If you’re thinking about installing an exotic wood species as a hardwood floor—such as Iroko or Brazilian Cherry—in a room that is not climate-controlled, you risk ending up with a damaged floor due to excessive expansion and contraction of the wood.
That is, unless you choose to install a floor that’s designed to prevent this from happening.
Your solution to this problem lies in engineered hardwood flooring such as the Boen Home Series.
An exotic wood species installed in an area that isn’t climate-controlled needs stability in order to withstand fluctuations in temperature and humidity.
If you’re looking to install exotic hardwood floors in an area that is not climate-controlled, such as in a room above a garage (like the installation shown in the video at the top of this page), engineered floors are a must because they provide the stability needed to prevent damage to the exotic wood species.
Express Click engineered floor planks feature a 3-ply construction. Each plank contains a 3.55 millimeter wear layer of hardwood on top, vertical grain staves in the middle, and a bottom layer of single-ply spruce.
This construction gives the each plank enough stability to make them more resistant than solid floor planks to excessive expansion and contraction resulting from temperature and moisture changes in the environment. The vertical grain—which is a result of the wood being cut at a 90 degree angle to the tree’s growth rings—make the planks expand and contract vertically, rather than horizontally, providing the floor with extra stability.
Two major complaints about click-plank floors are the tendency for them to bounce and to give off a hollow sound when stepped on. But with Boen Express Click floors, you can easily avoid both of these detractors.
Fastening the top of the boards to the underlying plywood layers with a cleat nailer such as the Powernail 2000 20g cleat nailer— which features a design that is perfect for use with click-plank floors—eliminates the need for adhesives during installation, thus preventing the hollow sound that can appear in click-plank flooring when adhesives are used.
Fastening the floor in this way is easy because each Express Click plank contains grooves for cleat nails.
Taking this approach reduces any bounce or sponginess that the subfloor may transmit to the hardwood floor, and it makes each plank into a unit that responds individually to climatic changes, rather than forcing the entire floor to respond as a single structure.
The “express click” mechanism makes installation a snap.
Boen’s Express Click series is so named because a stave inserted in the end groove of each floor plank prevents the butt-end of the piece from popping out during the installation process.
This mechanism also ensures that the pieces are the same height once installed, giving the floor a neat, uniform appearance.
And, since the planks are prefinished, you’re left with less room for the creation of mistakes like fisheyes in your hardwood floors.
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Click here to place an order or call City Floor Supply at (800) 737-1786.
