Wooden floorboards have a long history in the UK. Floorboards are made from oak, birch, ash, walnut and maple. Over the centuries, different types of woods were used and different ways to join them have been developed. In the past few decades, engineered flooring has become an important option in the UK for both domestic and commercial applications. Engineered flooring is constructed using high quality materials.
The key benefits of engineered flooring are durability, ease of installation and aesthetics. Wood floorboards are strong but wear out over time. Oak floorboards start to look damaged and old after a few decades. With engineered floorboards, you get a robust solid wood floorboard that looks beautiful with the right polish or paint.
Solid wood flooring is great and all but the cost can be prohibitive. Engineered flooring takes care of this problem too. It is often the case that solid wood flooring will need replacing after many years. Good engineered wooden floorboard costs less than solid wood flooring and it lasts longer too. What’s more is that the process of engineering is so efficient that it makes the product much more durable than solid wood. This means that the finished product is going to last for a long time.
With this long-lasting durability, solid hardwood flooring is also great for overseas buyers. A solid hardwood floorboard made by the manufacturers of engineered wooden flooring can be assured of high quality and durability. The strength of engineered wooden flooring is further enhanced by the way that it is put together. It starts with the boards being pulled directly onto the sub-floor of a building. The boards are then joined in the center by C joists which are built in place.
When this engineered flooring meets with the wall and rafters in your home, the surface has been created as flat as possible. Then it is topped off with a thin grade of veneer. You can look forward to decades of service as opposed to a couple of years with solid hardwood flooring. This cost saving benefit is one of the main reasons why more people are choosing engineered flooring over solid hardwood flooring these days.
Solid hardwood flooring can be expensive, especially if you need to replace your entire hardwood floor over a number of years. In addition, the cost of installing solid hardwood floors can sometimes be so great that they put off a home purchase. That said, it is not entirely true that engineered oak floorboards are completely free from the cost problems associated with solid hardwood flooring. In fact, the opposite is true. Even though solid hardwood floorboards are more expensive, the expense involved in putting them together is so great that homeowners will usually prefer to install engineered flooring in their homes. In some cases, they will choose to do this even when they have chosen to go with a traditional hardwood floor.
You may be concerned about the fact that engineered flooring is made from cheaper wood than traditional hardwoods. However, you should know that this doesn’t mean that engineered flooring will be cheaply made. It simply means that the manufacturers of this type of floorboard will try to make the most of the wood that is available.
When looking for a new type of floorboard, you may also want to look at what engineered flooring can offer. The reason for this is simple: engineered floorings are better at resisting moisture. With solid hardwood floorboards, this can become a problem because they can warp when there is too much moisture in the air. With engineered floorboards, you won’t have this problem because they are more durable and can hold up against moisture better than wooden floorboards.