How Thick Should My Oak Flooring Be?

14th Jul 2014 @ 17:07

When purchasing solid or engineered oak flooring, you will no doubt notice the range of options that are available to you. One key difference is the thickness of boards that are available, making it difficult to know how thin or how thick to go. So what thickness of board should you choose?

What thickness is right for you all comes down to your own personal situation, and how you intend to lay the floor.

For our solid oak flooring, we have boards available in a thickness of 20mm or 14mm.

Our 20mm solid oak flooring can be laid as a structural floor. This means it is suitable for fitting over the top of joists/batons. 20mm solid oak boards can also be laid directly over an existing wooden subfloor and glued to a concrete subfloor (providing the width of board is no greater than 120mm).

Our 14mm solid oak flooring on the other hand is designed as an overlay system, designed for the more challenging locations. One of the more common requirements these days is to replace a carpet which has been laid over a plywood sub-floor, with oak flooring. This of course can be achieved with our 20mm boards, however room height can sometimes be an issue. Made from the same high quality oak as the 20mm boards, the 14mm boards are just thick enough to provide stable flooring, whilst being thin enough so not much room height is lost.

Oak Flooring Thickness

For areas which require engineered oak boards, such as bathrooms or underfloor heating systems, we have engineered oak flooring.

Engineered oak flooring boards are made up of a combination of oak and a ply board base. Our 20mm engineered boards have a 6mm solid oak top layer, which is bonded to 14mm of Siberian birch ply (11 layers).

Engineered oak flooring can be fitted in the same ways as solid oak flooring. An advantage of engineered oak flooring is that it can also be laid using the floating floor method. Further to this, wide engineered oak flooring boards can be glued to a concrete subfloor.

When choosing between thinner and thicker engineered oak boards there are some points that should be considered. A thinner engineered oak board will mean a compromised thickness of the wear layer and a compromised amount of layers in the plyboard. This results in the boards being less stable than thicker boards, with less sandings also available.

To discuss your project with us, please give us a call on 01538 304584.

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