If you’re in the throws of planning a wood flooring project, you won’t need us to tell you that you have plenty of things to think about when it comes to making the right choices. Everything from selecting between solid and engineered wood, right down to fitting method and accessories are all important and deserve attention. Today’s blog post aims to demystify the different thicknesses of wood flooring in order to help you decide which thickness might work best for your project.
Solid vs Engineered wood flooring
As any regular reader of this blog will know, the difference between solid and engineered wood flooring is how the boards are constructed. Solid wood flooring, as the name suggests, is made from solid planks of one type of wood and nothing else. Engineered wood flooring on the other hand is a man-made wood flooring product that is made of natural products. This wood flooring product is made by bonding layers of ply together and topping those layers off with a top layer, or lamella of solid wood. The way it’s constructed means that it’s highly resistant to temperature and moisture fluctuations.
Solid wood floor is most commonly found in 15 to 20mm thickness. When choosing the thickness of engineered wood flooring, there are two different considerations to be taken into account. The first is the thickness of the overall board and the second is the thickness of the solid wood lamella or top layer. The thickness of the overall board you need will depend largely on whether or not you have under floor heating (see below) and the layer of the top layer will depend on how often you want to be able to re-sand and re-finish your floor.
Whether or not you have under floor heating
If you have under floor heating, then engineered wood flooring is the only option we, at Wood and Beyond would recommend. This is because it is the best option to withstand the temperature highs and lows. When it comes to choosing the correct thickness, then again we recommend a board that is no more than 18mm thick and that the top layer, or lamella is no more than 5mm. These are what we believe to be the optimum thicknesses to ensure heat efficiency.
What’s your sub floor made of?
Plywood
If you have a plywood sub floor, most 19mm thick flooring options, no matter whether they are solid or engineered wood should work well. The only time thickness may be a problem is when the plywood sub floor is weak or flexes when you walk on it. If this is the case, then ideally you should either opt for a thicker board or introduce an additional thin layer of ply (around 0.5cm thick) to stabilize the floor and give you a better laying surface.
Planks
Irrespective of the thickness of wood flooring you choose, when laying new planks over old, it’s essential that you run the new boards perpendicular (ie. at 90 degrees) to the old boards. If you want to run your floor parallel (in the same direction) as the old boards, you should introduce a layer of ply (as above for plywood sub floor).
Concrete
With a concrete sub floor, the important thing is to make sure that your sub floor is dry and level. Once you have established that it’s dry, you should either establish that the existing surface is good enough to support your new floor or you should introduce a plywood layer to the mix. Either way, once you know your floor is dry and level, you’ll normally have complete flexibility over the thickness of the boards you lay.
Fitting directly over joists
It’s perfectly feasible to fit solid or engineered wood flooring directly over joists, but you need to make sure that the joists aren’t too far apart (generally speaking, they should be no more than 45cm apart). If they fit this condition, then either a solid or engineered wood flooring product that is at least 18mm thick should be sufficient. If your joists are further apart than the recommended maximum, then the advice is that you should lay a ply or chipboard sub floor over the joists in order to create a level and stable surface for your new floor. If you do this, then a thinner board, even 14mm or 15mm thick should suffice.
If you’d like help to establish what thickness of boards would work best for your project, why not get in touch? At Wood and Beyond, we’re always happy to help and assure you that you’ll get professional, impartial advice every time.