Does this type of parquet have a specific name ? (French or dutch names are fine too) I know they’re nailed hardwood parquets, but I’ve only seen this specific type (very long planks with pairs of large visible nails) in old Belgian houses, wondering if it has a name.

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  2. is it hard or soft? if it’s soft (you can push a dent in it with something hard or even you fingernail) i would guess it might be ‘grenen’ or pinus wood parquet

    edit: just a tip, there’s a technique called air brushing i believe that wil make this wood look very light (depending on the finish) and as good as new!

  4. Bonus question: what are you supposed to do with the gaps between planks? I’ve seen them in all parquets of this type, but they’re particularly wide in the apartment we just took over and they’re a nightmare to clean. Can they be filled?

  9. This is an underfloor. It’s the planks that are on your beams structure, and is TECHNICALLY not meant to be used as a direct floor, but you should cover it with linoleum, laminaat or ACTUAL parquet flooring. You will only find this in older houses with wooden beams, since if you work with concrete slabs, you’ll always put down chape and a real flooring material on top of that.

  11. Am I missing something here?

    These a wooden floorboards and they’re found all over the world.

    Are you focussing only on the wood type or you genuinely haven’t seen floor boards before?

    In western countries most buildings (usually above the ground floor) had wooden floorboards up until the mid century.

  16. Follow up question: I’m renting and we have these floorboards, we accidentally damaged them when cleaning and they now look a bit faded – is there a specific type of varnish we should use to restore them to this colour?

  17. Belgian here, I had been in several apartment before buying my own.

    I had this kind of flooring in my last renting. The wood was too soft: everything that touched the wood would leave a mark. And at that time, my dog – a beagle of 22 kg – loved to watch the street from the table and jump, you can imagine the state of the hard-floor when I left.

    ​

    Also, the gap: the dog had a damn diarrhoea once, I had to use a large amount of kitchen paper to get rid of the mess, while trying not to gag.

    ​

    I HATE that kind of flooring.

    I have now a proper ‘planché’ with no gap and easy to clean. I have no idea would someone put such a shitty thing on one bloody floor!

  18. The official name are ‘vuurhouten planken’ and original they were not ment to be seen. They were painted or covered with wall-to-wall carpet, later on linoleum was used

  19. Dekvloer ( deckfloor ) the gaps should be filled with sisal and mastick, like the deck of a ship. But that technique is lost to time and after poor maintenance they look like this. In the 80ties a lot of owners sanded them and painted acrylic varnish over them. The varnish never lasts as the wood is quite dense and often was oiled because that’s how you properly maintain them. oil and wax.
    Some of them are not designed for daily use ( attick floors ) but end up as floors of a penthouse, you need to check those for stability when you rent a place. Jump, things should not move too much. If you jump and your kitchen cabinet opens, that means the floor is rotten or affected by “memel” which is a kind of tiny wood beetle.

  20. I guess this is only meant as subfloor. The structural part of the floor.

    If you want to use it as a living space, it’s best to lay your own (floating) for on top of it. Something like a laminate flooring or vinyl works very well.

    The gaps are there to provide room for wood expansion and contraction. Though in a well insulated house that’s kept on a mostly constant temperature, expansion and contraction will be a lot smaller.

  22. We used Bona Fill and Mix for filling the gaps 3 years ago. Still found no downsides and it looks quite smooth. You mix the product with the wood dust of the planks after sanding

    [https://www.allesvoorparket.be/bona-mix-fill-voegenkit?gclid=Cj0KCQiAsdKbBhDHARIsANJ6-jchoAaSTvAXfR-GZYchEy2n8vIAeyz0-oA35f-UkkiHSFHdmH3grV0aApPYEALw_wcB](https://www.allesvoorparket.be/bona-mix-fill-voegenkit?gclid=Cj0KCQiAsdKbBhDHARIsANJ6-jchoAaSTvAXfR-GZYchEy2n8vIAeyz0-oA35f-UkkiHSFHdmH3grV0aApPYEALw_wcB)

    So far no filler has come loose.

  23. It’s grenen wood. Cheap and soft wood. That, from the picture, is varnished. No need to fill the gaps BTW.

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