Oak Flooring

Here are some pictures of Oak Flooring that was milled recently at Kiltra.

These boards are 6″ (152mm) wide and are provided in random lengths up to 12 ft (3.65m) and with T&G (tongue and groove) on all four sides.  The boards have no bevel i.e. they have a straight edge.

The character, the length and the machining details explained all mean that this flooring is very different to what is available in imported boxes of flooring.

Our aim is to replicate traditional flooring that shows off the natural beauty of the wood..

When the boards are laid they fit closer together and the joins are less obvious than when a bevel is present as the bevel creates a darker shadow gap between the boards.

Solid oak flooring will react to environmental changes in temperature and humidity (please see our technical data page for more details) more than oak flooring that is made of layers of ply glued together with a surface layer of decorative oak.  Where the environment dries out the solid oak boards may shrink and gaps may appear between the boards.  This creates the very traditional appearance typical in heritage properties.

We source the Oak in America, this particular batch was grown by a mill in Tennessee.  It was grown, harvested, graded, sawn and kiln dried by the one family.  It arrives to us in 1″ planks kiln dried to 12%.

We then straighten the boards, plane them, add the T&G and remove any unusable parts.  The finished board here is 18mm thick as these boards were quite wavy and needed to be planed twice.

We are often asked why we don’t use Irish oak.  The answer lies in the volume.  There just isn’t the repetitive volume in Ireland to allow for sufficient quantities of a single size or grade.  If it were available to us we would be only too happy to use it.

Please enquire if you would like to use Kiltra Oak Flooring in your project.  We are more than happy to discuss all aspects with you.