Floor laying

Pick by the room, not by the sample. Engineered wood is real timber on a stable base, so it copes with underfloor heating and with the damp swings of an Irish winter far better than solid boards, and it can be sanded again later if the top layer is thick enough. Laminate is cheaper and harder wearing on the surface, but a flooded kitchen ends it. Vinyl, especially the click and glue down planks, handles water, feels warm underfoot and is the sensible answer in bathrooms, utility rooms and kitchens. Tile is the toughest and the coldest, and it wants underfloor heating or a rug to be comfortable. Whatever goes on top, the subfloor decides the result. On concrete we check for damp and for flatness. A slab that dips more than a few millimetres over two metres gets levelling compound, because a floating floor over a hollow clicks and eventually breaks at the joints. New slabs need time to dry, and a moisture test rather than a guess, before anything impermeable goes down. On timber joists we screw down loose boards, replace anything soft, and sheet over with plywood where the boards are uneven. That sheet is often the difference between a floor that feels solid and one that creaks in the same three places forever. Then the details that get skipped. Expansion gaps around the edges, hidden by skirting or beading, so the floor can move with the seasons. The right underlay for the room, with a damp membrane on concrete. Doors eased where the new floor is thicker than the old one. Thresholds at doorways to break the run and hide the change of level. None of it is visible when it is done well, and all of it is visible when it is not.

Can you lay a new floor over the old one?

Sometimes, and it saves a day of dirty work. Over a sound, flat tiled floor a floating floor can go straight down. Over old laminate or a soft vinyl it should not, because the layer underneath moves and takes the new floor with it. We check flatness and damp first and tell you which case yours is.