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Timber is an increasingly popular flooring option for household and commercial décor in Australia . Architects and builders are recommending timber as a fashionable floor covering for a variety of aesthetic reasons according to a Sydney-based timber industry consultant and management adviser. “There is a trend for Floating Timber flooring products to be specified, particularly for high rise, or one or two-level houses with concrete slabs or a combination of concrete and platform floor,” he says.
Floating Timber flooring products are used in a similar way to carpet, vinyl or ceramic tiles. The timber covering goes on top of the existing structural floor surface for appearance, not structural reasons. Timber flooring is a health option for many Australians. Australia has the highest rate of asthma and respiratory incidence in the world, by replacing carpet with timber you eradicate one of the largest reservoirs of dust mites in a house.
There has been an Australian-wide decline in the market share of timber subfloors over the past 25 years, due to the increased use of concrete slabs, rather than joist and bearer construction. This has been particularly widespread in the project house market. As a result, there has also been a loss of market share for timber as a finished floor surface, because timber strip flooring was really only used as a structural flooring over joists and bearers. A recent development driving the re-emergence of timber as a floor covering has been the appearance of the ‘floating floor’ installation process in Australia .
Floating floors are a long established practice in Europe and the US . Floating floors aren’t fixed to the structural surface. They do, in fact, float. An underlay, usually a low or high-density foam, a rubber compound or a combination of foam underlay and plywood sheeting, is laid down over the floor. The floorboards are fixed loose over the top, not fixed down through the boards into the floor. The boards are glued together on their edge joint and form a floating ‘plate’ over the room area floating on the underlay. This form of flooring costs about the same as traditional timber, strip floors. Whilst slightly more expensive than carpet, it is on par with ceramic floors. However, it has some other benefits over its alternatives. It will outlast a carpet’s 10 to 15 year replacement cycle. With appropriate care, it can be there for the life of the building. In a constricted, urban environment where people need a low-profile floor covering to save space, a floating floor can be installed in about 17mm, including underlay. Convenience of installation is a major feature. Floating floors are pre-finished, so they require fewer skills and less time in the installation process.
At the end of installation, there’s no need for sanding and polishing, which makes them attractive to the large-scale, inner-urban, high-rise housing projects. Another advantage of these pre-finished floors, particularly when for residential use, is the lack of a strong solvent smell during installation. Cutting out the sometimes-disruptive finishing cycle is a boon in commercial situations.
To finish a timber floor usually requires three coats, taking several days. Pre-finished floating floors can be put in overnight. Interestingly, in retail use, they can be depreciated because they aren’t structural element.
Installation, because it’s not fixed down, is relatively easy. Basically, the simple practice requirements are written on the instructions. In Australia , contractors install most pre-finished floors. Carpet retailers are adding pre-finished timber floating floors to their ranges because these products have been eating heavily into the vinyl and carpet markets. Floating floors start at around $75m ² installed, averaging around $90 - $110m ² . Unlike traditional timber flooring, floating floors are sold by the square metre and often quoted fully installed. Originally most of the floating timber floors available in Australia were derived from imported and tropical species. However, the increasing popularity of pre-finished floating floors is making available an increasing range of Australian timbers. These floors offer the local market a greatly broadened range, including timbers previously much too expensive to consider as a solid flooring option. Because the finished article has a relatively thin veneer of the expensive facing timber, this timber is spread over a far greater area than when used as a tongue and grooved (T&G) timber strip floor. The equivalent of each cubic metre of timber going into traditional T&G floor works out at four times the surface area covered for a floating floor. However, there are still an all-timber floor.
The usual construction is a thin timber veneer as backing ply, a solid timber core and then finished face. The construction minimises the cost of the core, maximises the stability and provides the choice of face. Being factory pre-finished, they are also of a high quality. They usually have a five coat UV-cured finish, which achieves a high quality, hardwearing and attractive finish. This is great value when you consider the length of service they offer.
The usual timber site guidelines apply to pre-finished floating floors.
While manufactured for moisture content stability, they shouldn’t be used in wet areas such as bathrooms or laundries or wet mopped (wipe them with a damp cloth or use an anti-static dry mop). As with all decorative timbers, pre-finished floating floors are dried down to a low reduced-moisture content, but will swell if they get wet, which can cause movement and twisting. Separating the floor’s surface from the structural floor with underlay also diminishes the problem of timber floors carrying sound, something that can be annoying in a dense urban environment.
If sound is a major issue, these floors will also allow sound barriers to be applied within the structure. In addition to floating floors, builders can use the traditional T&G timber strip floor, which is put straight onto the structural subfloor. When this floor covering is applied to fixed battens on concrete for example, it functions in a similar manner to a timber floor on joists. Like the traditional timber on joists floor, the strips are usually dressed raw boards from 10 or 19mm thick. This floor covering is still T&G boards and is glued down either straight onto concrete, with an appropriate adhesive and moisture barrier, or onto plywood which is, in turn, fixed onto the subfloor, whether concrete, platform or an existing old timber floor.
Given Australia ’s renewed love affair with timber, these floors are likely to enhance the value of new and pre-built properties where the owners choose to put their feet on some lasting beauty.
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