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Five types of timber floors for unit and apartment (New Edition)

The first version of the article “The five choices of timber floor for units & Apartment” was published in 2015, with the aim of celebrating the establishment of Ozwood floor headquarters in auburn. The article has a great influence on the floor purchaser. Today, with the flooring industries progress and changed so rapidly, I felt it is necessary to rewrite the article to provide the most accurate and updated information for readers.

We have encountered lots of issues with bamboo floor in the past five years. Bamboo floor’s sensitivity to humidity and temperature has resulted in floor swelling, deformation and causing gaps. This is the reason that a lot of floor suppliers are reluctant to sell bamboo floor in their showroom nowadays. We believe bamboo floor is no longer an optimal choice for floor consumers.

Vinyl, on the other hand, is 100% waterproof, it had emerged in the market recently and soon become the top selection for the floor in shops, bathrooms, kitchen and renting house. It is also known as SPC and Hybrid.

 

HOW TO CHOOSE YOUR FLOORING ?

Laminated Floors, SPC, Engineered Floating Floors, Solid Timber Floors, and New Solid Timber Floors remain to be the great choices for floors in units and apartments, the characteristics of each are listed below:

Economic Choice: Laminated Floors

The durability and cost-effectiveness of Laminated Floors is the reason for its popularity for Unit & Apartment flooring. The main production capacity of the world’s flooring industry is concentrated on Laminated Floors, and as the technology matures, the quality of laminate floor becomes better.

Poor water resistance has always been a problem with laminated floorboards, and the flooring industry has been working hard to solve the issue. Currently, there are many laminated floorboards with improved waterproof performance in the market. The latest news from Ozwood flooring company stated that in late 2020, The OZWOOD flooring company will launch a 100% waterproof laminated floorboard in the Sydney market, which can be applied outdoors.

Another important indicator to measure the quality of laminated floor is the amount of formaldehyde released. The indoor formaldehyde control standard in Australia is the E1 standard (formaldehyde release < 1.5mg / L). For health concerns, the formaldehyde release of laminated floorboard has to achieve an E0 standard (formaldehyde release <0.5mg / L). For the ‘Barock Floor’ – one of Sydney’s famous timber floor brand, the Australian professional inspection agency CETEC has tested its formaldehyde release to be 0.33mg / L.

Popular Choice: Stone Plastic Composite(SPC) Stone plastic composite (SPC)

they have three major advantages:  

  1. 100% Water Proof

  2. no formaldehyde release

  3. cost-effective

these have made SPC popular worldwide.Having said that, the naturalness of the material used in home decoration is always a top concern. Materials such as wood, cloth should be more frequently used than industrial products such as stone, iron and plastic. Therefore, whether SPC is a suitable material for home is still questionable. This  is why I classify this category as a ‘popular choice’ rather than ‘healthy suitable choice’

SPC is a stone plastic floor, meaning that plastic is its main component. Plastic is not afraid of water, but it is not resistant to high temperatures, which makes it unsuitable for use in sunrooms, especially in the room with French windows without curtains.

Quality Choice: Engineered Floating Floors

Engineered timber floor is the mainstream product in the flooring industry and has always been a perfect choice for home. It retains the naturalness of solid wood flooring and at the same time, overcomes instability- floor expansion and shrinkage as the result of weather change. However, Engineered timber is slightly more expensive and is less durable compared to the laminated floor.

Australian eucalyptus is famous in the world. The most representative wood species are Spotted Gum and Black Butt flooring. This is due to its smooth texture and hardness. In particular, the Australian brand Barock floor, SG1332-136, BBT1442-136, is an ideal choice for Unit and Apartment.

Luxury Choice: Solid Timber Floors

In consumption behavior, people tend to see price as an indicator of quality. The more expensive it gets the better quality it is. Solid wood flooring is the most expensive flooring amongst the five categories, but that does not mean that buyers should choose solid wood flooring over others.

Solid timber is basically a piece of wood; it is the only type of timber floor with no glue composition, making it the most environmentally friendly floor. Many people choose this as they see healthy being the key for home consumption.

As we all know, property management does not allow drilling holes in the cement floor for Unit & Apartment, they also have a high standard for soundproofing underlay. These increase the difficulty of laying solid wood flooring in units & apartments.

In 2019, OZWOOD Flooring Co. Ltd. completed three new blocks of apartments located in Burwood. We laid solid timber for a total of more than 2,000 rooms that were successfully delivered. Through this project, OZWOOD Flooring Co. Ltd. has accumulated experience in laying solid wood in Apartments. If you consider laying solid wood flooring in your home, Contact OZWOOD Flooring for advice.

Fashionable Choice: New Solid Timber Floors

New solid wood is the latest technology in the world’s flooring industry. It is manufactured by combining a variety of technologies such as wooden door frame technology, solid wood finger joint technology, and solid wood composite pressing technology.

The biggest difference between new solid wood flooring and engineered timber flooring is the use of base material. The base material for engineered flooring has low density, which is different from the surface material. Other the other hand, the new solid wood floor uses a substrate that has the same density as the surface material; this combination ensures the stability of the floor.

The three-layer engineered timber floor has two layers of glue, while the new solid wood floor has only one layer of glue, which makes it more environmentally friendly.