Compare parquet and solid board

Par­quet and sol­id board are sim­i­lar wood mate­ri­als used for floor­ing, how­ev­er, they have sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ences, advan­tages and dis­ad­van­tages. Our experts — spe­cial­ists in the field of con­struc­tion and repair, have made a com­par­a­tive analy­sis of the prop­er­ties of these mate­ri­als, which will help you make a choice when choos­ing one or anoth­er mate­r­i­al.

We have high­light­ed the pros and cons of using both mate­ri­als and sum­ma­rized them in a table.

parquet board

Par­quet board is a type of floor­ing that com­bines the prop­er­ties of nat­ur­al par­quet and sol­id wood. This floor­ing mate­r­i­al is pro­duced using the tech­nol­o­gy of man­u­fac­tur­ing prod­ucts from lamel­las — small wood­en planks, which makes it pos­si­ble to obtain a mate­r­i­al that is not infe­ri­or in aes­thet­ic qual­i­ties to tra­di­tion­al par­quet, but at a low­er cost.

The par­quet board con­sists of 3 lay­ers:

1. the front or top lay­er is made of nat­ur­al wood of valu­able species. The top lay­er is var­nished to pro­tect the prod­uct from mechan­i­cal dam­age and abra­sion;

2. the mid­dle lay­er, more mas­sive, made of less valu­able conifers, plays the role of a base, tongues are cut into it to con­nect the boards when lay­ing the floor;

3. the low­er, lighter lay­er is designed to give greater rigid­i­ty to mul­ti­lay­er prod­ucts.

Each sub­se­quent lay­er is placed per­pen­dic­u­lar to the pre­vi­ous one, which makes the mate­r­i­al more durable, resilient and resis­tant to tem­per­a­ture and humid­i­ty changes.

It is divid­ed into 4 types depend­ing on the num­ber of rows of planks in the top lay­er:

1. 1‑row — looks like an ordi­nary sol­id wood prod­uct. Most suit­able for floor­ing in rooms with a large area;

2. 2‑row — can be used for the floor of medi­um-sized rooms, the inte­ri­or of which is made in a clas­sic style;

3. 3‑row — the most pop­u­lar, has a sur­face that imi­tates the struc­ture of a block par­quet of the “deck” type and can be used in rooms of any size;

4. 4‑row — the least com­mon, as it is not suit­able for every inte­ri­or.

Laying parquet board

Before lay­ing the coat­ing, care­ful­ly lev­el the base. The eas­i­est lev­el­ing method is a cement-sand mor­tar screed, which must be well dried to a mois­ture con­tent not exceed­ing 5%. You can also pre­pare the base using self-lev­el­ing com­pounds.

The most pop­u­lar type of coat­ing lay­ing is the so-called “float­ing” method. A water­proof­ing film is laid on a lev­eled and dried base, then a cor­ru­gat­ed card­board sub­strate. A par­quet board is laid on the sub­strate, con­nect­ing the edges with tongue-and-groove locks. The lay­ing of each next row is car­ried out in a run-up, shift­ing by about 300–400 mm in rela­tion to the pre­vi­ous one. For lay­ing this type of floor­ing does not require high qual­i­fi­ca­tions.

massive board

Sol­id boards are made from dif­fer­ent types of wood, includ­ing valu­able ones such as oak, wal­nut, mahogany, beech, etc. Prod­ucts are pro­duced by man­u­fac­tur­ers with var­i­ous types of fin­ish­es — var­nish­ing, ton­ing, paint­ing and tongue-and-groove on the side sur­faces, that is, com­plete­ly ready for lay­ing. Dif­fers in dura­bil­i­ty and the fine appear­ance allow­ing to dec­o­rate rich inte­ri­ors.

It is divid­ed into 4 main types, depend­ing on the qual­i­ty of wood, the method of saw­ing and pro­cess­ing it:

1. select type. It is made by tan­gen­tial saw­ing from select­ed wood mate­r­i­al of pre­dom­i­nant­ly light col­ors, which has a uni­form tex­ture with a min­i­mum num­ber of defects;

2. radi­al type. The saw­ing of prod­ucts is car­ried out in a radi­al way, as a result, the mate­r­i­al acquires a tex­tured mono­chro­mat­ic pat­tern. For this type, an array of high-qual­i­ty light-col­ored wood is used with a min­i­mum num­ber of knots and fiber bends, which does not have chips, cracks and oth­er dam­age;

3. nature type. It can be made by semi-radi­al, radi­al or tan­gen­tial saw­ing. Changes in the tone of the wood, knots and small cracks are allowed, with the excep­tion of rough dam­age and cracks;

4. rus­tic type. This view can also be made using any of the three saw­ing meth­ods. Minor flaws are allowed in the mate­r­i­al, which must be filled with put­ty and sand­ed.

Prod­ucts from the man­u­fac­tur­er are sup­plied fin­ished and ready to use, but can also be sup­plied unfin­ished, in their nat­ur­al state. After lay­ing, the coat­ing can be processed, repaired and restored many times, as this mate­r­i­al is very durable.

Solid board laying

Sol­id wood floor­ing is laid on a lev­eled and pre­pared sub­floor with a mois­ture-resis­tant ply­wood under­lay. Ply­wood is laid on glue for lay­ing par­quet and addi­tion­al­ly fixed with self-tap­ping screws. Prod­ucts are con­nect­ed by means of thorn-groove locks; for this, the edges and ends are processed by the man­u­fac­tur­er in an appro­pri­ate way. In addi­tion, prod­ucts can have cham­fers on four sides in order to visu­al­ly indi­cate the bound­ary between the indi­vid­ual ele­ments of the floor cov­er­ing, as well as to com­pen­sate for fluc­tu­a­tions in tem­per­a­ture or humid­i­ty in the room.

Con­clu­sions: A mas­sive board is a more reli­able, durable and high-qual­i­ty mate­r­i­al com­pared to a par­quet board, but it is one of the most expen­sive floor mate­ri­als, so it can be used with appro­pri­ate finan­cial capa­bil­i­ties. How­ev­er, the par­quet board, although a “bud­get” option, also has cer­tain advan­tages that may well suit the cus­tomer.