The quality and installation of wood floorings are important, so are the accessories

Posted on July 22, 2014 by chinafloor

During installation of wood flooring, the inner quality and installation method are

significant. However, problems about paint, glue, underlayer, skirting are ignored. If these

seemingly simple accessories are unsafe and unenvironmental-friendly, then they would

influence the whole surroundings of the house. If the skirtings and buckles are unfit, the

effects are not satisfactory even we have the best wood flooring. Therefore, when should

not ignore the accessories and ingredients.

Skirting creates different effects

When purchasing laminate floorings, factories would buy skirtings accordingly. Generally

speaking, laminate flooring manufacturers would not produce skirtings, but order the

matching ones directly. Therefore, many skirtings look similar, the quality and color are

similar, too. Nevertheless, skirtings not only protect the wall corner, their beautifulness

and visual effects are also important. Deep color wood floorings matching lighter color

skirting would give people a sense of relaxation, while lighter color wood floorings matching

darker color skirtings would give people a sense of security, especially some colorful

floorings, if we choose different skirtings, it would create different decoration effect. The

width of skirtings also affect the effect.

Is flooring glue the helper of nemesis of formaldehype?

When installing laminate floorings, the type of glue would directly influence the quality and

environmment . when we buy laminate wood floorings now, distributors provide free

service of transportation and installation. The glue and mat are also free of charge. As for

the accessories, flooring manufacturers call them dedicated glue and mat. It seems that

consumers do not waste money, but the fee has been count into the money. In fact, the

quality of glue directly influence the effect, but some formaldehype would release around

the air, which causes pollution to the indoor environment. When buying wood floorings,

apart from comparing the quality, style and price, we should take full consideration, and

buy the reliable wood floorings.

Wood flooring paint makes hardwood floorings see the wood but not paint

As solid wood floorings on the market are almost UV lacquer. In order to reduce the cost,

manufacturers use poor quality or unenvironmental glue to cheat consumers.

At the moment, laminate wood floorings use MDF, HDF or particle board as base material.

This wooden materials often use formaldehype adhesive. Therefore, during normal use,

adhesive would remain on the board. Consumers with little knowledge about the tree

species and color would face the danger of cheating. They just buy seemingly beautiful

wood flooring. When installing hardwood flooring, if we use su-board, after polishing

and painting, we can not avoid the gap, but also have natural beauty. Seal the gap up when

painting can make them more durable, especially waterproof and dust-proof effect.

 

Posted in Hardwood timber material | Tagged , , , , , , , |

Wood flooring and udnerfloor heating system

Posted on July 21, 2014 by chinafloor

Radiant flooring is also known as low-temperature radiant heating flooring, it is provided with a radiant floor heating system laid on wooden floors.People also name it as the under heated wood flooring, or simply the heating floor. This type of heating method , hot water pipe, electric cable can also be used as a heat source: transferring heat across the wood floor to all corners of the room. Compared with ordinary heating system, the advantage of the radiant heating floor is :   heating and cooling area is bigger ; uniform, and its circulation is from top to bottom, in line with the hot air flow; it gives the feeling of being warm feet and cool head Groove, in line with the physiological phenomenon; energy-efficient, space-saving. New houses have been widely used in underfloor radiant heating..

The wood flooring installed on the underfloor heating, after the heating system is turned on, keep the heat under the flooring(like the heat in the pot). This heating process will keep the wood flooring suffering from more than 30℃ termperate, which is seriouly higher than than the room temperature. And the back of the wood flooring is heated seriouly,led to the evapertation of the moisture in the wood. Thus moisture content will not be kept same in each part of the flooring. Then the cracking and cupping of wood flooring might be caused due to this reason.

There are two main types of popular wood flooring suitable for the underfloor heating:

1 engineered wood flooring

2 laminate flooing

These two types of heated wood flooring have different characteristics, as a result, the  requirements on use and maintenance are also different.

Generally speaking, engineered wood flooring, laminate flooring, bamboo wood flooring are all suitable for the underfloor heating system.Considering the thermal resistance, the thickness of wood flooring shall be thin, and the best thickness is 6~10MM,which has a good heat transfer properties.

The laminate flooring on the market today is 8-12mm in thickness, the engineered flooring thickness is 8~15mm. both types can be used, usually the keel installing method with thicker flooring is better. The 3-layer engineered flooring is with strips on the back, and between each of striped there are gaps ,this special structure makes the 3-layer engineered flooring as the best option for the underflooring heating system, because this struction is in line with the principle of thermal conduction.

No matter engineered flooring or laminate flooring, its quality must meet the following requirements:

(1) the moisture content in the floor ≤ the mositure content in the area -(1%~2%),

(2) the floor element size: the width should be narrow, the thickness should be thin, length should be short, floor structure should be composite, vertical pressured, reorganized, panel-grooved at the back.

The wood flooring with back panel-groove could improve heat dissipation, but destroy the symmetry of the structure. it is important to make surethe straightness of the backpanel Board. Baed on this,the best heated flooring is the engineeredflooring with strips and back-grooved structure ,which could conduct the floor heat and  release stress within the floor, reduce the possibility of deformation.

The engineered wood flooring for radiant heating system

The hardwood flooring is always the top options when people choose the flooring for their homes. the scalability of the wood itself is relatively not good, which makes solid wood flooring in very delicate, requiring careful maintainance.

The hardwood flooring Usage in indoor radiant underfloor heating systems is difficult. There are two main difficulties:

1 tough requirement on the material for installation meratier.

In summer, the average moisture content of solid wood flooring in the North around 12~13%. The final moisture content of the wood floors upon the radiant heated system is between 4~5%. From summer to winter, the floor moisture content decreased an average of 8% per cent. This is not easy for all wood flooring.

2 shrinkage of the wood itself.

Normal longitudinal shrinkage of wood is 0.1%~0.3%, radial shringkage is  3%~6%, volume shrinkage 9%~14%.

Since the environment of the underfloor heated system could not be changed, the manufacturers have to try best to control timber Scalability for the radiant heated wood flooring. Currently there are three main technologies: the sealing and click-locking technology, the high temperature carbonization technology and the vacuum impregnation technology.

The decoration feel of wood flooring is very natural, this feeling meets the desires of modern people for the nature. Environmentally, the engineered wood flooring is better than laminate flooring. Because the engineered wood flooring feels comfortable when people walk on it.

The Surface of engineered flooring is made of natural wood verneer;  and the engineered  does not deform, crack, is easy for instalation; in the end, the engineered flooring has good wear  resistance and it is flame-retardant.

The engineered wood floorings are divided into three-layer engineered flooring, multilayer engineered flooring, new HDF engineered flooring. As its structure is made with different species of crossed timber sheet, so the disadvantages of solid wood flooring is gone. With little shrinkage and expansion, with excellent stability, the engineered flooring keeps the natural looking of wood grain as the hardwood flooring and comfortable feeling.

Laminate flooring for underfloor heated system

laminate flooring is reprocessed with the crushed timber fiber by machines, which already break the original timber structure. This special structure can fit the underfloor radiant system. And the laminate floor surface is generally covered by the Super wear layer of metal oxides, and this material is conductive to heat. In the past, people would choose laminate flooring for their underfloor heated system, however, years later,more and more people moved toward the hardwood flooring, but it is proven, the solid wood flooring is not suitable for the radiant heating system due to the cracking of the hardwood flooring , which is led by the heating process of the underfloor heated system.

In recent years, the invention and the fast development of multi-layer engineered flooring, finally meet the high demand of market and become the most popular wood flooring around the world now.

Posted in Hardwood timber material | Tagged , , , , , , , , |

kiln drying approach of solid wood flooring

Posted on July 20, 2014 by chinafloor

Frequently used kiln drying approaches of solid wood flooring  and its

applicable conditions

Frequently used kiln drying approaches are: normal steam drying, furnace gas drying, hot

air drying, dehumilification drying, vacuum drying, and the popular hot water and high

temperature heating in recent years. We should choose suitable drying according to the

characteristics, requirements and the enterprise scale.

1　Normal steamed heating：

This approach use the saturated water vapor of pressure gauge P<=0.4Mpa. It dries the

wood by using heating machine. Its advantages are: the process parameters are easy to

control; the quality is good; temperature and humidity have a wide room to adjust; can dry

all kinds of wood and heat together. Therefore, this approach applies widely. However, we

have to use steamed boiler. The investment costs are high. As it mainly use steam,

condensate water is hard to recycle. Thus, we can not make full use them, wasting  and

increasing production cost. Therefore, this idea is only applicable to factories with a large

scale of production or enterprises with existing steam. It is especially applicable to

coniferous trees, broad-leaves trees and sheets which are easy to dry. As for small and

medium size enterprises, it is not suitable to them because of high cost steamed boiler.

2  Normal furnas gas drying

This is the approach which use waste wood to produce heat and dry the wood directly and

indirectly. Direct heating will lead to blackening the wood and causing fire. Therefore, it

would be no longer use. There are many ways of furnace gas heating indirectly.

①.simple fire pit type: stoves and furnace gas pipeline are arranged under the fire room

and the wood are laid in the fire room. It dries naturally by wet hot airflow. This is

primitive approach which would often baked the wood bad or cause fire. Thus, it is not

recommended.

②. Small stove oven type: this is a small drying machine that is the metal shell of a

container and it is loaded with waste wood combustion furnace,pipeline, and fans. It

could be filled with 2 to 5 CBM. It also has disadvantages. It can easily baked the wood

bad or cause fire, and also, due to unreasonable airflow, it can not dry evenly. Thus, it

is not recommended.

③. Modern indirect furnace heating drying kiln.

There is reasonable furnace gas heating gas tube in the kiln. Other configurations are the

same as the normals. If it is the kiln that is designed by experts, its security and reliability

can be ensured. The specilized furnace stove can put both outside and inside the kiln. The

former is safer, but the cost and heat loss are high.

Furnace gas heating drying does not need steamed boiler, use waste wood for energy

sources, and thus investment and cost are low. However, temperature and humidity are

difficult to control. We can not ensure the quality. If the drying kiln is not designed well, it

is easy to baked the wood bad and cause fire. We should be cautious to this method for the

medium or high grade hardwood flooring.

3  hot air heating

Hot heating stove is put outside the kiln. It is connected with air intake, air outtake

pipeling and drying kiln. Air drying medium heats by bringing the hot air into air intake

pipeline, then put into the kiln by aie blower. This is a normal air drying. But the heat

energy utilization rate is low; power consumption is big; temperature and humidity are

distributed unevenly. The process parameter is difficult to control; drying speed is slow

and uneven. Air intake pipeline and air blower are easy to decay. The volume is small and

cost of unit output are high. It is not recommended.

4  dehumilification drying

dehumidificating the air drying mediumin the kiln and add approriate heating to dry the

wood. Dehumidifier can only work and produce effects in a certain temperature. Normal

dehumidifier can work not exceed to 55C, medium drying machine can not exceed 65C. It

can prevent the electricity from polluting and easy to operate. The quality are good. But

the cost are high and the time is long. The production rate is low. Dehumidifier is easy to

malfunction and maintainance is high. Life span is short. It does not have adjustment and

can not eliminate the drying stress. As its impulse mainly reduce the humidity but not

 obvious. Low moisture content or wet tree species are not obvious. Nevertheless, dry tree

species or high moisture content are tired of dryness and slow speed. Sometimes, it will

lead to wood mold. It is recommended that enterprises do not adopt it, unless the

production are low or we have special environmental standards.

5  vacuum drying

Dry wood are put into tight container, pumping the air in the container after heating,

making the wood dry under certain negative pressure conditions. This method dries very

quickly, but we can not ensure the quality. The load is small; equipment are complex;

investment are high. As it use electricity, the cost are high.

Posted in Hardwood timber material | Tagged , , , , , , |

Moisture content, kiln drying purposes of solid wood flooring

Posted on July 20, 2014 by chinafloor

Solid wood flooring normally uses broad leaf hardwood. Middle and high grade solid

wood flooring mainly use high-quality imported timbers.

Reasonable production procedures are:

1  machine the log into slab,

2 wax the plate end to avoid crack at first,

3 sell to factories and do artificial kiln drying

4 make them into finished flooring.

Artificial kiln drying is the important factor that can ensure the quality of solid wood

flooring. It aims to keep the flooring in form and can not shrink, expand, deform in later

use. Meanwhile, we can also enhance the processability, usability and durability. The key

to the drying quality is that the final moisture content must a little lower than that of the

environmental conditions. 10% to 12% in southern China, 8% to 10% in northern China, 6%

to 8% in northwestern China. We must also ensure that they are completely dry and would

not warp, crack and remove the internal stress.

The drying quality and cost are constrained to each other in usual conditions, but if we

have sound drying equiptments, drying techniques, and operation, we can ensure the

quality and reduce investment and cost at the same time.

As there are many drying approaches and equiptments which have different quality in the

market, we write this paper as reference for hardwood flooring factories to purchase

drying equiptments.

Posted in Hardwood timber material | Tagged , , , , , |

Process and purpose for drying the hardwood flooring

Posted on July 19, 2014 by chinafloor

Drying the hardwood flooring is also called thermal treatment, whose processing times are

 different because of the different materials. But they can not be shortened by human

 beings. There is a wrong idea in selling that wood flooring going through thermal

treatment will never deform. In fact, it is impossible. No matter how we dry the floors, it is

 unavoidable that the change of moisture content under fiber saturation point would have

 shrinkage. Both consumers and distributors should have an understanding of drying

 process.

 

Purposes in dealing with dry balance of solid wood floorings:

  1. reaching the equilibrium moisture content applicable to the enviroment.
  2. Remove the internal stress during the process of growing and processing
  3. Adjust and recover deformation

Process in dealing with dry balance:

Air drying: about 30 to 40 days, moisture content about 30%

kiln drying: about 10 to 30 days, moisture content under 10%. This process can distill the pulp in the wood and balance the cell wall organization so that dry shrinkage can be stable.

conditioning process: about 10 to 20 days. This process can finally reach the dry balance.

 

Posted in Hardwood timber material | Tagged , , , , |

Iroko – Best selection of solid wood flooring

Posted on July 18, 2014 by chinafloor

Iroko wood flooring has been the best selection, but also the best choiceforunder floor

heating, Iroko Hardwood flooring is industry recognized stable and less deformed best to

under floor heating. Species in the world, followed the principal of “survival of the fittest”,

the wide using of a certain kind of wood leads its scarcity, Iroko depends on its remarkable

advantage, exudes its energy, it sends wonderful home life to countless families. Iroko

wood flooring with shiny, no special odor, its texture staggered, fine and uniform

distribution of thestructure, is regarded as the finest wood flooring material. Heartwood is

golden brown orreddish-brown, wood stability, abrasion resistance and resistance to

termites, while theweight of the wood is also very impressive, “heavy” is synonymous with

Iroko, while air-dry density of 1.07g/cm ³ great shrinkage, strength high (compressive

strength parallel tograin 76.1Mpa, flexural strength 128.9Mpa). Irokois mainly produced in

Gabon and Congo,Gabon, which produces particularly valuable. Tropical rainforest climate

vagaries Ashantiplateau, mostly in the equatorial average temperature above 40 ℃,

precipitationdifferences are significant. Complex climate makes Iroko not only has a wide

range of adaptability and stability, but it accumulated unique charm given by environment.

Iroko’sunique charm is reflected not only in the natural features, and deep color and high

density,from the inside out beauty of classical art exudes an atmosphere of oriental

mystery.

However, as a high-grade furniture,Iroko, with a good anti-wear, compression, anti-

temperature properties of a selection was promoted to under floor heating, making a large

amount of factory crazy. Although the density of Irokois relatively high, even minor hit a

few basic does not appear any pits, strong anti-strike capability. This is a big advantage

ofIroko, but also the biggest disadvantage, a direct result of excessive density flooring

makes foot feeling bad, too much strength and hardness is not conducive to the daily lives

of elder and children.

Posted in Hardwood timber material | Tagged , , , , |

Advantages and disadvantages of the Maple wood flooring

Posted on July 17, 2014 by chinafloor

Maple wood flooring which is often used for cement floors and walls, is belong to the

temperate zone timber, there are two kinds, soft Maple and hard Maple. They are the

one of common wood floorings we can see in the market.

 

Advantages of the Maple wood flooring

1)      Changeable beautiful texture, delicate, it seems quiet and elegant after installed.

2)      Good toughness, moderate hardness, to be wood flooring is very practical.

3)      Colors are relatively strong, suitable for the young to pursue minimalist modern

style, can make the room look clean and not crowded.

 

Disadvantages of the Maple wood flooring:

1)      The color of maple flooring is shallow, very easy to be dirty, so need to spend more

time to clean the floors.

2)      with moderate hardness, so the maple hardwood flooring is not wear-resisting, so if the family

require relatively high hardness for flooring, should carefully choose.

3)      The color of Maple flooring is light, and the light-colored wood floors are very easy to

be dirty, so when buying the Maple flooring, people need to consider the home decor, floor

cleaning frequency and other factors.

Posted in Hardwood timber material | Tagged , , , , , , , |

How to get rid of foot sounds on wood flooring?

Posted on July 16, 2014 by chinafloor

In some family, after home decoration, the wood floorings would produce sounds more or

less when walking on them. Therefore, what is the reasons that result in the sounds?

 

In fact,  under heating system and wood floorings are closely related with each other. We

should observe how the sounds are produced. If we tread on one place, it makes a sound,

tread again, and sound again continuously, then we could sure that theunder heating

system and the mortise are not fixed enough, or the mortise materials are too short, so

that the under heating system could rope them. There are few approaches that can deal

with the problems. Even though we can relieve them, we could not get rid of the roots.

There is only one method. We should refix the under heating system and reinstall the wood floorings,

which is troubling. Everyone is unwilling to do that.

Only pay attention to these technics and approaches before installation can we avoid the

sounds.

1  Before installing the under heating system, we usually use 12mm hammer to drill the

holes.

2  Then the mortise should be a square that is 18 to 20mm or more. We can not easily drill

the holes. Otherwise, the mortise shrink in a few days.

3  Wooden tongue rammed earth material is harder than under heating system material,

then the hard wood contractile force is small. The under heating system is not easy to pull

up, so that we could maintain the stability.

4  In some room, the ground level height has several centimeters difference. In this time,

carpenters would mat some knife-shaped cork and plywood to make sure the  under

heating  systems are flat. But we should not forget that if we mat the under heating system

more than 2.5 centimeters, we should fix the short under heating systems each other to

prevent wobbling and ensure the flatness.

5  When drilling hardwood floorings, the aperture should be less than the flooring nails.

Only do that can the wood floorings fix better.

6  The surroundings of the walls should preserve 1 centimeter or more shrinkage gap to

avoid expansion due to climate change and moisture content.

 

Small details would finally influence the quality of   hardwood floorings. Please take care of

installation details!

Posted in Hardwood timber material | Tagged , , , , |

Explanation on the structures and surface technics of laminate floorings

Posted on July 14, 2014 by chinafloor

When people are choosing laminate flooring, it is undoubtably that we would consider the

base  material. Then, the surface technics are also very important which influence the

wearness of laminate wood floorings directly. Today, we will tell you the structure and

surface technics of laminate wood floorings to help consumers have a better understanding

of them.

At first, we will give you a brief introduction of the structure of laminate wood floorings.

From the bottom up, they are balance layer, base material layer, decoration layer, wear-

resisting layer. The so-called surface technics is wear-resisting technics.

For texture, we have aluminium oxide, melamine, and piano lacquer.

Standardized laminate wood floorings should have aluminium oxide wear-resisting paper.

They are 46g, 38g, 33g or lower. Our country has stipulated that the wear –resistance of

the surface of laminate wood floorings should be more than 6000 stroll. Only the 46g

wear- resistance paper can ensure that requirement.

Melamine coatings are used in wallboard, desk etc which do not require high wear

resistance. In the flooring industry, we call it ‘false floors’. Its wear-resistance stroll is only 

300-500. If we use it as wood floors at a great intensity, two or three months can tear the decoration 

paper. However, standardized laminate floorings can normally use 10 to 20 years and will not have 

these problems. This kind of floor does not have wear-resistance on the surface. It looks clear, good, and 

feels soft. That is why outsiders are easy to be cheated.

Piano lacquer coating is in fact the coating on the hardwood floorings.

From the characteristics on the surface, we can also divided into embossed surface and

crystal surface.

1  Crystal surface are lustrous, smooth, wear-resisting and easy to take care of.

2  Embossed surface has no distinction with crystal surface from the positive surface. But

from the negative surface, we can feel the wood grain shape pattern. Embossed surface are

personalized and beautiful, but if we use the same weight wear-resistance paper, the

wearness of crystal surface is higher.

Posted in Hardwood timber material | Tagged , , , , |

lacquered wood floorings better or natural oiled wood floorings ?

Posted on July 12, 2014 by chinafloor

In China, wood flooring companies often paint the surface when processing. However,

European companies like to use natural oil painting. Why?



First, it is the matter of aesthetics. In early times, people think that wood floorings with

good luster, smoothness, hardness and strong painting surface are favorable. Later, they

discovered antique floorings, which makes advancement in aesthetics. Nevertheless,

foreigners think that feelings are very important. You can take off you shoes and have a

try. You would find that the feeling of bare foot on flat floors and natural oil floors are

different. Paint film floors are sticky, while natural oil floors are more comfortable and

natural, especially in summer. Nowadays, some of the companies in our country began to

learn European enterprises. They use natural oil to paint the surface. This kind of wood

floorings feel beautiful and soft.

Second, it is the matter of wood flooring management. In the eyes of most people, the

lacquered surface is better to manage than the natural oil surface. Really? In fact,

foreigners have gone through this problems. No matter how well we paint the wood

floorings, after few years frition, the wood floorings would have more and more scratches.

With time go by, you would feel worse and worse so that you would like to replace them.

But it consumes much energy to replace the  hardwood floorings. Then can you imagine how the

foreigners would do? They would clean the floors well, find several pieces of sandpapers,

and sand them. Then they brush some natural oil. One or two days later, you would find it

more tasteful. Although ten years have past, there would be no place that is damaged. You

only to find it more antique. However, paint surface can not do this.

Third, it is the matter of environmental concept. To sum up, UV painting is environmental.

It can reach country’s standard. But it does not mean there is no toxic content inside. It

just contains a little. We have to see what paint you would use. On the other hand, natural

oil is distilled from plants. Pure natural oil does no harm to people. Surely, in order to

reduce cost, some people add some chemical products into it. As long as you smell it, you

would feel tense.

The installation of natural oiled hardwood floorings is simple. Thus, the production cost is lower than

paint. But we have to pay attention to the quality of natural oil. So far, people have a simple

understanding on natural oiled hardwood flooring
s. Merchants have to guide them. Maybe some special

group are suitable to this concept. We believe that in the future, more and more people

would accept it. It is a trend.

Posted in Hardwood timber material | Tagged , , , |