A wood floor — parquet — is a finish of timber boards, warm and alive underfoot. Solid or engineered, bonded or floating on a flat, dry base, it brings the warmth of a natural, renewable material that can be sanded and refinished decades later. Its charm is the wood; its success is all in controlling moisture, because timber «moves» with it.
Technical section of the system, from inside (left) to outside (right).
A wood floor — parquet — is a finish of timber boards, warm and alive underfoot. Solid or engineered, bonded or floating on a flat, dry base, it brings the warmth of a natural, renewable material that can be sanded and refinished decades later. Its charm is the wood; its success is all in controlling moisture, because timber «moves» with it.
A wood floor — parquet — is a finish of timber boards, warm and alive underfoot. It can be solid or engineered (pre-finished), bonded or floating on a flat, dry base. Its charm is the natural material; its success, the control of moisture.
Wood expands with humidity and shrinks when dry: so parquet is laid seasoned to the right moisture and with perimeter gaps that allow its movement, hidden by the skirting. A screed too wet, or no vapour barrier, makes the boards cup and the joints open — the commonest defect.
Everything depends on the base: a mature, dry (measured) and flat screed. Fully bonded laying gives stability and good acoustic behaviour; floating is faster but «noisier». Below, a resilient mat improves the impact sound to the room beneath.
Over underfloor heating, suitable woods and thicknesses and a bonded laying are needed, so as not to insulate the heat. The finish (oil or lacquer) protects and sets the look. Wood's great quality is repairability: years later it can be sanded and refinished, like new again.
Wood is hygroscopic: it takes up moisture from the air and gives it back, swelling when humid and shrinking when dry. A floor laid too wet shrinks as it dries and the joints open; one laid too dry swells later and can cup or lift. This is why parquet is laid seasoned to a moisture in balance with the room, on a dry, measured screed and over a vapour barrier, and why a perimeter expansion gap — hidden by the skirting — is left so the whole floor can breathe and move as one without pushing on the walls. Control the moisture and the wood behaves; ignore it and it is the commonest defect of all.
On a dry, flat screed a moisture barrier is set, then the boards are bonded with full adhesive coverage — no voids, which would sound hollow and let the board move. A resilient mat below the screed cuts the impact sound to the room beneath. The dryness of the screed, measured, is the precondition for it all.
At the wall the boards stop short, leaving an expansion gap that lets the whole floor swell and shrink without buckling or pushing on the wall; the skirting covers it. It is the small, invisible detail that keeps a wood floor flat for years.
Informational links to the regulatory framework. Always verify the current text on the official source.
A ready-to-edit DOCX from this system’s data — build-up, performance, and cited regulations with their current in-force status. Courtesy draft, free.