If you are the proud parents of babies or young children and are considering the installation of wooden flooring, no doubt you’ll have questions of safety and appropriateness spinning round your mind. There is little doubt that the hygienic benefits of a wooden floor are much greater than carpeted flooring, yet the softness of carpet can seem very appealing.
There’s no getting away from the fact that because wood is a natural product, solid wood flooring has a tendency to expand and contract with changes in environmental conditions and those expansions and contractions can lead to gaps in the floor. If you think gaps between the floorboards might present a hazard for your child, it’s worth considering engineered wood flooring.
Solid wood flooring, as the name suggests is constructed using planks made from one piece of wood, whereas engineered wood flooring is made up of layers of various types of wood which are topped with a hardwood layer to make the end result look like solid wood. Thanks to its make up, engineered wood flooring is much less susceptible to expansion and contraction than solid wood and as such doesn’t pose the same risk of gaps for little fingers and toes or indeed toys to get trapped.
By its very nature, wood flooring is a harder option than carpet which means parents commonly worry about children having a hard landing on a fall. One way of reducing the “hardness” of a wooden floor is to install the floor using a ‘floating’ method. A floating wood floor is a floor that is neither nailed nor glued to the sub-floor. In a floating installation, the only place glue might be used is between the tongue and groove. In a domestic situation, a floating floor can be laid over a sub-floor or over an existing floor after laying an appropriate underlay. It is the introduction of this underlay which may help soften the impact of any falls (as well as acting as a sound barrier).
A couple of final things on the list for any parents of small children or babies considering the purchase and installation of a wooden floor is the finish and any environmental risks. In terms wood flooring finish, lacquers and hard wax oils provide a coating which will allow the floor to take the wear and tear thrown at it by even the toughest of children. Of course with the proximity of little hands and little mouths to the floor, as parents you’ll want to make sure that your new flooring and its finish have low (and preferably no) volatile organic compounds (VOCs) thus reducing the risk of toxic emissions.