The method of installing the wood flooring on under heating system

The environment of under floor heating system is very complex, requiring a high thermal conductivity and dimensional stability of the wood flooring. To ensure a better heat conduction and avoid flooring deformation , the thickness should not be more than 8mm for laminate flooring And the other floorings with thickness more than 8mm, such as hardwood flooring, Bamboo flooring, engineered wood flooring and laminate flooring are not suitable for under heating system for the occasion.

Requirements before installation

1. Before the installation, the under heating system must be tested for the heating water, with the water temperature at least 50 degrees centigrade, and the underfloor heating system is working properly, and the system keeps the water temperature more than 12 hours. Makre sure that there is no leakage before installing the wood flooring on the system. 　　

2 The construction method of destroying the ground surface is not allowed, as this kind of method will undermine the cooling coil of the heating system　

3 If the construction is at winter in cold areas, the wood flooring should be kept with open boxed in the field for more than 12 hours in advance, to make the flooring adapt to variations in temperature to avoid the deformation of flooring boards. 　　

4 Before installation, the ground surface should be checked wither it is flat, dry, clean. Make sure the doors and windows are complete, there is no leaking from relevant facilities. In the end, pls check the distance between the door and the ground is enough or not 　　

5 Lay the Special underlayer neatly on the ground, and seal the joints of the underlayers with adhesive tape.

6 Regarding the laying direction of the flooring, the direction of the long-side flooring board  should be consistent with the room lighting. During installation, the grooves of the long-side floor in the first row should be faced to the wall, with wood wedges between the floor and walls and  with a floor expansion gap about 8-12mm.The flooring boards should be staggered between rows and rows for installation and the dislocation distance should be more than 20 cm. 　　

7 When laying the flooring, pls pay great attention at all times to the height difference of the surface, cracks and other defects. Make sure the flooring boards laid are qualified before gluing the joints and immediately remove residual glue on board. 　　

8 No walking on the flooring within 12 hours after installation, other subcequent activities of construction should be carried out after 24 hours. 　　

9 if floor laying is longer than 8M, or at the joining between rooms , the  wood floorings shall be cut off to leave an expansion gap about 8-12mm, which needs a T profile as connection to reduce the floor arching. 　　

　　

Baseboard installation

When you install the wood skirting, the expansion joints should be covered. 　　

Attentions:

1 When decorating the house, we shall pay attention to the under floor heating system: no legless furniture to avoid wood flooring's local deformation caused by poor cooling. 　　

2 For the first operation of under heating system or the restarting after a long time, keep slowl heating speed (recommended heating rate is 1 c/h) to prevent heating up too fast which could cause cracking of the wood flooring and twisting. At the same time,  pls keep the floor dry.

3 when the indoor air is dry, indoor humidity should be adjusted.

The engineered wood flooring maintenance

Many people tend to focus on the purchase of multi-layer engineered wood flooring, but overlooked the flooring maintenance issues. However,several years later, the multi-layer wood flooring appears arching, cracks, dim colors and so on. If we don't find out the root of this problem, all could be blamed would be the quality problem of multi-layer engineered wood flooring.　　 In fact, the engineered wood flooring needs maintenance all the time, which will prolong the the lifetime of the flooring, keeping the fantastic gloss or color of the surface.

What we should do to maintain the engineered wood flooring ?

1, for ordinary maintenance, please use a vacuum cleaner and dry cloth to wipe and clean the wood flooring. too wet wiping with mop can easily lead to multiply wood flooring  arching and cupping;

2, if your multiply wooden floor is very dirty, the first job is to clear the sands,dusts or other trash; then dip the rag in water with neutral detergent, wire the mop dry thoroughly before mopping the multi-layer solid wood flooring. It would be best  to wax the wood flooring after the flooring surface is completely dry. In addition, lay the doormat at the entrance, put on the shoes for indoor use after getting into rooms;　

3 During waxing the engineered wood flooring, we need to soak the rags with aqueous wax, wipe with the soaked rags in the direction of flooring wood grain. Do not pour the aqueous wax directly on the flooring surface and wipe, this easily will make the wax film uneven;

4, During the waxing process, please keep a good indoor ventilation.If the room temperature is below 5 degree or the temperature change is very huge on a rainy day, the wax probably would get whitened or bleaching.thus we need to try best to avoid waxing wood flooring under such circumstances;　

　5, Pls do not walk on the waxed wood flooring before the wax is completely dried. It is best for us to walk in after 4 hours when the waxing is finished.

6, For the maintenance of the flooring, waxing the multiply wood flooring every quarter (3 months) is a perfect option. Too frequent waxing and too late waxing are both not good to the flooring coating.

What are the reasons for wood flooring aging

We believe that many people have encountered the problem of an aging wood flooring, because, as time goes on , wood flooring will be discolored, bulging, cracking, peeling, cupping, and mildewing, arching, degumming, worn, which we all name as the aging wood flooring. Then what are the reasons of wood flooring ageing?

There are two reasons of wood flooring aging: internal and external.

The internal reasons are including： the moisture content of wood flooring, the performance and quality of flooring lacquer, the wood material of flooring, the quality of moisture-proof underlayer installed when laying the floor, the gaps left for expoation and contraction during the installtion of flooring.These will affect the life time  and the aging of your hardwood flooring.

External factors mainly refer to the temperature of the wood floor, humidity, mold fungus causeing aging wooden flooring.

The most difficult problem for anti-aging flooring technology is at the aspect of flooring lacquer.

As the surface coatings of wood flooring with ordinary lacquer could not match those coatings of laminate flooring in terms of hardness, flexibility, scratch resistance and the abrasion resistance. Thus, there would be bumps, scratches and lacquer-sheddings for those ordinary wood floorings and this phenomena undoubtedly affects flooriing lifetime. 　　

The moisture content control, the moisture resistance ,the installation ways of hardwood flooring have great effects on the flooring aging. As a result, in normal situations, we should try to avoid the contact of hardwood flooring with water, this can significantly improve the lifetime of wooden flooring.At the same time, when purchasing flooring, we should also select the wood flooring with precise moisture control and good moisture resistance. 　　

During installation, we have to ask sellers to help us arrange installation, otherwise no one knows who shall take responsibility once problems occur.

To protect wood flooring from aging, it is necessary to cut off the source of wooden flooring,aging.The above information is what we must pay great attention to when buying the hardwood flooring.

3 steps to deal with soaked wood flooring

We never know when accidents happen.Although we take care of wood flooring all the time, there will be unexpectedly an accident on them in daily lives, such as you forgot to shut the window when a storm comes, or forgot to shut the faucet at home. which would make our wood flooring soaked.This is a nightmare to us as the soaked wood flooring will definitely break in a short time. If we take appropriate measures,there is still chances of bailing out these soaked wood flooring.

Remove soaked flooring immediately. If the wood floor is soaked in water, we should remove all the floors immediately. If it is hardwood flooring,we should ask those professionals to remove.Other floors such as laminate flooring, etc. you can take out the ( wood skirtings)baseboard and remove them by ourselvies.

After removal, the flooring need to be dried in a ventilated place, no exposure to sunshine, becauseexposure to sunshine causes rapid loss of moisture ,which leads to deformation of the floor. Then dry the ground and re-install the wood flooring. However,you’d better to ask a professional worker for installation, since the glue used in the past already does not work any more. Besides, the soaked wood flooring will perform very well, and definitely easily get deformed.If we maintain these soaked flooring with wax or oil, it will be much helpful to those wood floorings.

We need to take measures as soon as possible after the floor is soaked in water. if it is after 3 days, there is nothing we could do but get rid of the wood flooring. Above are the emergency measures you can take when  all of your wood flooring is soaked, if only a small area is wet with water, such as accidentally a pot of water poured on the floor, we just need to mop the flooring a few times, using a fan to dry can help.

If it is partial soaking damage, clean up the floor after a period of time to observe whether there are obvious changes.If there is a cupping of flooring, you can contact workers to do partial replacement, and calculate the floor space  which needs replacement. If there is remaining of the original flooring, we may require workers to use this floor to install. If there is no remaining, you may need to check the size and wood of your flooring for replacement, because only the floor with the same color and size will be applied, otherwise it is impossible to be installed with the wrong size or it will show great color difference. In the end, be sure to arrange installation of hardwood flooringuntill the ground is already dried.

How to make floor color collocate with overall decoration

Recently our customer Mr. Liu who is decorating his new house came to us for consulting: what factors should we consider to choose wood flooring colors? And at the same time, how to make flooring color collocate with overall decoration?

Based on MrLiu’s question about choosing wood flooring colors for his new home, we estimate that this might be a very common question which many people will come cross when they prepare for decoration of new houses.

We hope this article will help you and let you have your own solution to this common question.

The lighting conditions of the living room determines the range of wood flooring color. Rooms with good lighting conditions fit the floor colors in a wider range: deep color and light color are both available. In the low-story rooms, the natural lighting is not good then we should choose the suitable floor with higher brightness for the ground. If possible, consider the dark color as the last option for the low-story rooms with poor natural lighting.

Color affects people's visual sense: warm color is the color of expansion, cold color is the color of contraction, as a result, small room should choose the cool colors or simple bright floor to make people feel the space largened. If selecting the warm colorfor the wood floor, we will feel expressed as this color makes us feel the space more narrow.

In the choice of wood grain, People in Asian prefer the straright or small wood grains, avoiding the wood grain with large and waving patterns, which in fact is the favorite to the people from Europe and North America.

How to balance the floor color and overall home：

Nowadays, many families prefer to use white flooring, hoping to have a peaceful atmosphere at home. The popular light colors are gray (grey) and white, these colors give people the feeling of ease and peace.

The effectiveness and performance of the dark colors floor are very strong and these dark colors are of distinctive personality,for example red floor gives people a strong atractive feeling. If the walls are also painted with strong attravtive colors, it would look incongruous. Selecting the ivory color with pink tones for red flooring, would form a sense of unity in our eyes.

Some cusotmers collocate white walls with dark brown floors, this collocation will make the floors much darker. If the walls are in cashmere color similar the brown floor color, then colors of the walls and wood flooring are relatively close, the room looks much larger.

When choosing the hardwood flooring, we also need to pay attention to the collocation of flooring and furnitures. Flooring color should match the furniture color, in a calm, gentle tone.Because the ground decoration is the permanent decoration,usually the wood flooring would be changed often, thus choosing a neutral color is a very good idea

How to maintain wood floorings at a low cost?

I have seen on the magazines that coca cola can clean the toilet. It is poor in carbon and

environmental. It is really low in cost and great in wisdom. Today, let us talk about how to

maintain wood floorings at a low cost. People who have the desire to look attractive

know that milk can take good care of one’s skin. However, expired milk can not only

maintain skin, but also maintain hardwood floorings. Let’s see.

The milk we left or forget to drink today will go wrong the next day. If we throw it off, we

would feel pity. If we drink it, we would have stomach. Then, we should we do? In fact,

expired milk would turn to be acid, which will increase the lactic acid content in the milk. It

is natural eradicator that can help to clean the floors. Besides, the protein and fat

contained in the milk could form a protective tissue which can keep the wood floorings

bright enough and protect them from scratches. The fat in the milk can be rubbed on the

surface of wood floorings. It can also make use of the original luster of wood floorings so

that the floors would not easily fade and discolor. What’s more, the wood floorings would

not easily get deformation.

Then how to use the expired milk to maintain wood floorings? First, we can put the milk

into the plate, then add water twice as much as the milk to dilute it, dampen the rag and

wring it out. It is time to clean the floors. If we usually have expired milk, we can do it once 

a week. This can not only save cost, but also keep the hardwood flooring notable. It is

really a good method.

Information about formaldehyde release from wood flooring

Decorate home with wood flooring is now the choice of the vast majority of young people, and this is a fashion trend nowadays.But for wooden floors, formaldehyde issue is really a big problem, which annoys many people for the home decoation.Today we would like to share you with some information about formaldehyde in the aspect of wood flooring.

Formaldehyde superscale (excessive formaldehyde emssion),excessive Formaldehyde inhalation may result in severe irritation and edema, eye irritation respiratory tract, may also induce asthma. Headache, dizziness, weakness, nausea, vomiting, chest congestion, eye pain, throat pain, palpitations, insomnia, poor appetite, weight loss, and hypomnesis are minor wound, what is more, long-term inhalation of pregnant women may result in fetal malformations ,even fetal death. Men’s inhaling c Formaldehyde an cause male sperm abnormalities and death. 　　

Of course, don't be scared too much. In fact,formaldehyde content in a certain range will not harm our health, man's odor threshold is usually 0.06~0.07mg/m3 of formaldehyde content.First of all, let us have a look at the mandatory national standards of wood flooring. The emision limit of formaldehyde in the national standards of wood flooring(GB 18580-2001) : formaldehyde emission from hardwooden flooring must be less than or equal to 1.5mg/L, or E1 standard. Those qualified wood flooring with this formaldehyde emision, can be directly applied to the Interior decorations. To protect people’s health against formaldehyde, there are other higher starndard of the formaldehyde emsision around the world, which include European standards of E0 ≤ 0.5mg/L, and ther higher standards of F4 ≤ 0.3mg/L, Super F4 non-formaldehyde standard floor: 0.1mg/L

EI ≤ 1.5mg/L is the standard of desiccator method measurement. This desiccator method is as below: in certain temperature and humidity conditions , put 10 small pieces of wood flooring sample (150x50x15mm) into a container of 40 liters. At the bottom of the container,there is  a desiccator for measuring water level, the formaldehyde realese of wood flooring would be measured according to the formaldehyde dissolved in water.

There are another two methods of testing formaldehyde content-: the perforated-extraction method(≤ 9mg/100g), the climate Chamber method(≤ 0.12mg/m3).

Formaldehyde of wood flooring comes from the flooring adhesives,flooring production, and the flooring lacquer and painting. The major source is the glue used for wood flooring and laminate flooring in the production process. Because the wood flooring glue is made of the glurea-formaldehyde resins,which can emit formaldehyde. As a result, those wood floorings made with non-formaldehyde glue, could release formaldehyde content ≤ 0.1mg/L.

After having an understanding of formaldehyde release standards, we could ask the flooring suppliers which glue is used for the wood flooring and what is their standardards for the formaldehyde emision when you are buying wood flooring. Of course it is best for the suppliers to provide you with test certificates. 　　

It would not be a good idea for you to move in the new house at once after the wood flooring is installed. Open the windows to ventilate the new house and this will decrease the formaldehyde content in the air of your new house. PS: do not spray air fresheners, perfumes to try to cover up the smell of new decoration indoor. The chemicals in air fresheners reacting with harmful substances in the air, will cause secondary pollution, this will be more harmful to health.

Put in the house some greenery (Spider plant, sansevieria, Ivy, Aloe, Agave) to absorb formaldehyde.

With the above information, we hope you would have a beeter understanding of formaldehyde from hardwood flooring, and these information will help you build a green healthy home

How to choose hardwood flooring colors for home decoration

For home decoration, solid wood flooring colors match with the furniture and wall, this

will take home decoration effect to a higher level. If not, then indoor decorations will not

look harmonious. Decoration with solid wood flooring is based on the long term living, as a

result,the color of wood flooring needs to match the colors of the furniture. Before

decorating the new house with wood flooring and furnitures, we should pay attention to

three key principles as below:

 

First, the principle of the same color collocation

On the basis of the principle of the same color collocation, be sure of our desired decor style

to make our home simple and warm.In this casse, we could try to choose the solid wood

flooring with neutral or light color. If we want home with the elegant atmosphere, the solid

wood flooring with dark colors would be the best option.

 

Second, the principle of the similar color collocation

For small rooms or rooms with poor lighting conditions, when choosing solid wood flooring

we should take the similar colors as principal.This will expand people’s sense of space in

these small rooms and will not make people feel particularly cramped crowded. And with

good lighting conditions you can choose a lighter colored solid wood floors.

 

Third, the principle of contrasting color collocation

The furnitures light color can arbitrarily match the wood flooring with dark or light color.

We could consider the warm colored hardwood flooring in order to make rooms warm

and clean. If both furnitures and wood floorings are dark color,we need to be cautious to

avoid the negative and sad feeling. Here is some good suggestions to you : light wall,

neutral floor, dark furniture. If the color of the walls are  very shallow, flooring colors can

be neutral colors, furniture appropriately darker in color.

 

Nowadays the young people like modern or natural decoration style. When we choose the

wood flooring colors, the most popular wood floorings are oak, ash ,maple. As to the

decoration for elder people’s houses, we should note that the darker color or the color with

happy feeling is the best, such as Iroko, brazilian teak(cumaru) wood flooring.

Pay attention to five aspects on installation of hardwood flooring

Hardwood flooring feels very comfortable, looks naturally beautiful, but is expensive.

For consumers who have a solid wood flooring,it is very unconomical to bear the bad

influence its usage life due to the improper installation.

There are five aspects on wood flooring installation that should be paid attention to.

 

First, be sure to check after finished the installation of joist.

Uneven ground can suspend part of the floor and wooden joist, when you step on it you

might hear an unpleasant sound. If the wood flooring is not firmly installed , it can also

come across the same situation, thus make sure to check it after installation. You can step

on the wooden joist, or shake the feet to make sure whether it is firm.

 

Second, don’t forget flat testing

After the installation of first row of floors, the installer should test flatness, if the wood

flooring is uneven, we need to adjust immediately, otherwise it will affect the upcoming

laying work. After installation, you’d better put a vertical ruler on the floor, to see if there

are gaps.

 

Third, drying and decay of joist

Generally, the qualified wood flooring moisture content is 12%, wood joist need to be

dried in order to avoid dampness which is caused by moisture difference. Solid wood

flooring is easy to be damaged by worms, so put camphor wood shavings in the joist,

normally, put 1000 g camphor wood shavings every eight square meters.

 

Fourth, pay attention to the color contrast of wood flooring in advance

The color of each piece of wood flooring could be various, so it should be classed before

laying, pick out the similar color, and texture floor so that the overall effect will not be

much difference.

 

Five pay attention to the laying of underlayer foam

In order to avoid the water content of wall to affect wood floors, the laying of underlayer

foam should not only cover the entire wood joist, but also be sure that the underlayer foam

is 10cm away from the corners. Meanwhile, between the wall and the wood flooring

should stay out of the expansion joints, if it is too close, it may easy to distort