Long-lasting pleasure in parquet floors

You made your bed, now sleep in it. In keep­ing with this pro­verb, Ger­mans are now becom­ing increas­ingly aware of how import­ant a healthy liv­ing envir­on­ment is for their own well-being. The latest Baumit-Sen­t­inel-Hein­ze study showed that around 90 per­cent of all Ger­mans regard the emis­sions from build­ing products as harm­ful to health and do not want them to enter their homes in the first place. With respect to emis­sions, large sur­face areas like walls and floors play a cru­cial role. These days, par­quet is a very pop­u­lar floor cov­er­ing. It’s a pleas­ure to let your eyes “wander” over the unique, nat­ur­ally grown struc­ture of the wood. When walk­ing bare­foot, wood feels pleas­antly warm and soft. But how can par­quet be installed and its sur­face treated without mater­i­als that con­tain harm­ful sub­stances? And how does par­quet stay beau­ti­ful for a long time?

Thanks to its many advant­ages, par­quet has conquered the hearts and house­holds of many people. Its nat­ur­al beauty radi­ates a feel­ing of warmth and safety but also eleg­ance. If the par­quet ele­ments have been bon­ded to the sub­floor, the heat of the under­floor heat­ing can reach the sur­face with hardly any loss and walk­ing noise has no chance. Numer­ous pat­terns, intar­sia (inlay work using dif­fer­ent spe­cies of wood) and friezes (dec­or­at­ive bor­der ele­ments) as well as mater­i­al com­bin­a­tions are pos­sible. With bon­ded install­a­tion, the par­quet can even be installed through sev­er­al rooms without pro­file rails. Sand­ing and re-seal­ing is easy and pro­duces smooth sur­faces. How­ever, only low-emis­­sion products should be used for install­a­tion. The EMICODE^® seal provides use­ful guid­ance.

Water-based var­nishes– vir­tu­ally solvent-free

Once the wooden floor has been laid, the ques­tion arises: Which sur­face treat­ment offers long-last­ing pro­tec­tion and healthy liv­ing at the same time? Par­quet var­nishes are a good choice if the floor is sub­ject to heavy-duty use. They are avail­able with dif­fer­ent gloss grades to suit all tastes. Water-based var­nishes are par­tic­u­larly pop­u­lar, because they con­tain hardly any solvents. The very small quant­ity of solvent serves as an aux­il­i­ary agent which, just like water, evap­or­ates after applic­a­tion. After­wards, only the desired seal­ing coat remains. This can be eas­ily vacu­umed and wiped with a damp cloth. Renov­a­tion is only neces­sary every 10 to 15 years, depend­ing on the qual­ity of care and seal­ing. The ser­vice life of par­quet floors can span sev­er­al gen­er­a­tions. It strongly depends on the thick­ness of the wear lay­er, which can be sanded down sev­er­al times.