Ideal Restaurant Flooring
Floors within restaurants have to be hardwearing as well as great looking. The floor in any restaurant has to undergo a considerable amount of traffic especially across its main thoroughfares. The staff are constantly back and forth along regular pathways much as the sheep tracks seen across Welsh hillsides. The constant to and fro of waiters servicing customer’s wants and needs added to the regular arrival and departures of customers and clientele frequenting the restaurant exasperates the stress on the floor.
What is needed to combat the onslaught is a hard but flexible covering that needs little maintenance to keep it in A1 condition. One such flooring product that fits the bill is the very reliable engineered oak flooring
There is a distinct difference between conventional planks of oak and engineered oak flooring. The answer being that oak in the planked form is normally only cut into shape with very little finish work; whereas engineered wood goes through a whole production process. Solid oak flooring expands and contracts dependant on the weather. In a country where the weather seems to change from minute to minute let alone season to season this is a complete disadvantage.
With any engineered wood there is a production process with oak being a small component of it. The benefit of engineered flooring is it is designed in such away each piece fits into the next piece giving a strong secure finish.
How is it made? The superior oak finished flooring is made up of two layers of spruce softwood and an oak surface layer; the middle spruce layer may be substituted with pine softwood. To protect the oak hardwood surface an application of six coats of a clear liquid material are applied. Without this layer the surface of the oak would become damaged and scratched ruining its appearance; oak is naturally strong but what must be remembered is this top layer is quite thin relatively speaking and with excessive use may wear through ruining the look.
The added benefit of this liquid coating is it contains a UV (ultra-violet) component and is added specifically to protect the surface from excessive sunlight; it is not only our skin which suffers from over exposure to the sun
Personal choice will govern which way engineered oak flooring will be fitted; for a strong finish it would probably be best to glue and pin each section to the next although it can be fitted either with pins or glue. This type of flooring has been designed so it can be fitted by clicking each section into the next; however this is less stable form of fitting for an area that will receive restaurant type traffic.
To cover an area with flooring that looks fabulous and will stand up to the kind of rough treatment a restaurant floor will suffer, then engineered oak flooring could be just what is needed.