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How to Maintain Your Bamboo, Timber and Laminate Floors

30/07/2012 by ·

Bamboo floor, timber floor and laminate floor are relatively easy to take care of compared to carpets. But they still need routine maintenance.

  • Keep the floor away from water. If the area is flooded because of water pipe leaking, the floor will definitely get damaged. If you drop a glass of water, wipe off with towel as soon as possible.
  • Leave grit, especially sand outside when you walk inside. The grit will gradually grinds into the floor and abrades the finish. Use a vacuum cleaning frequently to clean the floor with a soft floor brush.
  • Put a door mat at every external door way.
  • Put adhesive furniture pads under table and chair legs

If you can use your floor carefully and keep it clean, the floor usually lasts much longer.

Filed Under: Floor Maintainance · Tagged:

How can we tell the quality of timber floors.

30/06/2012 by ·

When we choose the timber for flooring, the first thing we have to ask is whether the one we are going to use is of good quality. Usually we use the Janka rating as a measure of the wood’s hardness. The higher the number, the harder the wood. Below is the list of the Janka rating for various woods.

Species Name Janka Rating
Alpine ash 4.9
Australian Beech 8
Blackbutt 8.9
Brush Box 9.1
Ironbark 14
Jarrah 8.5
Spotted Gum 10.1
Sydney Blue Gum 8.1
Tallowwood 8.6
Tasmanian Oak 4.5-8.0
Bamboo 7-8
Bamboo Strandwoven 14-15

Steven X. Chen

Filed Under: Choose flooring boards · Tagged: , ,

How to choose the right underlay for floating floor?

30/05/2012 by ·

Floating floors are getting more and more popular due to their easy installation and pleasing quality. Every time before we lay the floating floors, we need to lay underlay first to provide insulation against sound and moisture. How can we tell the quality of underlays? Of course usually, the more expensive,  the better. But we just want to choose the right one to meet our flooring condition without wasting money.

If you are living in a house or ground floor of an apartment building, you can use any underlay you like. Just choose one from the list of our website. If you are a unit with someone else living under, you have to choose the underlay which at least has an acoustic test certificate from third parties, which will avoid you from big trouble in the future.

Choosing the right underlay is simple, but important. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us for more information.

Thanks
Steven X. Chen

Filed Under: Choose flooring boards · Tagged: ,

How to know the moisture content of the sub floor.

30/04/2012 by ·

Before we lay the timber or floating floor, we need to know if the moisture content of the sub floor is suitable for flooring.

There are basically three methods: Preliminary test, Electrical resistance test and Hygrometer test. Both Electrical resistance test and Hygrometer test need expensive equipment to do the tests. Here we’d like to introduce the preliminary test,which is the easiest way. Anyone can do it.

A piece of impervious material such as polyethylene or vinyl sheeting (at least 600×600 mm). It is placed on the surface of the concrete slab to be tested and sealed through around all edges with moisture free sealing compounds. After a period of not less than 24 hours, the covered portion of the concrete slab is inspected for dampness. If this area is even slightly darker in colour than the remainder of the slab, the sub floor shall be considered too wet. Otherwise, it is dry sufficiently to lay floor on.

Thanks
Steven X. Chen

Filed Under: Pre - Flooring · Tagged: , ,
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