nothing wrong with this when quality products are offered for what they are worth, we all know and understand the logic of 'value for money'.

'Value for money' not only means supplying decent products but also supplying decent information, correct and honest. And that is sometimes the biggest problem with 'Solid Offers' - too little information on what the 'offer' really contains.

This pictures was kindly supplied to us by one of DIYnot.com forum members. Besides problems with the pre-oiled finish and installation errors by the fitter (not the forum-member) the floor has many very short lengths and hardly any longer lengths.

Products like these (most with a proper finish) are sold as Solid Oak floorboards - Oak strip flooring - in random lengths between 300 - 1200mm.

The correct and honest information missing in the shop and on the packaging is the amount of short lengths a pack contains. Sometimes as much as 50% of the contents of a pack is shorter than 500mm and only 1 or 2 boards - if your lucky - are the full 1200mm long.

Since it is recommended to prevent a pattern of joins and to space the joins of connecting rows at least 300mm apart with this amount of short lengths it is very hard to do - creating not only an unstable, prone to movement, floor - see picture on the right - but also giving your solid Oak real wood floor a very hectic appearance, specially if all 4 sides are bevelled. This pronounces the many joins in the floor even more.

Value for money: if the information on the packs leaves you in doubt ask the supplier for specifications - he/she ought to know what he/she is selling you in the first place!

Don't end up with the 'short end of the stick' or in these cases 'short end of the boards'!

5th Anniversary Wood You Like

Happy New Year !

And what a new year it will be: a whole year with special offers to celebrate Wood You Like's 5th Anniversary.

We'll start with a very special gift to every client purchasing our quality natural wooden flooring:

Browse our website and online shop to select your own high quality natural wooden flooring and stay tuned for more special offers, attractions and celebrations.