Tuesday 9 April 2013

An Overview of Floating Floors

Rather than a specific type of flooring, “Timber Floating Floors” is a term used to describe the method of installing a floor in which the individual floor boards or planks are joined to each other using glue or by snapping them together, but are not attached to the underlying original flooring. Literally, it is a floor that floats on top of your existing floor.

As opposed to floor coverings such as hardwood floors or ceramic tiles which actually need to be nailed onto or attached to the original floor, Floating Floors are somewhat similar to a jigsaw puzzle, whereby the jigsaw pieces are connected to each other but not to the table on which they are placed. A good example of a floating floor is laminated flooring. While laminate flooring can be pasted down to the underlying floor, most laminates are laid down on a floating basis. Some types of tiled flooring are also of the floating type, where instead of being mortared against the floor, the tiles are attached to each other using interlocked plastic trays.

A floating floor can have both pros and cons, much like other types of flooring. Let us first look at the advantages.

A major advantage of installing a floating floor is that it provides space for the floor to expand in response to variations in humidity. Even more important, Floating Floors do away with many hurdles that come in the way of do-it-yourself installation. For example, nailing down hardwood floors can be a tedious task for first time DIY installers. But in the case of a floating laminated floor, the floorboards can be easily attached to each other without using any specialized tools such as floor nails or glue and so on, and also takes up much less of your valuable time. Apart from this important benefit, Floating Floors are available in a rich variety of colours, widths and styles, so it will not be difficult for you to choose a particular type of flooring which is suitable for your home or office. Another advantage of a floating floor is that you will be able to walk on it almost immediately as well as move your furniture back in as soon as possible, unless of course the boards need to be glued together.

Now to come to the disadvantages; a floating floor in actuality is much thinner and less sizeable than flooring which is attached to the underlying floor. Apart from this drawback, a floating floor also usually has a lower resale value than the traditional types of hardwood or tile flooring that are nailed down or mortared onto the existing floor. Also, Floating Floors can work out to be quite an expensive proposition. A more cost-efficient and often more practical option preferred widely nowadays is Engineered Timber Flooring.

If you are considering installing Timber Floating Floors by yourself, you need to keep in mind certain DIY instructions which are easily available in DIY furniture handbooks or on the internet. Keeping these and other safety tips in mind, installing Floating Floors will be a cakewalk for you.

To know more about Victorian Designer Floors and to gain some insightful knowledge on Timber Floating Floors then visit Our Website

This content has been taken from http://victoriandesignerfloors.wordpress.com/2013/04/10/an-overview-of-floating-floors/

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