Guides & inspiration

Hardwood Flooring Grades Explained

Engineered Wood Installation Guide

Herringbone Installation Guide

LVT Installation Guide

Subfloor Requirements

Moisture, Humidity and Room Climate

Warranty, Returns and How a Claim Works

BML Fitting and Warranty

Oiled Wood Care Guide

Lacquered Wood Care Guide

Flooring for Interior Designers

Samples, finish guidance and trade pricing to help designers specify flooring with confidence and present it beautifully to clients.

Flooring for Contractors & Fitters

Reliable supply, bulk trade pricing and practical product support for contractors and fitters working to real project timelines.

Flooring for Landlords & Developers

Durable, cost-effective flooring with volume trade pricing for lettings, refurbishments and multi-unit developments.

How to Choose the Right Floor for Your Home

A practical starting-point guide to choosing flooring based on room type, lifestyle, durability and maintenance needs.

Porcelain vs Ceramic Tiles – Which Is Better?

Compare durability, water resistance, installation needs and ideal room suitability before choosing.

Best Flooring for Bathrooms

Compare waterproof surfaces, slip-awareness and clean design options for bathroom spaces.

Best Flooring for Busy Family Homes

A practical room-and-lifestyle guide focused on scratch resistance, maintenance and everyday durability.

Meet Maliqui, the racehorse we sponsor in Newmarket

Homes & Floors sponsors Maliqui, a two-year-old trained by Charlie Fellowes in Newmarket. Photos, the latest update from the gallops and what…

Homes & Floors Goes Racing: Our Colours on the Track

We sponsored a day at the races. Read the post-race report from jockey Paddy Bradley, riding for trainer Charlie Fellowes, and why…

Engineered Wood vs Laminate: Which Should You Buy?

Engineered wood or laminate? Compare looks, lifespan, cost, underfloor heating and resale value, with an honest verdict on which floor suits which…

Flooring Cost per m² UK (2026): What You Will Really Pay

Realistic 2026 UK flooring prices per square metre for laminate, LVT, engineered wood, solid oak, parquet and tiles, plus fitting costs and…

Best Flooring for Underfloor Heating: What Works and What to Avoid

Which flooring works best over underfloor heating? Engineered wood, LVT, laminate, tiles and solid wood compared for heat output, stability and safe…

Herringbone vs Chevron: Patterns, Costs and Which Suits Your Room

Herringbone or chevron parquet? How the patterns differ, what each costs in materials and fitting, and which rooms each pattern flatters most.

Solid Wood vs Engineered Wood Flooring: The Honest Comparison

Solid oak or engineered oak? Stability, underfloor heating, refinishing, lifespan and price compared honestly, and why most modern homes are better with…

Engineered Wood Flooring Cost

What engineered oak costs to buy and to fit in the UK, what drives the price within the category, and where the…

Flooring Glossary

Every term here is defined in plain English. Where a definition rests on a standard or on legislation, the source is linked…

Herringbone and Parquet Flooring Cost

What herringbone and chevron cost to buy and to lay, why fitting costs more than plank flooring, and how much extra material…

Laminate Flooring Cost

What laminate costs to buy and to fit, what the AC rating changes, and when it is the right economy — and…

LVT and SPC Flooring Cost

What luxury vinyl costs to buy and to fit, why the wear layer matters more than the core, and where click beats…

Best Flooring for Bedrooms

What to put in a bedroom when comfort and quiet matter more than hard wearing, and where the money is better spent…

Best Flooring for Hallways and Stairs

The hardest-working floor in the house, and the one most often specified like the rest of it. What to buy, and what…

Best Flooring for Conservatories and Garden Rooms

A conservatory swings further in temperature and light than any room in the house. What that does to a floor, and which…

Best Flooring for Rental Properties

Specifying a floor for a let is a different calculation: cost per tenancy, not cost per square metre. What that changes, and…

Best Flooring for Homes with Dogs

Claws, wet paws and grip are three different problems, and most flooring advice only answers one. What actually holds up, and what…

LVT vs Laminate

Two floors that look alike and behave quite differently. The core is the whole difference, and it decides which rooms each one…

Oiled vs Lacquered Wood Flooring

Oil for a hallway, a kitchen or a dog, lacquer to wipe and forget: how each finish wears, how a worn patch…

Engineered Wood Wear Layer: 3 mm, 4 mm or 6 mm

The wear layer is the oak you walk on and sand. What 3, 4 and 6 mm mean for refinishing, for underfloor…

Click vs Tongue and Groove Flooring

Click floats and goes down in a day; tongue and groove is glued or fixed and stays put. Which floors use which,…

Wide vs Narrow Plank Flooring

From a 90 mm strip to a 228 mm plank: how board width changes the way a room reads, how a floor…

Flooring Underlay: What It Does and How to Choose

An underlay levels the subfloor, holds back moisture and decides how a floor sounds and how heat gets through. How to match…

Best Flooring for Flats and Apartments

Part E figures, the lease, and why the underlay decides: how to choose a hard floor for a flat without the neighbour…

Laying a Floor on a New Screed

How long a new screed takes to dry, the hygrometer reading that counts as dry, the flatness classes and the heating cycle,…

Bathroom Wall Panels: How Wall & Water Works

What the Berry Alloc Wall & Water panel is made of, its size and weight, what waterproof and EN 13501-1 mean on…

Laminate AC Ratings Explained

AC1 to AC6 under EN 13329, the use classes of ISO 10874, what neither says about water, and what the AC4 boards…

Fitting Solid Oak Flooring

The standards, the 65 % screed reading, acclimatisation, how a tongue-and-groove board is fixed, and why the range's solid oak stays off…

Cleaning and Caring for SPC and LVT Flooring

Low moisture and no pooling: the published cleaning rule for rigid vinyl, what the wear layer is, what not to use, and…

Flooring Calculator: How Much to Order

Room area to boxes: the calculator uses the real pack sizes of every format in the range and the published waste figures,…

Buying Flooring Online: Your Rights

The 14-day cancellation period, satisfactory quality and the 30-day right to reject, total price and honest reviews: the law behind buying flooring…

The Declaration of Performance, Explained

What a floor covering's declaration of performance lists under EN 14041, what UKCA or CE means in Great Britain, how to read…

Slip Resistance Explained: PTV, R Values and What the Label Says

How the HSE grades slip potential from the pendulum test, what EN 13893 covers, what R11 on two of the tiles means,…

Fitting Laminate Flooring

Floating by design, the 8 to 12 mm edge gap, an underlay of at least 14 dB, 75 % RH on a…

Laminate Floor Care

Why laminate is cleaned with as little water as it takes, what the AC4 surface resists and what it does not, the…

Flooring for Period Homes

Suspended timber floors, solid oak to BS EN 13226, herringbone and Versailles panels, ground-floor damp, and why the solid oak stays off…

Best Flooring for Living Rooms

Engineered oak, herringbone, laminate or rigid vinyl for the room you sit in most: wear layers, sound, underfloor heating limits, and the…

What Flooring Delivery Actually Costs in the UK

Every zone, surcharge and postcode area for flooring delivery in the UK, read from the checkout itself, with five orders worked through.…

Engineered Wood over Underfloor Heating

The 27 °C surface limit, what board thickness costs in heat, the 20 mm rule over joists and why gaps open in…

Underlay over Underfloor Heating: Tog and the 0.15 Limit

What tog means, why a hard floor and its underlay together stay within 0.15 m²K/W, how to add the figures up, and…

Porcelain Tiles over Underfloor Heating

Why ceramic and stone tiles carry heat best, what tile thickness changes, why a decoupling membrane and flexible adhesive matter, and the…

Commissioning Underfloor Heating Before the Floor Goes Down

When the screed can first be heated, the functional heating programme, the 21-day commissioning cycle, and why a heated screed is not…

Unfinished Oak Flooring: Finished on Site

What unfinished oak is, why and how it is finished after fitting, oil or lacquer, how its colour changes, and the unfinished…

Engineered Wood vs LVT: Real Oak or Rigid Vinyl

Real oak on a cross-laid core against a textured vinyl plank on a rigid core: water, underfloor heating, wear, fitting, and which…

Engineered Wood Flooring Thickness: 12 to 20 mm

14 mm is the everyday board; 15, 18 and 20 mm are the heavier planks and blocks. Why the 2 to 6…

Can You Sand Engineered Wood Flooring?

Yes, if the wear layer allows it. The published minimums, how many times a floor can be sanded, what our boards carry…

Is Engineered Oak Waterproof?

No, and why: what water does to oak, what a lacquer or oil can and cannot do, why the cross-laid core helps,…

Door Bars and Thresholds: Joining Two Floors

What a door bar does where two floors meet: the movement joint, a step in height, the edge underfoot. The profiles, and…

Laminate Flooring Thickness: What the Millimetres Mean

Thickness changes the height at doors and thresholds; wear is graded by AC class under EN 13329, not by the millimetre. What…

Scratches on Wood Floors: Prevent, Repair, Refinish

Where scratches on a wood floor come from, how to prevent most of them, and how oiled and lacquered floors are repaired,…

What It Costs to Floor a Whole House in the UK

Floor areas by house type, our shop prices per m², published fitting rates that differ threefold, and a worked example you can…

How to Find and Check a Floor Fitter

Where to find a floor fitter in the UK, what NICF, CFA and TrustMark membership tells you, eight questions to ask first,…