Installation - the difference between average and excellent
If you want a full-grain leather floor to be installed properly, time, expertise and unstinting meticulousness are essential ingredients.
Radiant Underfloor Heating – Leather
Not only are our leather floors specifically constructed for use with radiant under-floor heating, but our fully bonded installations, when combined with the thermal conductivity of our panels, maximise the system’s efficiency.
Owing to its inherent characteristics, any type of leather flooring, wherever it is to be used, must be carefully specified, selected and installed. This is never more critical than when it is to be installed over a radiant under-floor heating system. The close proximity of the heating source and the use, in effect, of the floor as a large radiator can give rise to serious problems. As any well-informed architect or contractor will tell you, radiant under-floor heating tests a leather floor to its limits. In such conditions only an exceptionally well engineered leather floor should be specified. The technical supremacy of an Element7 engineered leather floor, provides the dimensional integrity necessary for the leather floor to withstand the extreme humidity and temperature changes, caused by radiant under-floor heating.
Exceptionally engineered Element7 leather floor panels are the informed choice for use above radiant under-floor heating.
Installation – Leather
Time, expertise and unstinting meticulousness are essential ingredients in achieving a top-class installation. At Element7, not only do our in-house installation technicians have to be time served, but more importantly, they operate to our own exacting standards and fastidious installation methodology. The result is that an Element7 installation guarantees perfection, whereas the installations of many others, frequently aim at best, to hastily achieve an acceptable standard only.
Some installers are simply not aware of the correct methodology and refinements necessary to install a leather floor to the highest of standards. If their clients are not told that the floor could have run seamlessly from one room to another without door thresholds, or that the cut leather panels at each side of the same room should be of identical widths for aesthetic balance, or that the leather floor should be inserted beneath a door frame, not cut around it, or that an inlaid electrical floor socket should be leather grain-end-matched, or that the cheaper glue option is not the right one (radiant heating), or that an obvious gap between panels is unacceptable – the list of such refinements goes on – their clients might remain unaware of this lack of finesse. The average Element7 client however, would notice.
Our philosophy does not distinguish between more and less observant clients: an Element7 installation is the difference between average and excellent. Floors installed by Element7 are fully guaranteed.
Sub-floors – Leather
Sub-floors are the wide-plank wood floor’s foundation. If a sub-floor is in any way compromised, it can seriously affect both the look and structural integrity of the leather floor above. It is therefore essential to ensure that the sub-floor has been properly prepared prior to beginning installation of the floor.
As you would expect, Element7 ensures that sub-floors are correctly prepared. Liaising with the main contractor and overseeing the correct preparation of the sub-floor is a key part of our installation procedures.
Download detailed sub floor requirements: Sub-floors PDF (73KB)
Noise Control – Leather
Leather is an excellent sound insulator in its own right, however when you carry out refurbishment or new-build work, there are a number of building regulations governing the minimisation of airborne and impact noise. Element7 can guide you around the pitfalls to ensure that you comply with the regulations and achieve the most practical and aesthetically harmonious solution.
With a leather floor the correct procedure is to use acoustic sub-floor panels which are sound and impact noise-rated and bond the parquet to the sub-floor in the normal way; you cannot float a panelled leather floor above decibel rated underlay.
Floor Protection – Leather
Protect your investment. Once installed, leather floors need to be temporarily protected from the damage that they will almost certainly incur as other trades complete their works.
The cost of replacing, repairing or refinishing a floor after it has been damaged far outweighs the cost of floor protection.