Types Of Wood Flooring

I have written this page for the purpose of reference on this website. There seems to be some differences on what people call some wood floors depending on where you are in the world. For that reason I am defining these floors as I call them on a day to day basis working as a floor sander. Some people will know exactly what they’re dealing with, so this page may only be of limited use to them. For the rest, this page is for you.

1. Hardwood floor

This refers to any wood floor made of a hardwood (rather than a soft wood like pine) AND all the wood runs in one direction. So this could be oak wide board plank, maple single strip, beech 2-strip sports flooring or engineered board.

2. Floorboards (pine)

I think this only applies to folks in the UK. Here in the UK the majority of houses of yester-year were made with pine floorboards. Anything from 4 to 8 inch wide, 1 inch deep, pine boards. They are layed with a 2mm space between them for expansion and nailed directly into the top of the boards into the joists. For this reason they need special consideration.

3. Parquet

Parquet actually covers a huge range of wood block flooring. Like “Hardwood,” people use “parquet” as a blanket term just meaning solid wood floor. But for the purposes of this website Parquet refers to Herringbone Parquet flooring.

4. Fingerblock Mosaic.

Fingerblock is not that common, but none-the-less, I do sand them occasionally. Fingerblock is another form of parquet. It consists of 3, 4 or 5 small block “fingers”, forming a square then the same again next to it but in the opposite direction. The squares form a chequered pattern across the floor.

If your floor is different to these floors, all you need to consider is the direction of the grain of the wood. If the grain of the wood runs diagonally in 2 directions across the floor like the parquet, use the parquet tutorial, if the direction of the wood runs across and along the floor, like the Fingerblock, use that guide. If your floor is nailed into the subfloor, it may be worth reading the floorboards guide aswell. I hope this helps, any questions leave them in the comments section below.