How to buy wood flooring Wood flooring jargon

Materials

Screed 

This is often a liquid such as latex that is applied and spreads out to create a level surface. When it hardens you are able to lay your floor over it. It's used to level uneven floors.

Damp-proof membrane (DPM)

Keep moisture out with heavy duty membrane

This plastic sheeting is essential when laying laminate or wooden boards over a concrete or sand and cement floor. It prevents moisture moving up into the boards, causing them to warp. 

Prices start at 59p a sq metre up to around £1 a sq metre in DIY stores. Heavy-duty DPM by Visqueen is a professional grade choice.

Leveller board 

This is fixed to the floor with nails to create an even surface to lay the floor on. It provides sound insulation and increases the floor’s durability. 

It can either be a thick, recycled paper board costing around £2-3 a sq metre which provides good sound insulation, or multipurpose wood boards, such as hardboard or plywood, costing from £1 a sq metre. 

Underlay  

A thick underlay reduces noise and improves insulation

This is used to cushion the flooring boards, increasing their durability and providing sound insulation. 

There are several different grades, which range from thin sheets of closed-cell polythene foam, costing from £1 a sq metre, to top-of-therange felt underlay with a silver foil layer, costing around £6 a sq metre.

Tongue-and-groove

This describes the way that planks fix together. A tongue that projects from the side of one plank fits into the groove of the adjacent plank.

Click-lock planks 

These have shaped edges that require a certain sequence of actions to fit them together, but once they are in place they can’t move apart.

Tools

Tapping block

A plastic block that is used to protect floor planks as they are hammered together. Rather than hammering the edge of the plank directly you hammer the block, so you can’t damage the plank with the hammer. 

Pull bar 

A handy tool used to drive glued planks tightly together at the tongue and groove joints. This tool is especially helpful at the wall when driving the end tongues and grooves together where it is not possible to use a tapping block. 

Use wedges to create the vital expansion gap around your floor

Wedges and spacers

Use these to maintain the expansion gap around the perimeter of your room when laying laminate and real wood flooring. Also useful for creating a straight edge against a wobbly wall to give your floor a good start. 

Adhesive 

This is used to glue tongue and groove boards together and to fix beading or skirting in place above the edge of the floor.

Some modern adhesives for fixing solid floorboards to a subfloor expand as they dry, filling small voids under the boards and ensuring that they don’t sound hollow as you walk on them.

Finishing touches 

Radiator pipe roses 

These ring-doughnut shaped pieces of wood or plastic are used to cover the expansion gaps left around radiator pipes.  

Cover the expansion gap with scotia for a top notch finish

A bevelled edge helps some laminates to look more natural

Wood floor plank features

Bevelled edges

The edges of some laminate turn downwards to create a more realistic boarded appearance. It also helps to avoid damage caused by moisture-induced swelling at the edges of laminate boards. 

Expansion gap 

Wood flooring expands in a humid room and contracts in a dry atmosphere. You’ll need to leave a 10-12mm gap around the edge of your floor. 

Texture makes a laminate floor look more like real wood

Registered embossing

This manufacturing technique creates laminate flooring planks that have a slightly 3-dimensional finish.

The core of the laminate is increased or reduced to correspond with where the image shows a feature such as a knot or strong grain in a wooden plank.

You can therefore feel as well as see where the grain would create the texture in a real wood plank.