[evobaz]

I'm currently refurbishing a house and i'm thinking about having some Karndean flooring laid throughout most of the ground floor.

I've had a local company recommended so they've been in and measured up and i'm waiting on their quote.

Who's got Karndean and what do you think of it?

Have you had any probelms etc?

Any info would be greatly appreciated.

[steviejasp]

Hi mate, if you want to pm me your number, ill give you a ring. I fit it for a living!!
atb, steve

[evobaz]

Steve,

Cheers for the reply mate. PM me your number and i'll give you a call. I'm at work just now so we'll let them pay the phone bill

(alternatively, if you don't like giving your number out then i'll pm you my works number - i'll be here until 6)

cheers
Baz

[llc]

Hi there

We built our house this year and have karndean on the whole of the ground floor except the lounge, I am very pleased with it, its far more durable and easy to keep than say wood. Infact a lot of folk have thought it was wood till we told them. I have the "van gough grandewood" in 7" lancewood strips which i personally thinks looks better than the narrower strips.

However if i were to do it over again I'd seriously look at the art select section.. it looks brill but a wee bit more pricey.

To clean you just use a DAMP cloth or mop and i use either the karndean cleaner but mostly just a wee splash of flash excel in the water and use the dyson to hoover !

I have dogs/cats/kids & a husband so reckon i'm in a good position to say its durable and family friendly.

[evobaz]

Thanks for the reply

I sent Karndean an email asking if there were any products or material that they recommend NOT to use with/near/on Karndean flloring and this was their reply.

Good Afternoon Thank you for your enquiry. You were quite right in what you have heard, some rubber and plastic product can cause "plasterise migration" to the flooring which is impossible to remove. This is caused with "Man Made" rubbers and plastics such as cheap door mats, plastic dog beds and even flowerpots. I would suggest using either a hessian backed mat or, if you still wish a rubber mat it must be made from a natural rubber as opposed to man made. One company who produces these mats and knows are company well is Turtlemat. There website address is Washable doormats and rugs from Turtle Mat (Official) I hope this answers your question but if you require any further information please do not hesitate to contact me. Kind Regards Liz Collinge Karndean International (UK) Limited Crab Apple Way Vale Park Evesham Worcestershire WR11 1GP

[llc]

Hey i was about to buy myself one of those jml magic mats for the front door as i hadnt heard about this ! I'll now look at the website so cheers for that.

Luckily i dont have anything else on my floors.

I now have Maia worktops & have had to radically change the way I was regarding splashing cleaning agents & chemicals around so I think I am pretty good nowadays.

The only draw back with the karndean which to be honest wasnt so much a problem for me was the hubby having to get thousands of nails into the ply first before the karndean was laid... he used a nail gun which countersank them nicely but he hated doing it & the noise was well.. horrendous in a non furnished house.

[evobaz]

whats involved in the fitting process of Karndean?

The reason I ask is that i was thinking about going for MDF skirtings and facings but have heard that Karndean gets washed or squeegeed with something during/after the fitting process. My concern would be that the skirtings soak up moisture and swell due to them being MDF?

[llc]

Well firstly the floor boards needs to be pretty smooth (ours were brand new) then the ply gets laid & nails/tacks or whatever they are (hey i'm a girl ! ) get put in & countersunk every 4cm. We did this then the floor layer came and if I remember rightly covered everything in a thin layer of some type of screeding & he made sure during this all nails were countersunk enough. Then I think the next time he came it was given a quick sanding and he puts glue on and lays the karndean onto glue. Tricky bits are made to stick with a heat gun thing (an industrial hair dryer I thought) he went through some amount of blades on his knife when cutting the strips but he lays so much he was like a whizz with it.
Apparently the glue stuff is pressure sensitive so the more walking & weight on it straight away the better !

he was just wiping as he went along but I think what you are meaning is cleaning off the glue, obviously a bit oozes out & he treds on it thus spreading it more. I started off using warm water & lightly rubbing with a scour pad to take the dry glue off the next day but this was alot of work, then i tried using wd40.. works quite well ( i use that stuff for so many things) but in the end my karndean care pack arrived with the basic stripper & this takes the glue off no probs with minimal elbow grease so I advise get this first.

You can then apply a coating of "dim glow floor protector" which acts like an extra layer & protects the floor buy my guy said once it wears or after a while you have to strip it all off using more stripper & then re do & its loads of work to be done yearly so i havent used this.

Our skirtings werent actually on when he did ours, but he can lay with or without them and at no point has there ever been loads of any type of liquid to soak underneath the skirtings or bottom of wall area.

I'll post some pics for you esp as i have the lancewood & there isnt a good pic of this type on the karndean website!

[evobaz]

thanks for the detailed reply.

Thats just what I was after.