13/01/2010
Accoya® wood flooring for floor heat systems
Solid Accoya® wood flooring was born recently due to the co-operation between Diamond Wood and one flooring manufacturer based in China. The testing report by the National Center for Quality Supervision and Testing of Wood and Bamboo products, indicated that solid Accoya® wood flooring is an ultra-high performance all-natural solid wood floor. All the floor properties meet the requirements of underground or under floor heating condition in accordance with GB standard, such as swelling and shrinkage under different moisture and temperature conditions,, surface anti-swelling and shrinking, resistance to surface crack, performance of thermal cycle, thermal conductivity, and better than those of thermal treated wood flooring.
With the population of the under-floor heating system in residential buildings, many flooring manufacturers take focus on the development of solid wood flooring for under floor heat systems. Some specialists in the flooring industry point out that the qualified solid wood floors for floor heating systems must meet the following requirements:
1. Dimensionally stable and high performance under different air temperature conditions;
2. Won’t warp or crack, and has low expansion/shrinkage coefficient；
3. Non-toxic and environmentally friendly, no formaldehyde or other noxious gas release;
4. Anti-swelling to prevent the floor from water damage caused by the heating system.
Most natural solid wood floors won’t meet these requirements except for being non-toxic. Cracking and shrinkage will happen to them when the under-floor heating system runs for a long period. As such, solid wood floors made of multiple species are not recommended to be installed over floor heating systems; until now. Only Accoya® wood has combined all required excellent attributes such as durability, stability, low moisture content (no more than 8%), improved performance against various mold and insect species which grow under the high humid and temperature conditions. Accoya® wood flooring won’t warp, expand or shrinking even in the most severe environmental conditions. Therefore, the flooring life has been improved dramatically.
Acetylation, the modification of Accoya® wood, retains the natural wood strength and beauty. It compares well with solid wood flooring in general and the solid Accoya® wood floor may be processed and finished with various coatings (colors) to meet all fashion and design style requirements.
The most important benefits of solid Accoya® wood flooring is that the Accoya® wood manufacturing process adds nothing but acetic anhydride to the wood. There is no formaldehyde or noxious gas released when the floor is heated. Non-toxic is the key for solid Accoya® wood flooring to meet the requirements of the critical European environmental standards.
Many domestic solid wood flooring manufacturers attempted to develope a new product line for under-floor heating systems in years past. But there were lots of quality issues like swelling, shrinking, surface cracking, warping, discoloration and coating film splitting when the solid wood floor was installed and put into use. An industrial specialist based in Dalian said that during the years past, there were various quality issues which happened to 98% of installed solid wood flooring which was used over floor heating systems in Dalian; the other 2% were not solid wood flooring. We believe that solid Accoya® wood flooring is the true innovation of solid wood flooring and especially well suited for covering floor heat systems. It will create a brand new image for solid wood flooring and open the door for pure, solid wood flooring to be applied over floor heating systems.