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INSTALLATIONS

Vanguard Timber Flooring are able to provide you with first class quality Timber and Cork Flooring installations in any system required by the many products available in the industry.

Traditional Floorboards

Traditional looking Solid Timber Floorboards look great and will never look out of date. Apart from being installed to run parallel with walls floorboards can also be installed on a forty-five degree angle with Borders to look even more amazing.

Although floorboards can be installed directly over a cement surface it is strongly recommend to have the flooring installed over a Plywood Sub Flooring or a Batten Systems, to ensure the best results. Floorboards can come in a variety of thicknesses from 13mm to 25mm thick and 50mm-300mm wide. However 19mm thick x 85mm wide is the most standard size used these days.

Staircases

Uncover your concrete staircase and make it a stunning feature in your home by installing beautifully polished timber to the treads and risers. Other materials can also be used to clad cement, chipboard or plywood staircase so it matches the adjoining floors such as: Cork, Laminate Panels, Hybrid Pre finished Floorboards, Parquetry and Traditional Floorboards.

Hybrid Pre-Finished Timber Flooring

Engineered and Hybrid Timber Flooring has improved a lot since they first came onto the market in the late 1980’s and some are worth serious consideration and other are not so good. One of the great things about Engineered Pre-Finished Hybrid Timber Flooring is that there are no secrets to what the final result will look like, they are affordable to most budgets and there are no delays with acclimatisation, subfloor installations, height issues and sanding and polishing required. However, like all products there are quality differences between each of the products available that should be considered such as the timber used for the veneered base or core, ease of installation or repairs, quality of surface finish and market feedback concerning problems and warrantees issues.

Hybrid Pre-Finished Flooring is available in tongue and grooved or click in panels with one, two or three rows of flooring glued onto them in various widths. Although you will pay a little more a single plank style is your best choice for a quality look.

Some of these Hybrid Timber Flooring products can be safely installed directly to a cement surface or timber sub flooring without the use of nails by using a special direct stick expanding glue adhesive to take up any tiny dips in the concrete so the floor does not move and make noise when walked on. Another method that is quicker and less expensive than using a Traditional Solid Timber Flooring System is to use a Floating Timber Flooring Product, installed over a 2mm foam underlay. The floating method relies on the weight of the timber product to keep everything in place. Keep in mind this system makes it harder to replace individual panels properly if down the track repair work is required, and can sound noisy and a bit cheap to some people.

Laminate Flooring

Laminate flooring is basically a printed artist’s impression of what a timber floor may look like. This style of flooring product will give you the feel of having the Rolls Royce of flooring at a fraction of the price, but beware; you get what you pay for!

A Laminated Flooring Product with a raised grain effect will look more realistic, and having only one or two rows of timber printed on each panel is also best.

Like with any engineered product there are differences that should be considered such as the cardboard like Medium Density Fiberboard locking systems on the ends and edges for durability, ease of installation, quality of surface finish and the availability of the product pattern in years to come in case repairs are required.

The advantage of Laminated Timber Flooring products is that there are no secrets to what the final result will look like, they are very affordable to almost any budget and there are no delays with acclimatisation, subfloor installations, height issues and sanding and finishing.

The negative things to consider are that the sub flooring has to be very flat or the locking parts will break easily and some repairs are not easy or possible to do as the floors are floating and can not be sanded and polished like real timber can be.

Bamboo Flooring

Bamboo flooring is made from strips of bamboo stalks normally grown in China. The stalks are striped, glued and squished together into a rock hard resin plank. It’s worth mentioning that Bamboo is not Timber as it is actually a species of Grass, however some of the products do suite some oriental interior designs better than timber. The lighter golden coloured Bamboo Planks with more stalk joins being more popular with most architects and designers, however darker coffee coloured bamboo varieties are also available.

Bamboo Flooring Products can be sanded and polished using a coating better than applied in the Chinese Factories. It is important to remember that Bamboo Flooring Products react to moisture a lot more than timber does so it is not suitable for many locations.

Boarders

Boarder designs in a timber floor look awesome and deserve serious consideration when deciding on your timber floor design. Boarder patterns can add a subtle effect if the same species of timber is used, and will blend in with the rest of the timber flooring nicely.

Another subtle effect is to use a narrow 20mm wide inlay strip or pin stripe cut into the floor after the main parts of the installation has taken place. The options for boarder designs in timber and cork flooring are almost endless with some prefabricated products available to cut down on labor time.

With parquetry floors the options to consider really depend on the floor pattern in the Middle of the Floor Body. However, most of the time a simple two or three brick bond border or a short soldier border looks best in the same or similar coloured species.

With Cork Flooring a different shade or style of Cork Tile cut to thirty-percent width looks smart. The other option that looks great for cork is to use a coloured timber species 20mm wide as an inlayed boarder strip or pinstripe once the cork field has been laid.

Inlays

Inlays can be borders or used as a main feature in the Entrance of a Home or Corporate Building. Some inlays such as Compasses and Logos are pre fabricated and can look very fancy being cut with lasers to get the intricate patterns perfect.

Block Parquetry

Parquetry makes any homes flooring a talking point and looks very classy. Parquetry can be found in many Castles, Mansions and Manors around Europe. Parquetry flooring comes in boxes containing individual blocks cut to the same size. Block parquetry is normally only available in 14mm and 19mm thicknesses, with the most common dimensions for a piece of block parquetry being 260mm x 65mm x 19mm thick, However custom run Parquetry Blocks in other sizes can be supplied by Vanguard Timber Flooring on request.

The most common patterns that are installed tend to be Staggered Brick Bond, Herringbone and Square on Square. However, there are many more patterns to consider using shown in our list below.

 

• Haddon Hall

• Abbott

• Heritage

• Parallel

• Ashlar

• Random Brick Bond

• Single Herringbone

• Triple Herringbone

• Gothic

• Basket weave

Mosaic Parquetry

Mosaic parquetry was big in the 1970’s and early 1980’s as a cheaper alternative to the regal looking Block and Plank Parquetry Flooring seen in Castles and Manors around Europe. Mosaic parquetry is only available in a 9mm thick “fingers” in a sheet held together by string or more commonly tape or wax paper these days. Mosaic parquetry used to be available in a variety of patterns but due to its decline in popularity it’s only available in a basic “Square on Square” pattern these days in limited species of timber.

Cork Flooring

Cork flooring is the perfect choice of flooring for any area of a home as it is very comfortable to stand on while spending hours on your feet walking, cooking, cleaning, playing with the kids and entertaining. Cork flooring is also very forgiving and durable, so that favorite plate or glass will normally survive the impact and even bounce up safely if dropped leaving the floor undamaged.

If you are considering having kids or already have little ones crawling around the house, then cork flooring is definitely the best flooring option for your family, as it easy to keep clean, is very soft, reduces noise, breakages and vibration. Cork flooring is also much healthier than carpets and cheaper than timber flooring.

Cork Flooring is warm in winter and cool in summer.

With everyone trying to be environmentally friendly it’s worth acknowledging that Cork is a bark from a tree, however the trees cork comes from is the only tree that after every harvest it fully regenerates itself. Normally coming from Portugal, Cork Oak has a protective, thin layer of inner bark that gives it the ability to regenerate, thus it can survive the debarking process without any harm being done to the tree.

Trims, Beading and Skirting Boards

Timber and laminated flooring requires expansion joins and expansion gaps that can be covered with timber trims or better still skirting boards.

For laminated flooring and staircases metal trims made of aluminum are normally used, and are available in gold, silver and bronze.

The trims, beading, skirting and stair nosing for Traditional Solid Timber Flooring and some Hybrid Timber Flooring can all be supplied in natural timber that also looks amazing when polished or oiled to match your timber flooring.

Flooring Ramps and Reducer Strips

Sometimes the new flooring height will not match the existing flooring height it joins to so customised solid timber reducer strips can be made then sanded and polished or oiled with a timber floor to ramp down or up to the existing floor level. These Timber Ramps look great and are a nice carpentry feature.

Laminated Flooring Ramps are normally made of aluminum and coloured gold, silver or bronze.