Buyers Guide To Herringbone Flooring

Synonymous with luxury and combining beauty with practicality, herringbone wood flooring is a popular choice in modern homes as well as older buildings.

A type of parquet, the name herringbone comes from the appearance and its similarity to the skeleton of the herring fish. Other types of parquet flooring patterns include chevron, Versailles style, and basket style.

What Is Herringbone Wood Flooring?

Herringbone wooden flooring is a particular pattern of parquet flooring. Traditionally parquet flooring was solid wood, which despite being a hardwearing and beautiful material is not always affordable for everyone. However, with the availability of engineered wooden flooring parquet floors, including herringbone wood flooring is now a more affordable option whatever your budget.

The herringbone pattern is formed by laying rectangular floor boards at 90degree angles. This creates a slight overlap at each end meaning that a zigzag is repeated both horizontally and vertically.

Benefits Of Herringbone Wood Flooring

  • Parquet flooring in general is robust and long lasting.
  • Herringbone pattern in particular is renowned for strength and durability.
  • Any style of home and decor suits herringbone wood flooring, from traditional to contemporary.
  • Herringbone wood flooring is versatile, different sizes, colours, and pricing options are available.
  • The zigzag pattern of herringbone style flooring creates an illusion of space.
  • Herringbone parquet floors are timeless - they’ve been used for over 400 years!
  • With proper finishing and care they will last for generations.
  • Herringbone wooden flooring is easy to clean.

 

Different Types of Herringbone Wood Flooring

Solid Wood or Engineered Wood?

Herringbone wood flooring is traditionally a solid wood floor. However, modern advances in engineered wooden floors mean that it is now possible to have all the elegance, warmth, and luxury of a solid wood herringbone parquet floor with the added benefits of engineered wood. This includes an increased ability to withstand changes in temperature.

Engineered wood is also usually cheaper, meaning you can have herringbone flooring even on a budget.

Difference Between Herringbone and Chevron Flooring

Herringbone and chevron flooring are both a type of parquet. They are also both zigzag patterned flooring.

The difference between these patterns is that with chevron flooring the ends of the planks are cut at an angle. This means that the zigzag pattern is split with clean straight lines like V’s.

With a herringbone pattern, the planks are square-edged rectangles.

How to Select the Best Herringbone Wooden Floor for your Project?

Selecting the best herringbone flooring for your project means thinking about a variety of different things from the practical to the aesthetic.

Practical Considerations When Choosing Herringbone Flooring

  • Moisture and humidity levels will affect whether you should choose engineered or solid wood.
  • Size of space, this will have the biggest impact on your budget, in a smaller space it might be worth pushing to the very limits of your budget for a higher quality.
  • Floating or fixed floor, this will affect the type of herringbone recommended and is dependent on the subfloor layer. Floating floors can make a big difference to noise levels if this is an important consideration for you.

 

Aesthetic Considerations When Choosing Herringbone Flooring

  • Colour.
  • Species.
  • Design, herringbone flooring has the same basic design but you can choose single, double, or triple layered herringbone patterns.
  • Size of planking.

 

How Much Does Herringbone Wood Flooring Cost?

This depends on your budget and your requirements.

You can get Herringbone wood flooring for under £40 per square metre or over £80 per square metre.

The differences in cost will come down to wood species, thickness, and finish as well as the size of the planks and the area being covered.

Installation costs will vary as well, depending on the method, size of planks and the size of the space or whether you are laying the herringbone flooring yourself.

How to Install Herringbone Wood Flooring

  • Check the suitability of the subfloor and do preparatory work, if required, to ensure the moisture level is not too high and that the subfloor is level.
  • Measure the space.
  • Choose and purchase the type of herringbone wood flooring, whether solid wood or engineered wood, colour, width, species, grade, choose a floating or fully bonded adhesion method, finish and whether you will install the flooring yourself or hire a contractor.
  • Acclimatise the flooring for around 3 days in the room where it will be laid allowing as much air to get to each piece as possible.
  • During these 3 days read and reread the installation guide that comes with your flooring. Don’t skip this step!
  • Open and mix up the packs of flooring to ensure any natural variations are spread throughout the flooring. Alternatively, if you are using deliberately varied colours then mix as per your design.
  • Sort the planks into two piles, left side and right side.
  • Gather your tools, we would recommend ensuring you know how to use them all safely beforehand and having the correct PPE as well. Tools you might need include: chalk,  hammer, cordless screwdriver, square, tape measure, handsaw, and perhaps a jigsaw.
  • Check any doors will fit over the flooring and temporarily remove doors if required/possible.
  • Set out the flooring to avoid any mistakes and ensure you allow around 10-12mm around the edges as an expansion gap.
  • Make a starter board (people usually use plywood for this) this needs to be the same length as your planks but square.
  • For the herringbone design use chalk to mark a central axis; this is your X lines.
  • Intersect the X line with your Y line at a 90degree angle. Double Check all angles and measurements before continuing.
  • From the Y line measure 27mm on each side and mark these two lines A and B with chalk these are your guide lines. The Y line is in the middle between your A planks and B planks.
  • Line up the starter board with the top corner on your B line.
  • Lay out three rows, to enable you to mark out the next set of guide lines (C and D lines) and so on until you have guide lines over the whole area to be laid.
  • If you are using adhesive ensure you only spread an area that you can comfortably fit in 20 minutes so that it does not dry out.

 

If you have questions on anything you’ve read in this article or want to talk to our wooden flooring experts for advice then please get in touch with us at Wooden Floors UK.

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