Home Improvement Advice

Bamboo flooring is rapidly becoming the preferred choice for home renovators. In view of environmental quality, bamboo provides consumer an opportunity to improve their homes both decoratively and practically.

There are many benefits if you use bamboo flooring.Long lasting, beautiful and available in many colors, the value-added fact that bamboo can increase the worth of your home is driving many consumers towards installing it.

How to buy bamboo flooring

The biggest obstacle, and many shoppers are looking for bamboo flooring is where buy it. In many cases, there will be no dealer close by which begs the question, so how you shop for it? Online of course. The internet has been a boon in many areas of people’s lives and shopping is one of them. There are some excellent online retailers and a number, requires some due diligence. However, all the sales outlets are not equal.

When arriving at a website, you’ll need to determine:

- how long they have been in business
- their reputation, can they be contacted directly which is extremely important ( if no phone contact move on)
- whether references are available from satisfied customers
- whether they have a showroom base offline.
- can they send you samples including grain styles and colors

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The modern and durable and environmentally friendly alternative to hardwood is bamboo flooring. Being a grass, as opposed to wood, bamboo gives you the advantage of not only a building product (being strong and at the same time flexible), but also as a sustainable resource: wood takes approximately 15-20 years to reach maturity, while the non-harmful harvesting of bamboo has a mere 3 to 5 years. Bamboo has traditionally been the material of choice in most of Asia, and is only recently that its benefits and environmental properties have begun to be used more widely in the west.

The growth in popularity in recent years for wood flooring has increased the burden on already stretched timber resources. (more…)

Vinyl is easily one of the most versatile type of floor. It is extremely durable and can look like anything from stone to wood and other natural materials. While vinyl floors are easy to care, there are some general rules to follow to keep the floor clean and vibrant vinyl throughout his life at home.

Sweep or vacuum

Dust, sand and other abrasive materials can scratch vinyl, even with the superficial layer of protection. (more…)

Buying a new floor can be a frustrating and confusing process. Here’s a list of things to keep in mind before heading out to purchase your new floor.

1. Take note of the room layout.

- Draw an outline of the room or rooms. Indicate where the entrances are placed.

- Measure the room carefully and accurately with a measuring tape. Write down the width and length of a room. Remember to include closets and other areas that need the new flooring. Smaller print patterns can make the room seem a lot bigger.

- Take into account adjoining rooms and the flooring on those rooms.

- Make a note in which direction the room is facing and if there is a sliding door. Determine how much natural light enters the room. You might want to consider a laminated floor, ceramic tile or porcelain tile.

- Bring along swatches of fabrics from your furniture, curtains and wallpaper. These will help you decide on the color and style of your flooring.

2. Answer these questions to help you out in selecting the right floor for your room:

- How much foot traffic does the room get in any given day? The number of people passing or using the room would indicate the level of wear and tear the room would take. This would help you in deciding the type of flooring to get. A room with a high volume of traffic needs more durable flooring.

- What is the main function of the room? A room used mainly for leisurely activities will have less wear and tear. Delicate flooring materials can be chosen in this case.

- How many pets do you have? Pets tend to abuse the surroundings they are in, floorings maybe damage from scratching.

- How many kids do you have in the house? All the roughhousing and playing that the kids do tend to abuse the flooring. The more kids you have in the house, the more abuse your flooring will get.

- What color do you want? Remember that lighter colors make rooms seem bigger.

- How long do you want the flooring to last? We would of course like the flooring to last forever but wear and tear damages the flooring.

Eventually, it will need to be replaced or you may want to simply change the look of the room after a certain period of time.

3. How much is the flooring going to cost?

- Are the subfloor preparation part of the quoted price?

- Is the quoted price inclusive of the installation or is that a separate fee? This is a budgeting concern, you would want to know the actual amount you’re going to spend.

- Is the removal of pre-existing flooring included in the quoted price.

- Is the quoted price inclusive of the moving of all appliances and furniture in the room.

- Are all the necessary materials included in the quoted price? You wouldn’t want to find out during the installation that some materials are not included and that you still need to purchase more materials. That could be extremely annoying and frustrating.

4. Questions to ask the installers and the store:

- Are the installers independent, or are they store employees?

- Whose insurance will pay for installation errors?

- Are all of the materials recommended by the manufacturer so warranty will not be voided?

- Discuss with the salesperson the warranty information of the manufacturer. Keep a copy of the warranty.

- Discuss the maintenance procedure and keep a copy of the manual or brochure.

- Have everything documented including the diagram of the installation. Also, the amount of flooring needed in the room

- Ask who will be responsible for the removal of fixed features in the room, e.g. toilet.

- Always check the website of the store, if any, to give you an idea of the store. Take note of the affiliations to groups or other organizations.

It would be best to email the store in advance to have some questions answered before going there. It saves a lot of time.

- Have all the product information documented. The document should include the name of the manufacturer, product name, color, style and the installation procedure.

Laminate flooring mimics the look of traditional woods while offering easy installation and lasting durability. At first glance, it can be difficult to spot the difference between hardwoods and laminate flooring. What appears to be a natural wood grain pattern is really a thin layer of decor paper (a photographic image) under a tough-as-nails protective film that is glued and pressed to a high-density backing board. Laminate Flooring comes in an array of wood effects as well as stone and ceramic effects.

Laminate floorings main advantages are that it is easy to install, is very hardwearing and relatively inexpensive compared to real hardwood flooring.

Laminate flooring is a floating floor, which means it does not fasten directly to the sub-floor. Instead the planks are clicked together. This enables the floor to be fitted fast and with no real mess.

Most laminate floors today fit together with a click system with the most common being the UNICLIC system as used by Quick-Step. This is extremely easy and fast to fit. The ingenious UNICLIC-system has a special shape of tongue and groove. You simply place the tongue of one plank into the grove of another at an angle and press down. Their sophisticated and very accurate milled shape makes it possible to create a very tight connection during the installation. The floor can be walked on straight away.

If you are laying laminate flooring over a concrete sub-floor then you will fist need to lay down a damp proof membrane (DPM). This is basically a sheet of plastic usually around 5mm which helps protect the Laminate from moisture. On top of this goes the foam underlay this acts as sound absorption and also helps even out minor irregularities in the sub-floor.

Most manufactories now offer a combined DPM and underlay along with several underlay’s that have better sound absorbing qualities
Most of the leading laminate floor manufactories now also have ranges of flooring that also include built in underlay. This underlay is pre-fitted to the bottom of the flooring and is usually of sound absorbing quality. You do not need to install this type of floor a secondary but if you are laying over a concrete sub-floor you still have to lay down a D.P.M. (Damp Proof Membrane) first.

Laminate flooring has been around in Europe for around 15 years and has seen massive growth in the past few years.  In 2004 over 750 million square meters of laminate flooring was sold worldwide this was an increase of 13% on the previous year. The biggest growth market is in the US with an impressive growth rate of 25%.

What is laminate Flooring Made From?

Laminate flooring is usually made up of four layers:

1. Overlay (Wear Layer)
The top wear layer is provided by the melamine resin, a highly wear resistant material that makes laminate flooring so hard wearing. This top layer is very similar to the top layer on counter or kitchen work tops but is usually around 40% stronger. This makes the laminate flooring highly resistant to scratches, burns, dent’s, stains, etc.

2. DPL (Decorative Paper) or HPL (Decorative Paper + Add High Strength Paper)
It is the decorative paper which gives the laminate flooring its individual appearance, ranging from highly authentic wood reproduction, ceramic or stone designs. An important thing to look out for when purchasing laminate flooring is to understand the difference between DPL and HPL. We will talk about this latter

3. Core layer
This is made up of either high density fibreboard (H.D.F.). or medium density fibreboard (M.D.F.) This is saturated in resins to make it extremely hard.  Most manufactures also add a moisture resistant resin to the core. This is important as it helps keep the flooring protected against moisture penetrating the boards.

4. Stabilizing layer
The bottom layer is the stabilizing layer; this is what gives the laminate floor its stability. It is made up of moisture resistant resins

How is Laminate Flooring Produced.

This is where DPL & HPL are different.

In the direct-pressure laminate process the decorative covering layer and stabilizing layer are pressed together onto the core layer.

While the high-pressure laminate process, on the other hand, the decorative paper and overlay are pressed onto special high-strength paper first. Only in a second stage is this so-called high-pressure laminate glued to the core layer. This makes the flooring a lot more tougher  and more resistant to dents etc.

How is Laminate Flooring Graded

Apart from the different warrantees that manufactures offer and the difference between DPL & HPL the other thing to look out for when purchasing laminate flooring is industry standard load and traffic categories. These are broken into two different categories and are as follows.

Residential

Class 21 – Moderate Loads. Ideal for bedrooms etc.

Class 22 – Normal Loads, Ideal for living rooms etc.

Class 23 – Heavy Loads. Ideal for anywhere in the house (except bathrooms)

Commercial

Class 31 – Moderate Loads. Hotel Rooms, meeting rooms, etc.

Class 32 – Normal Loads. Offices, waiting rooms, etc.

Class 33 – Heavy Loads. Large offices, shops, public buildings.