Wood under your feet

Jagvir Goyal

House builders nowadays  prefer to choose multiple types of flooring for their house. A combination of vitrified tiles and wooden flooring or marble and wooden flooring has become common these days. Many house builders are using all three types of flooring also.

In most houses, the urge to provide wooden flooring is satisfied by earmarking the bedrooms for it. Some house owners provide wood flooring in the drawing room also and choose different shades for different rooms. While making the choice, three things should  be kept in mind always. The area shouldn’t be prone to termite attack as most types of wood flooring are termite resistant only and not termite proof. Secondly, there should be no use of water in the area. And thirdly, there should be no heavy furniture to be dragged over the wood flooring.

Basic requirements: All wood laminate flooring available in the market look the same. However, there are certain points which must be kept in mind while buying and fixing this type of flooring. These include the grade of laminates, their thickness, core material quality, cost factor and a few other properties. Now, as awareness against environmental pollution has increased, their environment friendliness also needs to be checked. 

Grade of laminates: Basically, there are three grades of wood laminates. These are AC3, AC4 and AC5. Among these, AC5 grade laminates are the best and the strongest. However, these are costlier and suitable for commercial use where inflow of people is high. Though AC3 is termed as residential grade, prefer to choose AC4 grade laminates for your house. Some manufacturers have developed their own grades like AC3+, AC4+ and AC5+. These should be treated as equivalent to AC3, AC4 and AC5 grades only. AC4 and AC5 grades suffer no damage even if soft or hard wheels are run over them. 

Sometimes, there are apprehensions that heavy double beds provided in the bedrooms continue to rest at same place and cause extra load on the laminates at particular points. No damage to the laminates occurs at these points as the laminates rest on solid base below it. 

Thickness: Thickness of wooden laminates varies from 8 mm to 12 mm. Obviously, the cost of laminates increases with the increase in thickness. For residential use, 8 mm and 9 mm thick laminates are quite suitable.

Structural composition: Wood laminates are not in single piece but three layered structures having a high density fibre (HDF) board as their core material. The core is covered with highly resistant solid wooden covering of required thickness on the top and another wood layer at the bottom, called Balancer. It should be checked from the supplier that the core is in HDF and not in MDF. Some manufacturers increase the number of layers by providing a top shield.

Dimensions: Wood laminates are available in different lengths and widths. Commonly available lengths are 1200 mm and 2050 mm. Some manufacturers produce 1380 mm long laminates also. Width is kept as 190 mm or 205 mm. Some variation may be there by different manufacturers. In trader’s language, these laminates are stated to be of 4 feet X 8 inch size or 7 feet X 8 inch size.

Other properties: One should look for laminates that are scratch and stain resistant. Preference should be for purchasing new supply from the manufacturing unit than those stored by the retailer as the lots lying in the store develop fine scratches due to their repeated handling. The manufacturer’s test certificate for the laminates should be checked for being fire resistant, scratch resistant, stain resistant, abrasion resistant, fade resistant and non-swelling on moisture absorption property.

Shades: The shades include teak, oak, oak white, tiger wood, walnut, beech, cherry, pine, maple, birch, mahogany etc. Dark shades, however, look better and more graceful.  However, if the size of the room is small, light shades should be preferred. Further, a buyer can choose laminates showing wood grains predominantly or subtly. Then,    the choice can be for glossy, mat or textured finish also. 

Profile specifications: Wood laminate flooring is provided with profiles at the junction with other kinds of flooring to avoid any damage to the edge of laminates. The profiles can be quarter round type or reducer type for transition from laminate flooring to tile or marble flooring. These can also be T-type to cover small gap between the laminates that may occur in the floor at the door connecting two rooms. Though profiles are costly items, their provision shouldn’t be avoided as these serve as protectors of edges of wooden flooring.

IAQ friendliness

IAQ means Indoor Air Quality. Importance of better quality of indoor air has been realized by Indians and increased use of air purifiers stand testimony to that. The need of checking the materials used in the house as IAQ friendly has become essential. Wood flooring also needs to be IAQ friendly, which can be ensured only if their VOC emissions are within permissible limits. In newly built houses, VOC emissions often trouble people. Therefore, choosing such flooring materials that have been certified as environmental norms compliant is essential. 

IAQ friendly certification: There are environmental institutes and trade associations that check the hard surface flooring materials and conduct voluntary testing programmes to certify whether the hard surface floorings are in compliance with stringent emission norms or not. Floorscore is one such most recognised standard and Greenguard is another one. Their certifications for compliance to indoor air quality norms are accepted by green building council’s LEED rating system. For the user, a Floorscore seal on the material should satisfy him that the material is IAQ friendly. In India, Green Initiatives Certification & Inspection Agency in Noida and such organisations conduct investigations and certification of materials for their being IAQ friendly.

— The writer is former HOD and Engineer-in-Chief, Civil Engineering Department in a Punjab PSU