Advice on which floorboards

[Carrie]

Hi
I'm new to this. We moved to a very old house (1470) in Suffolk last year. Some of the house is in good condition, other parts need a lot of work. Upstairs the floors are boarded and we're cleaning them up (good advice found on doing a forum search).
Downstairs, the floors are concrete with very thin carpet on top. We'd like to lay a proper wooden floor but are confused about the different types of flooring. Could anybody point me to a good source of independent information? Any good suppliers/fitters near Eye? I'm happy to research and really want to avoid an expensive mistake.
Thank you.

 

[Nemesis]

It deends on what sort of floor you want, really.

Is this a listed building?

Eye. Frederick Ashton is buried in the churchyard.

 

[Carrie]

Thanks for replying. We thinking of an oak floor. It's in a listed building - mostly medieval with Georgian parts. The room we're working on is Georgian and pretty big - about 20' by 15'. It's pannelled and has two french doors with broken shutters and a fireplace which has been tiled over. We are in the process of fixing these and want to finish with a wooden floor which would fit this type of room. Any advice would be appreciated.

Eye is a lovely little town. We live a few miles outside it, almost on the Norfolk boundary. It's a lovely part of the world.

 

[Nemesis]

Presumably you have talked to the Conservation Officer about any changes being made.

Floor. Well, it's not really advisable to lay wood directly on concrete, if you want a planked floor.

If you want a parquet floor that will go on the concrete. You may be also able to get wood finished stuff which has a backing of something appropriate - I'm not sure what it is, but a flooring contractor will be able to advise. It tends not to come in long strips though, you will have more joins.

How to go about laying oak boards - people have different methods, and we've had posts in the past about this, but all will raise the floor level somewhat, as it's best to have a gap between boards and concrete. Boards are traditionally laid on joists on suspended floors with a void under.

So think about what you might have to alter in the room to achieve this, if doors will open, hearth levels will be altered, etc.