Installation

Royal Oak Floors and Eco Exotic Floors can be laid in the following manner:

Concrete sub-floors

• Glued and secret nailed on to 9mm or thicker fixed ply with moisture barrier underneath.

• Glued and weighted on to glued acoustic mats.

• Directly stuck and weighted to a membraned slab where sub-floor heating is being used.

• Floated on to floating mat with PVA glued tongue and grooves.

Timber joist sub-floors

• Glued and secret nailed on to structural ply laid over joists.

• Glued and secret nailed on to acoustic mat over structural ply over joists.

• Floated on to floating mat with PVA glued tongue and grooves onto structural ply over joists.

Stairs

• Over a formed staircase use matched pre-finished solid stair nosing and 189mm boards for treads and risers. Use matched pre-finished cover strip to hide engineered profile if using a floating stair (i.e. no stringers).

Walls

• Glued and secret nailed or just secret nailed on to ply-lined walls. Use matched pre-finished solid corner moulding for corners.

Royal Oak Board Profiles

20mm – multiply construction.
6mm Oak Layer with 14mm base.

15mm – 3 layer construction.
4mm Oak Layer with 11mm base.

10mm – multiply construction.
3mm Oak Layer with 7mm base.

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Installation Instructions

Click here for Installation Instructions in PDF format.

Click here for Traditional Overhang Stair detail in PDF format.

Click here for Waterfall and Shadowline Stair detail in PDF format.

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What is an engineered floor?

An engineered floor is simply a floor board made of more than one piece of timber. The multi-plywood layers use up to 12 layers of thinly cut hardwood and softwood plantation timbers, placed and glued in multiple directions to increase the strength and stability of the top layer of solid timber. Engineered timber flooring technology has developed greatly over the past 25 years and has dramatically improved the quality of flooring products in that time.

Why not a solid floor?

Timber is a living material, sensitive to constant environmental changes. It responds in different ways to variations in moisture levels. If a piece of solid timber flooring is placed in a very moist environment it will absorb some of that moisture, causing it to fatten and swell and creating a rise or ‘crown’ in the middle. If, however, the same piece of timber is placed in a dry environment it will release moisture causing the timber to shrink and ‘cup’ across the face. The amount of movement caused by varying moisture levels is far greater with a solid wooden floor than an engineered floor.

In addition, the wider a solid floor board is the greater the risk of cupping and crowning because the movement multiplies. Good quality engineered floors offer far greater stability and enable the use of much wider floor boards without the inherent risks common with solid floors.

Engineered Floors - Pro's over solid floors

• Far greater stability means less floor failures than with solid floors.

• Wider board widths are achievable with the inherent stability of a multi-plywood base.

• Usually a thicker ‘wear’ or sanding layer than solid floors.

• Available in a range of pre-finished, hard-to-achieve colours.

• Far lower VOC emissions once installed compared with on-site finishing.

• Reduced installation time due to pre-finished product.

• Far more efficient use of slow-growing top layer timbers (Oak and Walnut, etc) than solid floors.

• Reduced waste factors. With engineered floors usually factor 3% waste compared with 10% to 15% waste with a solid floor installation.

• Can be secret-nailed or just glued down, unlike solid boards which, if over 90mm wide, require top-nailing.

• Can be used in conjunction with in-slab and other sub-floor heating systems.