Oak & slate flooring

[3sixty]

We're about to move into our new home and were looking to get some oak flooring for the living room and slate tiles for the kitchen.

Apart from the obvious B&Q, Homebase etc., is there anywhere online that has good quality at a modest price? I know you can pay a lot depending on the quality of the tile and wood, but we're just after something that is the right colour and will wear well.

Are B&Q etc. ok for this, or is their quality poor and someone else can recommend better?

Room sizes are living room 16m2 and kitchen 15m2.

[Davi]

I can highly recommend not using B&Q for their flooring unless you like paying for poor quality.

I just bought a load from www.OakFloorsOnline.co.uk and had good service and a great product well priced. Don't be afraid to haggle on the price with them either

Edited by Davi on Friday 10th September 21:05

[Phooey]

Bought 50-60 sqm of prime French Oak from here, and can thoroughly recommend their timber. They have their own forests and also supply to other merchants.

[dickymint]

http://www.mandarinstone.com/

Check out their "end of line" stuff.

PS. The Wife is a manager there.

[Jonnas]

How are you fixing the Oak? Are you nailing it to battens/joists or bonding it directly to concrete?

If you are bonding it I would thoroughly recommend using engineered Oak rather than solid. It is much more stable although a little more expensive. I laid about 100m2 of solid in my house and even though I left it to stand in the house for a couple of months before I laid it, it has still moved quite a bit in places. It's not worth the saving IMO.

[3sixty]

Thanks for the replies guys. Some of the products on those websites look very good and a lot cheaper than I expected.

Phooey said:

Bought 50-60 sqm of prime French Oak from here, and can thoroughly recommend their timber. They have their own forests and also supply to other merchants.

Might be me being still sleepy, but there isnt a link? Or did you mean the link on the above post?

Jonnas said:

How are you fixing the Oak? Are you nailing it to battens/joists or bonding it directly to concrete?

If you are bonding it I would thoroughly recommend using engineered Oak rather than solid. It is much more stable although a little more expensive. I laid about 100m2 of solid in my house and even though I left it to stand in the house for a couple of months before I laid it, it has still moved quite a bit in places. It's not worth the saving IMO.

Open to suggestions of which is better, but was probably going to be going down directly onto concrete. Thanks for the tip regarding engineered wood.

[Cogcog]

I used these people:

http://www.britishhardwoods.co.uk/

They distressed and fumed the natural wood for me (complete with knots etc) to give it the antique colouring and bent over backwards to get the delivery to me in time.

http://www.britishhardwoods.co.uk/tradition-solid-...

I was laying it on a poured bitumen floor which couldn't be nailed to. It was laid as a floating floor on a thin foam layer. Each new T&G piece had to be held in place with straps and getting the first line right is critical. I had about 55 square meters and it took the joiner 3 days which included playing it around teh stair case and the various doorways.

With a coat of wax it looked fantastic and has been an absolute pleasure to live with. Not cheap but worth every penny and not much more expensive than the decent quality carpet being removed.

Edited by Cogcog on Saturday 11th September 10:38

[GJB]

I wouldn't have slate in my kitchen. It's a pig to keep clean due to its riven nature. Ideally you'd be far better off buying porcelain tiles that look like real stone. Cheaper to buy, cheaper to lay and so easy to keep clean. But then again you might like cleaning floors more than I do?

[Emsman]

Slate- avoid b and q at all costs- poor quality, poor sizing and crap service- if you end up needing a few more and they don't have them, that's that, you can't get them.
Topps tiles are ok, or find a local specialist.
Whatever you do, get riven slate- well sized and thickness should be close between pieces.

I would consider a ceramic that looks like slate though- far easier and cheaper to lay.
Slate also needs to be impregnated prior to laying to prevent staining from the grout, and requires sealing after laying- which stinks, is a general ball ache, and needs redoing annually.

That said, a good slate floor looks superb- after a couple of years- slate wears in wheras ceramic wears out

[Phooey]

3sixty said:

Phooey said:

Bought 50-60 sqm of prime French Oak from here, and can thoroughly recommend their timber. They have their own forests and also supply to other merchants.

Might be me being still sleepy, but there isnt a link? Or did you mean the link on the above post?

Doh!,, sorry, it was *me* being a bit sleepy - thought i had added the link, forgot sorry. Here you go anyway -

http://www.billinghaysawmill.co.uk/


Just to add, the timber we purchased was *solid* and laid onto a concrete floor, fixed with adhesive and finished on site. If there's one thing you do - use an experienced fitter, not just your average joiner. Apparently there are some crap adhesives out there, our floor has been down 5/6 years now, and just looks better and better with age. Yes, you will get some movement/small gaps e.t.c., which will open and close with the various seasons (Winter/Summer), but it is a natural product, so this is to be expected and just adds to the character of the wood.

Speak to these people - they are very experienced and know their products well

[Number 7]

For wooden flooring I would recommend Junckers. Not cheap, but lots of choice of timbers, each generally in 2 or 3 grades, and different finishes, 2 different thicknesses, and all solid, i.e. not laminate or engineered. Can be sanded back and re-sealed when worn (will take years). I fitted a 14mm ash floor in our dining room a few years ao. Still perfect. As long as you've got reasonable sub floor, you just get a thin membrane and lay the floor over that - it's a floating floor, so no nailing etc. Top quality stuff.

7.

Edited by Number 7 on Saturday 11th September 15:15

[Davi]

Number 7 said:

2 different thicknesses, and all solid, i.e. not laminate or engineered.

That really isn't a plus point, you know! Engineered in many applications is far, far superior to solid.

[Cogcog]

GJB said:

I wouldn't have slate in my kitchen. It's a pig to keep clean due to its riven nature. Ideally you'd be far better off buying porcelain tiles that look like real stone. Cheaper to buy, cheaper to lay and so easy to keep clean. But then again you might like cleaning floors more than I do?

Anything which hasn't got a perfectly flat and scrubble surface is a nightmare. We havd a rough slate finish and it just filled with kitchen crap and needed constantly scrubbing. The same with textured tiles. In the end we replaced them with simple quarry tiles; cheap, tough and practical.

[Phooey]

Cogcog said:

GJB said:

I wouldn't have slate in my kitchen. It's a pig to keep clean due to its riven nature. Ideally you'd be far better off buying porcelain tiles that look like real stone. Cheaper to buy, cheaper to lay and so easy to keep clean. But then again you might like cleaning floors more than I do?

Anything which hasn't got a perfectly flat and scrubble surface is a nightmare. We havd a rough slate finish and it just filled with kitchen crap and needed constantly scrubbing.

Another use for a wife?

[Number 7]

Davi said:

Number 7 said:

2 different thicknesses, and all solid, i.e. not laminate or engineered.

That really isn't a plus point, you know! Engineered in many applications is far, far superior to solid.

I would suggest that it is a definite advantage. You can't sand back laminate, and what's the thickness of the top layer of an engineered floor - just a few mm if that, so the scope to reduce it is far less than that for a solid floor.

7.

[ncs]

A decent engineered floor will have the same wear layer as a solid floor, & it will be more stable.

Things have changed over the years & despite having solid Oak in my house I would probably go for an engineered board now even though they usually cost a little more.

I sell a vast amount of each every year, & engineered has become much more popular. I used to sell over £100k of Junckers a year but it hardly moves now, its a fantastic product but very highly engineered which is reflected in the price & puts most people off!

Nick

[_dobbo_]

I laid this slate floor earlier this year:





Would echo everything emsman says above - it's harder to work with but does look great if you take care. I'd do a few things differently like leave a smaller grout gap and be a lot more careful, but it looks fab anyway.

Bit difficult to keep clean, because the slate can absorb spills a little bit.

Tiles came from Tile Giant and weren't too expensive.

As for the oak side - we're now looking for an oak floor for the dining room, so I'll be watching this thread with interest!

[Davi]

Number 7 said:

Davi said:

Number 7 said:

2 different thicknesses, and all solid, i.e. not laminate or engineered.

That really isn't a plus point, you know! Engineered in many applications is far, far superior to solid.

I would suggest that it is a definite advantage. You can't sand back laminate, and what's the thickness of the top layer of an engineered floor - just a few mm if that, so the scope to reduce it is far less than that for a solid floor.

7.

You may suggest it, but it's still not the case

It depends entirely on the quality of the engineered timber, of course, but most good quality are solid wood down to the tongue. You cannot sand any floor below the tongue anyway, therefore the scope for sanding back is absolutely identical between solid and decent engineered.

The difference is engineered is much, much more stable in any wet room environment and through the seasons, plus can be used over underfloor heating.

[3sixty]

Many thanks for the mass response guys, we've got some great links to companies and websites here, we're currently awaiting some samples back from a few.

Dobbo, thanks for the pics - that is exactly the look we are going for as well. Nice to see how the finished product looks.

[Emsman]

Have a look here for slate.

Superb company, bloody good prices, and will supply all of the add ons- sealers, adhesives and so on

http://www.wallsandfloors.co.uk/search-static.php