How To Choose and Fit Wood Flooring In The Bathroom

Wood flooring is a great way to improve the look of a room, but a lot of people are unaware that it can be suitable for bathrooms and shower rooms, as well as the rest of the house. Too many bathroom floors are covered with unattractive lino for the sake of functionality, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Wood flooring can be the perfect way to add some quality and style to your bathroom, provided you know which wood to choose and how to fit it.

Most wood is no good

The first thing you should know is that most wood is unsuitable for the bathroom. Water spills, splashes and high humidity levels quickly damage most species of wood, leaving it warped, unattractive and perhaps unusable.  

So which wood should I choose?

The extremes of temperature and humidity in a bathroom mean that your flooring material must be extremely tough and durable. In this case we would recommend engineered wood flooring.

Engineered wood flooring is an alternative to solid wood, which is made from a solid wooden board, fixed onto a plywood base. The reinforced structure of this material makes it much tougher than solid wood and able to deal with the moisture, humidity and temperatures that it would face in the average bathroom. To ensure that your engineered wood flooring is durable enough it should be at least 14mm thick. 

How to fit wood flooring in your bathroom

Engineered wood flooring is fairly easy to fit. It can be glued down, which involves applying a suitable adhesive to your sub-floor and then simply laying your wood flooring. 

Another option is floating installation. To do this put down an underlay on your sub-floor as a moisture barrier, apply PVA to the tongue and groove parts of your flooring and fit the planks together until your floor is laid.

For more information on how to install wood flooring read this recent post.

Protect your hard work

The final stage of the installation process should be to apply a protective finish to your flooring. The best options for a bathroom or shower room are hard wax oil and laquer. Laquer should make your floor just about waterproof but it is not a natural product. Hard wax oil seeps into the core of your flooring to protect it against moisture and it is all natural.