Types Of Oak Flooring

Oak is a wood that is recognised, pretty much worldwide for its strength and hardness.  A tree that takes tens of years to grow and mature and, if left uncut can live for hundreds of years, it’s easy to see why the wood produced from this tree is so commonly used in furnishing and flooring.  Hailing most commonly from the European countries or America, oak as a raw material is graded when it is lumbered, according to its look.  Oak comes in four grades: prime, select, natural and rustic.

When you’re choosing your oak flooring, no matter whether you need or want solid or engineered wood flooring, the choice of oak grade is important.  Prime grade oak results in a really clean, consistent looking floor, thanks to the fact that it has real colour uniformity and very few knots, which are small as well as little sap.  As you go down the grading scale, you’ll find more knots that grow in size as you go from prime to rustic, as well as greater colour variation and more sap.  This doesn’t mean however that the quality reduces in any way; it just means that the look will be different.  If you’re not sure which grade of oak flooring might suit you best, you’ll no doubt find this article helpful.

Once oak has been graded into one of the four categories, it typically then goes off to be manufactured into either flooring or furnishing, at which time it really starts its new life.  As we’ve mentioned, oak normally hails from either Europe or America and although both continents have their pros and cons when it comes to this raw material, there is no getting away from the fact that in the UK we have a tendency to hanker after European oak before American oak simply because it hasn’t travelled half way across the world to reach its destination.  So this is another aspect of your oak flooring decision-making process that you need to take into account.

In order to help you decide whether American or European oak flooring might be the best option for you, here is an article we published a while ago American Oak Flooring Compared to European Oak Flooring. In this article, you’ll see that there is no right or wrong answer to this decision and unless you’re looking for a really light, white coloured oak which isn’t found in Europe, there really is no great argument for demanding a product that has left a huge carbon footprint in its wake.

One of the biggest decisions you’re likely to face when choosing your oak flooring is whether you will plump for engineered oak flooring or solid oak flooring.  This is where you need to be really careful.  Many people make the mistake of confusing engineered wood flooring with laminate flooring, but they really are chalk and cheese.  In order to put this into context, there are laminate flooring options on the market that are little more than photocopies of wood that have been stuck on boards and then coated with a protective top layer.  Engineered wood flooring on the other hand is made from cleverly combined wood products that serve to create a solid and stable core board, on which a solid oak lamella or top layer is applied.  It is this solid oak top layer that makes engineered wood flooring look so like solid wood.

Although engineered wood flooring looks and feels just like real wood flooring, it has the huge advantage of being suitable for installation in rooms in the home where there are significant moisture and temperature fluctuations.  When moisture and temperatures rise and fall, wood expands and contracts and while this is completely normal, excessive expansion and contraction can cause severe damage to your floor over time.  Add to this, the fact that engineered wood flooring can be fitted over under floor heating and you start to see why this flooring solution is so popular these days.

The final thing you’ll need to decide on is the finish for your oak flooring.  Depending on your household’s footfall and your desired look, at Wood and Beyond we have everything from hardwearing and effective UV lacquered Oak flooring to natural looking brushed and oiled options, with a host of whitewashed look choices in between.  In fact, when it comes to types of oak flooring we’re proud to say that we truly have something to suit every taste and every budget.