Christmas Hours

Its almost Christmas, and almost time for the Christmas holidays. We will be closing for two weeks from Wednesday the 22nd of December to Thursday the 6th of January! We hope you have a very merry Christmas and a Healthy and Happy New Year.

Winter Weather

During the winter months it can sometimes take a bit more work to protect your hardwood floor. Snow and salt are the main culprits in producing this extra work. Snow that is tracked into a building can result in puddles laying on the floor. This can cause various types of damage including swelling and black spots.

Salt or grit used to melt the snow outside can created residue marks on your hardwood floor. These can be easily cleaned using a floor cleaning spray and dry mop, never use water on your hardwood floor. Some larger pieces of grit can also cause scratches in your floor. Regular sweeping or hoovering can help prevent this.

A simple solution to both of these problems is a throw down mat at the entrance to the building. This will help to remove any excess water, snow, grit or salt and prevent it from reaching your floor.

Staining

In today's fast changing style market it can be expensive to keep up with the latest trend either in fashion or in your home. As styles change the colour of your floor can be the most difficult factor to change in your room.

The easiest solution to this problem is staining. Most hardwood floors can be sanded, stained and resealed. There are any number of colours that can be chosen to give you the ideal look for your space. Some floors are easier to stain than others and it is usually better to choose a natural looking colour but there are some more unusual finishes that can be applied.

If your floor is too old or damaged to be sanded, there are multiple products that are pre-stained. Floors such as the Junckers Sylvared that I wrote about previously or the sand collection from Kahrs, a selection of Ash and Oak with a white stain to give a muted colour with a natural grain. There are also more unusual colours in products such as Concept II from Atkinson & Kirby. This is a collection of Oak stained in various colours from red, blue and green to black or white. All of these floor also come in an 'Elite' style which have been slightly worn to give a lived in look and when you want a change of look the colour can be sanded off to show the bare Oak underneath. Junckers also have some floors finished in the Soul+ and Reflections collections. There are shades of red, blue and brown to choose from.

Pictures from top to bottom - Junckers Reflections Spicy Pepper, Kahrs Oak Portofino and Concept II Emerald Green.

A Solution to rare wood preservation

The warm colours of rare tropical woods, such as Merbau, Jatoba and Jarrah, can make a huge impact on a room, but it is becoming evermore difficult to source these types of wood.

Junckers have been supplying wood floors in the UK for over 45 years and have developed a diverse range of products during this time. One of these products is Junckers Sylvared. Sylvared is a beech floor that has been pressure stained to give the look of a tropical wood. The benefit of pressure staining compared to normal surface staining is that the wood is dyed throughout. This means that it is possible to sand the floor without the loss of the stained colour.

A new form of Wood Flooring

Celenio is wood at its most innovative: with the shape of tile and the look of stone, slate or leather it opens up completely new design possibilities. And yet it gives us the pleasant, comfortable atmosphere only wood can create.

The great benefit of Celenio is the warmth and durability of wood with the look of a stone, slate or leather floor. The tiles are very hard wearing and very resistant to knocks and scrapes.

Celenio is perfect for the bathroom or kitchen. Very resistant to water and impact from heavy objects, for example, pots and pans. From our own testing they will even stand up to repeated impacts from a hammer.

Celenio tiles also work perfectly with underfloor heating systems. Experience the luxury of a new floor with the added warmth of an underfloor heating system, a cheaper and more environmentally friendly way to heat your room.

Visit our showroom today to see a sample of this new product.

Repairs

Most floors require some level of repair before they can be sanded and varnished. This may be as little as securing loose boards or as extensive as relaying whole areas . If you do not wish to undertake this work yourself we will happily estimate for any repairs necessary. If the floor is unavailable for inspection at the time of our initial visit then we will give you a rate per lineal metre for board repairs or alternatively call back when the floors are uncovered. The following repairs are commonly requested ;

Loose boards can generally be secured by screwing or nailing to the joist below . Often the board will need to be packed up level and re-positioned to line up correctly with adjacent floorboards. Occasionally we find that the joists below the loose boards have been channelled out to take pipes and cables making it difficult to secure the flooring properly. In such cases a Bridge repair is required to enable the gap in the joists to be spanned.

Patching of split or damaged floorboards can be done using new material in a matching width and thickness. The new patches are Tinted during subsequent coats of varnish to ensure a reasonable colour match with the original floorboards.

Filling is carried out using a two-component wood filler specially formulated to resist cracking and shrinking. It is used only to fill minor splits, knots, and saw cuts within the floorboard , not as a general gap filler. We do not recommend filling gaps between floorboards unless the gaps are in excess of ¼ inch (6mm) in which case Fillets are used.

Fillets are long wedge shaped pieces of timber designed to fill spaces of between ¼ - ½ inch (6-12mm).The fillets are hammered down between the boards and glued in position with adhesive before sanding and varnishing.

Hearth stones can be broken out and patched in with new timber if desired. However this is a particularly expensive procedure and very often un-necessary since furniture and rugs will often hide the hearth completely.

The seven deadly sins of bad floor maintenance

1. The floor remains unswept leading to a build up of grit on the surface – grit 13 is what we use to sand floors – any surprise therefore that this is the no. 1 deadly sin

2. The floor is washed regularly – we still hear this time and time again usually from well meaning, hard working individuals who think they are fighting a loosing battle against a ‘damn’ floor which just wants to stay clean – if only they realised that it’s the washing that caused the problem in the first place

3. Using the wrong polish/maintenance materials – would you clean your new car with the first thing that comes to hand when you look under the kitchen sink – no – then why do we often find people using the same polish and cleaner on their wood floor as they use on the other floors throughout the facility

4. bourne seal or any other historic formulation of oleo resinous seal just do not work on modern hardwood floors – yet every year we still sand acres of dark, black, dirty bourne sealed floors to reveal a beautiful hardwood floor

5. Line markings applied/repaired with coloured vinyl tape – ok it saves money but really! – give it 3 weeks and all that’s left is a dirty black glue line that cannot be removed

6. No barrier mats at doors, felt pads on furniture – faulty gym equipment – taking a few simple precautions can save you a fortune in maintenance costs and unnecessary repairs to your floor

7. No cleaning and maintenance instructions available – how can you hope to ensure your expensive investment remains in tip top condition.

5 reasons for good maintenance

A good maintenance program can result in your floor looking its best for a longer period of time. The following are 5 reasons for keeping your floor well maintained.

1. Better looking floors that ‘reflect your image’

2. Slip resistance is maintained

3. Life span of the floor is prolonged

4. Life span of line markings can be guaranteed

5. Fast turnaround compared with sanding and sealing means less business ‘down time’

11 Fatal flaws in your wood floor maintenance strategy

1. We wash it every day

2. I use the same polish as i use on vinyl floors

3. We ran out of the proper stuff years ago and didn’t know where to get it from

4. It gets a coat of bourne seal every year, wether it needs it or not

5. The line markings get repaired with coloured vinyl tape – but it keeps coming off

6. The dust mops broken – we really should get another one

7. Yes we have a buffing machine but the pads are too expensive

8. We don’t have the time to get the floor properly cleaned and de-greased

9. The scratches were caused when we dragged the equipment across the floor

10. It doesn’t matter, we can always re-sand it

11. The cleaners didn’t have any instructions.

GL Floors : A History

G.L. Floor Finishing Company ( established in 1965) Specialises in the instalation, refurbishment & maintenance of hardwood floors. Our expertise, gained over 45 years, is maintained by a combination of rigorous quality control and a strong commitment to training. Our good name is your guarantee of complete satisfaction and our aim is to continue to provide the highest standards of craftsmanship and service to our customers.

Based in Edinburgh, our company combines traditional, high quality materials with the latest advances in technology. We have a very extensive range of pre-finished floors to choose from including Kahrs, Junckers, Atkinson and Kirby, Edwards Cheshire and Parador. We also have a wide selection of traditional unfinished hardwood floors, which can be laid incorporating a variety of designs and patterns and a range of modern and unusual laminates and wood composite tiles.

Our floors can be seen in many large & prestigious sites, for example ; Parliament House Edinburgh, The Old Course Hotel St. Andrews, Palace of Holyrood House, Edinburgh Castle, Gleneagles Hotel, The Balmoral Hotel, Edinburgh, The Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh, to name but a few, however, the massive growth in new products and manufacturing methods in recent years means a wider choice of products to suit all styles and budgets so there is no reason why this same elegance and luxury shouldn’t be enjoyed in the comfort of your own home.

We are recognised as one of the leading British firms working in the very specialised business of supplying and fitting hardwood floors. We also have a full refurbishment and maintenance service. Our range of work varies from sports halls to universities, from restaurants to offices and the general public. All these customers choose hardwood flooring because of it’s ageless style and ease of maintenance. A wood floor in the home can dramatically reduce the health risk from allergies, as it can be kept completely dust free.

In order to fulfil our companies long term commitment to the environment, we buy all our products from sustainable sources.

A short introduction

GL Floors have been laying and sanding wood floors for nearly half a century. From solid Oak planks at Edinburgh Castle to ornate parquet designs at Gleneagles. Visit our Edinburgh showroom to see a wide selection of hardwood flooring options.