Solid Timber floors installed on a concrete slab

Polished timber floors are popular, hard wearing, and a dust free attractive alternative for a feature floor in your home. There is a large variety of options when selecting the type of floor to meet you needs when installing on an existing concrete slab.

Starting with the composite floating timber floor, made from MDF and finished with a melamine or laminate finish. Real woods machined to a 6mm thickness pre-finished and laid as a floating floor. Or traditional floor boards, laid and polished on site.

Make your decision based on the type of room and use of floor balanced against your budget, and of course if it is for your own home or an investment property.

Remember a few simple tips when you are chosing the type of floor to suit your needs. Composite floors are not a great idea for wet area's. (Oh they will say they are at the hardware, however remember MDF is not timber water proof or not, and if it was my own home it would not be in my bath or kitchen. Once they have been scratched the only alternative is replacement. 6mm timber overlay can be a real alternative. Its not 20mm, but can be sanded and repolished in the future to extend the life of the floor. As with composite floors they require minimum disruption to floor and door heights when updating a room.

1). This project has a floor area of 43m sq. It incorporates a dinning room, rumpus room hallway and laundry. It will be laid on an existing slab, it has difficulties with existing levels due to previous extensions and floor finishes. It is an 'own home' and requires a minimum life-cycle without repolishing of 6 years. It needs to be hard wareing to cope with the demanding needs of a family of 4 and a dog.

For this case study we have chosen a tradition 20mm Vic Ash hardwood floor polished in a 60% Gloss, laid on 2 layers of 12mm ply. The reasons that we have chosen this type of construction for the project are;

1). Matches the traditional stlye of the property.
2). No restrictions with existing hieghts to doors and skirtings
3). A floating floor construction, but durable with no tap or bounce.
4). Hard wearing, in a 60% gloss to minimalise sctratching