Good quality hardwood flooring will not come cheap. So you can expect a hardwood floor to be in the higher bracket of floor pricing, but with that comes one of the longest lifespans you can expect from a floor covering. The upfront cost is generally high, but hardwood floors offer decades of use, with many lasting up to and over 100 years.

Hardwood flooring such as parquet patterns incorporating herringbone, chevron, basket weave, versailles panels all take a considerable amount of preparation before installation. They are a natural product and the unit cost too is generally not cheap. They also demand a very niche skillset to install and finish.

Many other floor coverings such as carpet, laminate or luxury vinyl tiles have on average one fifth, to one tenth the lifespan of a hardwood floor such as Oak Herringbone Parquet. A hardwood floor installed correctly will last a lifetime for most homeowners.

Yes – studies have shown that houses with hardwood floors offer more resale potential than those without. A hardwood floor is a safe investment back into your home that not only offers a more attractive resale value, but less money spent on replacing flooring more often as your hardwood floor will last decades – and it can be refinished to another colour tone, sheen levels can be adjusted and the floor itself can even have the texture changed.

We would always advise using a professional with proven experience to fit a herringbone floor – any hardwood floor for that matter. The preparation required can often be overlooked, which can be a very costly mistake. If installed by a professional, the flooring should see an exceptional lifespan, with excellent fitment.

Even a small hallway can take several days to install, especially when undercutting skirting boards, curving borders around bottom treads and cutting thresholds to join to other rooms off the hallway.

An average living room may take up to a week, with whole ground floors taking anything up to two to three weeks, depending on how many staff members we have available.

Oak is a hardwood, so it’s compression strength is good and can tolerate a lot of foot traffic. Hardwood floors behave a bit like your skin or hair in the sense that, if you let either dry out and look un-nourished, they will become weak and more easily susceptible to damage. Hence all good hardwood floor suppliers will provide you with a coating system that allows ease of ongoing maintenance.

If protected well, and not left to become unprotected then our Oak floors will repel stains from most substances.

This largely depends on three main factors:

1. How much Oak wear layer you have – floors with only ~1-2mm wear layer will only take one full re-sand. Floors with 4-6mm will take 3-4 sanding and those with up to 10mm may be re-sanded up to 6 or 7 times, depending on –

2. Who you hire to sand and finish your hardwood floor. A good, reputable floor sanding contractor will know how to remove as little timber as possible while still delivering a good result. A poor sanding operator can be capable of ruining even the thickest wear layers with little knowledge when it comes to using sanding equipment which, in the wrong hands can cause significant damage.

3. How well the floor is looked after throughout it’s lifetime. A well cared for hardwood floor will see 15-20 years before it needs a full re-sand. Hardwood floors that are full of heel marks, dents, heavy furniture gouges, repeated staining etc will see as little as 2-3 years before needing sanding again – and what’s more is, they will require heavier sanding, resulting in more material removal in the process thus lowering the lifespan of the floor.