Sustainable Hardwoods for London Homes

Love your London home even more with eco-friendly Hardwood Floor Sanding that look great and don’t cost the earth. By choosing hardwoods that have been responsibly sourced and harvested London homeowners are saying YES to a fantastic range of hardwood flooring and NO to deforestation, pollution and illegal logging.

The Forest Stewardship Council

At the time of writing, the American continent leads the way with in excess of 40million hectares of forestry responsibly harvested and maintained across the US and Canada alone. The regulatory body, the Forest Stewardship Council, recognises the importance and is attempting to re-educate foresters to maintain an equitable balance of trees around rivers and canals, as well as consistent re-planting projects and social and enhanced knowledge of environmental culture. Only lumber that meets all the criteria is issued with an FSC certificate. This documentation allows the consumer to follow a paper trail from harvesting right through to end-user sale.

Now this proactive attitude is taking hold in the UK as well. There are a large percentage of homes across London which have been traditionally built using hardwood flooring, as well as an army of environmentally aware homeowners who want to repair or replace damaged boards or who are looking to lay a floor from scratch – but without damaging the environment. So here is a short list of the most sustainable types of hardwood.

Types of sustainable source hardwoods

Ash

Although ash, in particular white ash, is a popular choice for furniture, an ash floor can bring striking good looks to any room. Ash is a rough, porous wood with a well-defined grain that looks particularly good when finished with varnish, lacquer or wood stain. Ash is also finer than oak, which makes it more pliable and easy to work with. 

Cherry

Popular as a fast-grower and planted across razed areas such as old mines and disused plants, 12-month old cherry saplings can quickly replenish dilapidated woodland areas. Black cherry is the most commonly used cherry variation for flooring, although consumers should be aware of this wood’s sensitivity to natural light and cherry will darken considerably if exposed to prolonged sun. Black cherry is relatively easy to sand and gives a smooth finish to any floor.

Mahogany

Perennially popular for its warm burnished sheen and timeless elegance, this tough tropical hardwood is a robust and beautiful addition to both family and formal rooms. Mahogany wood is best worked with fine tools and blades in order to cut cleanly and without tearing the delicate veneer. Mahogany polishes up extremely well.

Maple

Maple is extremely versatile and is available in both hard and softwood varieties. If you are looking for a light coloured flooring with a distinctive grain then maple is a fine choice. The density of the wood means pre-bored holes for nails and screws are a necessity. As with the mahogany, work with maple using only fine tools to avoid splitting and shearing. Maple is not the best wood to stain as it is not particularly porous, but it does look good with a coat of clear Floor Sanding and Varnishing as protection and polishes up well.

Oak

The epitome of strength and resilience, the mighty oak is one of the hardwood stalwarts and remains the most popular choice in UK kitchens and living rooms. Oak offers variety too, with white oak as light as pine, red oak, burnished gold like mahogany as well as the classically beautiful dark brown colour. The texture of oak is coarse and defined to the touch. Oak offers a wide range of looks and styles and can take wood stain, lacquer, oil and varnish finishings. Bear in mind though that white oak does repel water.

Whatever your choice of hardwood and whether you are purchasing whole flooring or individual planking, select only certificated hardwoods to ensure your floor is sustainably produced.

Safely Sand your Bamboo Floor

With many more people opting for sustainable wood flooring such as bamboo it follows that a large percentage of eco-aware souls will wish to attempt sanding their own floors at some point. Certificated bamboo comes into UK pre-finished (already varnished and wood stained) ready for installation but, like any other type of real wood, bamboo will require Wood Floor Refurbishment through time to bring back the shine and remove the inevitable marks and scratches caused by wear and tear.

So it’s good to know that in the main sustainable woods such as bamboo can be refinished in a similar way to other hardwoods, with just one or two minor adjustments to the process.

What to do

Begin by taking everything you can out of the room. This includes skirting boards, door frames and dado rails if possible. If you are unable to remove any of these then carefully tape around them to protect from the sanding process and the new finishing product. Carefully seal up any internal doors that you don’t need to use to keep residual dust out of the rest of the house.

Safety First! Always protect yourself properly by wearing a dust mask and eye protectors throughout the entire process.

It is likely that your bamboo floor has been installed with a baseboard lying over the boards and is designed to cover any planks that do not meet the wall edge squarely. This occurrence is normal, as no room is completely aligned and the older the house the more this proves to be true. The use of a baseboard then in no way detracts from the workmanship quality of the laid floor. Bamboo delivers 50% less shrinkage than any other type of wood but any contraction that does happen will do so within 48 hours of the floor being laid. So if you are working on a refinishing you need have no worries that the wood will shrink any more.

However the baseboard will have to be carefully prised off and set aside before sanding can begin. You will be re-using the baseboard afterwards, so the delicate touch of an angel is required here!

Avoid using a drum sander on bamboo floors as you run a big risk of gouging. Instead hire a square buffing sander and move across the room drawing the machine towards yourself in steady, constant movements. Always start at a corner furthest from the door and move along the plank lengths. When you have completed around 2/3^rds of the room area then change to Floor Sanding one plank at a time until the whole room has been sanded.

Now apply a hand sander to move into areas the larger machine has missed; for example flush to the skirting, around doors, fireplaces etc. Make sure you use the same grain of sandpaper you used for the main part of the room.

When you have sanded the entire room repeat the process again using the buff sander and the palm sander, but this time apply a finer grain of paper.

When your bamboo floor has received its second sanding it should feel very smooth and even to the touch and may well look lighter than before.

Finishing

Like other types of real woods, bamboo is responsive to a variety of finishings including varnish, lacquer and oil products. Whichever finishing you opt for, make sure you adhere strictly to printed guidelines and apply exactly as stated. Your room should always be well ventilated during the finishing process.

Apply finishing on to small areas at a time with a dry cloth. Successful finishing means less is more so never apply finishing in large areas and avoid causing puddles as this can warp the wood. Allow the floor a good 24 hours to dry before applying the second and final finishing coat.

Keep London Parquet Flooring Looking Great

Many London homes and terraces benefit from pre-war parquet flooring, which is a real plus point whatever its condition! Like any type of hardwood flooring, parquet tiles can be revamped to suit any taste and room style and as an asset, they are most definitely worth holding on to.

To floor an average sized lounge in brand new parquet at today’s prices would be expensive, so if you have original style parquet, whatever its current condition, consider refurbishment rather than removing. One immediate advantage of renovating your parquet floor is that once up to scratch, it takes very little maintenance to keep it in tip-top condition.

Restoring Parquet Flooring comes in all shades and design styles, but if your London home has original parquet flooring chances are it was built any time between 1900-1940. This being the case it is likely that your floor will have the classic basket weave or herringbone motif. Original flooring is usually of a higher grade than parquet purchased new, so it is definitely worth retaining original flooring wherever possible.

DIY or choose a professional

You can restore your flooring yourself if you have the know-how as all hardwood flooring restorations begin with taking the floor back to its basic. This means removing any tiling, carpets, lino or anything else which is stuck on top.

Old-style parquet was, in addition to being of the abovementioned motifs, usually chestnut brown in colour. Nowadays there is an exciting range of coloured stain products available for use on parquet. Colour changes a room and nowhere is that more true than on the floor. When your floor has been stripped, fully sanded and cleaned you can try coloured stain on those areas that are hidden by furniture, just to see how it would look before you proceed with the rest of the floor.

The sanding process generally leaves hardwood flooring a few shades lighter than the original colour anyway, so if you are looking for your parquet to look like the original then you will probably have to use a stain.

Staining parquet flooring is not necessarily difficult, but it is exacting work. Stain should only ever be applied when the floor is completely sanded, with all gaps filled and damaged tiles replaced or repaired. If a floor has not been sanded in many decades then it will take two or perhaps three sandings to get it even and smooth. Never be tempted to apply stain on flooring which is unfinished, as this will give the tiles a lumpy, bumpy finish which could end up being expensive to put right.

If you would like to find out the cost of having your parquet floor refurbished then it is a wise move to call in a specialist Floor Sanding Company. Good professional wood floor specialists in the London area will normally offer free quotations with no hard-sell at the end of it. This way you can gauge how much work your floor really needs before making the decision to DIY or use the professionals.

Before deciding which type of finishing you would like, consider whether the area is busy, how much natural sunlight it gets, is there steam and heat from ovens and stoves, is it a floor children play on? These factors and others should help you to make the best decision in terms of veneer. For example if your floor is in a high traffic hallway for example it is not a good idea to choose a highly polished finish.

Well restored parquet flooring will be an absolute talking point with visitors to your home and, with regular care and cleaning, it will continue to grace your home for many years to come.