Wood Floor Warehouse lists 4 common mistakes to avoid when installing parquet flooring

4 Common Mistakes to Avoid When Installing Parquet Flooring

Are you thinking of installing parquet floors?

Take a look at our guide to the mistakes to avoid when laying your parquet flooring.

Are you thinking of installing parquet floors? They’re stylish and always modern so it’s a great choice, but there are pitfalls to avoid.

Aside from making sure you follow the pattern, a lot of these come down to the type of wood you use and how you lay them.

Take a look at our guide to the mistakes to avoid when laying your parquet flooring.

Installing parquet flooring in rooms with high humidity.

Real wood flooring doesn’t do well with water. If you spill something you should be ready to clean it quickly and learn to clean your floors with a well-drained mop and the correct flooring cleanser to avoid damage.

The good thing about natural wood is that a lot of damage blends into the wood, like scratches, which can be buffed out.

However, it is likely to warp in high humidity, therefore it is recommended to avoid laying real wood floors in the kitchen and bathroom where there’s likely to be a lot of splashing and steam.

Installing parquet flooring without enough space between the planks

If you are installing real wood flooring, a certain amount of expanding and shrinking is expected.

The slats are made of natural wood, a natural product, which will expand and shrink depending on the temperature and humidity in the room.

This makes it not the best option for bathrooms, as we mentioned, but it also means that the planks of wood need to be laid with around 1-2cm of space between them.

If you’re busy focusing on getting the pattern of your parquet flooring nailed down, (which is a turn of phrase, not an instruction), then you might forget to leave enough space between planks.

The space will be hidden under the skirting board in the room so that you don’t even notice.

Click here to see some examples of parquet flooring to keep you right.

Installing parquet flooring over heating systems

If you’ve got under-floor heating, you don’t want to add hardwood floors. Just like how real wood floors don’t like water, they also don’t like direct heat.

You might enjoy that warm feeling on your toes, but it’ll come with a wood floor that will bend, shrink, split and warp.

You can get real wood floors that can handle under-floor heating, but you should check with the manufacturer to make sure.

Otherwise, if you want to keep your under-floor heating, you might want to look into laminate, engineer, or vinyl flooring, all of which can handle under-floor heating without damage.

Installing parquet flooring over still-wet concrete

If your home is being newly built, or you’re going through a drastic renovation, you might want to keep this tip in mind: make sure all cement is fully dry before you lay any hardwood flooring.

What does wet cement mean? Humidity.

We’re now well-versed in what humidity can do to natural wood. Make sure your cement isn’t only dry to the eye and the touch: it has to warm up too. Don’t rush and you will have a beautiful floor that lasts.