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Specialist Skills

The installation of engineered and solid timber flooring is a specialised discipline. As a trade, it is more specific than either carpentry or joinery. This is true for a simple wide-board floor, but especially for an intricate parquet floor. Proper installation involves knowing best practices by heart; it requires the learned knowledge of the mechanics of a floor, how it will work and respond over time; and it demands the skilled hand of the trained artisan. By way of an aesthetic eye, the workmanship, the detailing, even the timber itself, comes to life.

Our Team of installers

Our in-house team of installers have been with us for many years, some for decades, and are real experts in their field. They all have a sound carpentry education under their belt and will use their skills to turn your floor into a thing of beauty, all delivered with a meticulous eye for detail, a serious work ethic, and a ‘can do’ attitude. Often a project involves much more than fitting a floor: doors need to be trimmed, steps need to be clad, and many other details requiring perfect execution. Our team delivers this on a daily basis.

Solid floor fitters portrait

Our timbers deserve our craftsmanship

We’ll go ahead and say it: a new timber floor is never an inexpensive undertaking. This is the reality.

In addition, the floor that you install now will be with you for years, even decades to come. You have one chance to get it right. The quality of the installation figures into the equation every bit as much as the quality of the floor itself. Our 25 years of experience in installing floors have taught us as much. Solid Floor believes that we should be installing the flooring you buy from us.

Unlike many of our competitors, we actively promote our installation programme. The reason for this is twofold. A good product can be ruined in the wrong hands. Likewise, it excels in the right ones.

A reliable supplier, providing a quality product, with their own installers handing and installing the material with which they are familiar, is the optimal arrangement. Being in control of the entirety of this process allows us to maintain the maximum level of excellence. No matter how good your general contractor is, they are unlikely to be intimately familiar with our flooring.

The advantages for you the consumer – professional or homeowner – are obvious. Not only do you streamline the entire procurement process whiling cutting out the potential for any unfortunate supplier - installer friction, but you end up with a truly outstanding floor made all the more so by an incomparable, professional installation.

Additionally, by choosing us for installation, Solid Floor guarantees both the flooring itself and the installation. The value of this is evident, whether you routinely specify flooring or are purchasing for your first home.

If a third party has fitted the floor we cannot guarantee the floor because we are unable to establish how it was installed, whether they have properly prepared the sub floor, or if the site and environmental conditions were monitored and managed. Most issues that arise with timber floors are the result of a failure in preparation or poor management of site conditions.

Dark oak staircase clad in magma mayon
Landmark Dalton herringbone floor with blue velvet chair and wood burner

Finishing touches to our flooring installation

The devil, as they say, is in the detail. With a floor installed by Solid Floor, you can expect the following:

  • A detailed site survey so we can anticipate all the issues that may impact on the quality of the installation.
  • Liaising with you and your contractor to ensure the sub-floor is properly prepared and the correct conditions are maintained during the installation
  • Vetting and selecting of individual boards and deciding where to position each one to achieve the best possible look.
  • Thresholds made on site from the flooring to ensure a subtle transition from timber to another surface. We do not use cheap, pre-made, unfinished saddles and thresholds.
  • The undercutting of existing skirting boards rather than using unsightly beading and scotia moulding.
  • True, solid stair treads and stair nosings finished to match the flooring. Treads can be a single plank with choice of nosing and detailing. Inserted anti-slip bars optional (see photo on the right).
  • Mitred, flush, hearth surrounds, made from the flooring material, to showcase a beautiful fireplace.
  • Recessed mat wells with flush return boards made from the flooring material.
  • Exquisitely detailed floor access panels and socket boxes.
  • The option of appropriate and effective floor protection once the installation is completed, if other tradesman are scheduled after installation.
  • An additional coat of hardwax oil finish applied after the floor is installed, thus ensuring that your floor is well-protected for years to come.
Oak Tate Tiree stair detail with metal strips