Frequently asked Questions
Who are Ted Todd?
Ted Todd Hardwood Floors was founded almost twenty years ago as a small reclamation business. The founder and present owner purchased old floorboards and beams from demolition sites and found a new life for them in private houses and commercial projects across the United Kingdom.
This small reclamation business with it’s innovative spirit and drive to work with floors that are made to last has grown into one of the most regarded, innovative and creative leading wood flooring companies in Europe. We continually strive to create Hardwood Floors that have not been seen before.
We were the first to introduce many innovative and unique floors. We produce engineered planks out of reclaimed timber, end grains, super wide widths, textured surfaces, engineered planks made of 100% Hardwood, hand made panels, block and chevrons that are under floor heating compliant and antique floors that truly represent their original equivalents. These are just a few of the many wood-flooring innovations that we have championed over the last 18 years.
Why should I consider a Hardwood floor over other flooring options?
The beauty of hardwood flooring is undeniable. Nature continues to provide the most stunning and majestic environments, which have been enjoyed throughout history. One of the most familiar and spectacular of these environments is the Forest and our appreciation of this beauty combined with the capacity to go the extra mile means this beauty can now be expressed in your home.
The magnificent and unique appearance of Ted Todd Hardwood Floors is created with the culmination of nature and our cutting edge technology. Features including grain pattern, medullary rays, knots, colour variation and unique markings are affected by nature and provide each floor with a unique personality which cannot be recreated in alternative flooring options.
Are all Ted Todd products natural?
Unlike most carpets, laminates and vinyl which use man made plastics, all of our wood floors are 100% natural. Just as nature intended, they emit no harmful chemical pollutants. Furthermore, wood floors reduce allergens, making any environment a healthier and cleaner place to be.
Over time, your Ted Todd floor will develop a wonderful patina, something that can only happen with a 100% hardwood floor. Ted Todd wood floors really do age with grace. You are living with nature.
Where can I see your full product range?
You can view our full product range either: on the web within the products section, in our 124 page Inspirations brochure, at our state of the art design centre at our premises in Warrington or at one of our Ted Todd Hardwood Flooring specialists.
What is the design centre?
The Ted Todd design centre showcases a wide range of hardwood floors, ranging from traditional oaks to intricate parquet.
The state of the art design centre is open seven days a week, offers a non pressurised environment displaying the largest range of quality FSC hardwood flooring in the UK complete with a fully comprehensive design library, meeting room and refreshment areas. Interactive work benches house the complete range of take away samples and also allow you to get hands on and design your own floor. Trained professionals are available to guide and inspire the start of your design journey and technical specifications are available for all products. The centre also features a large portfolio of image photography and inspiring graphic boards.
It is truly is a unique environment for immersing oneself in a stunning range of solid and engineered hardwood floors.
It’s easy to obtain a sample – at no cost and without any obligation whatsoever. We’d be delighted to help.
Use either our online product library to select the product, width and finish that interests you and add to your sample basket, fill in the simple form and we will send out your requested samples within 24 hours. Alternatively use the Ted Todd brochure to select your desired samples and email enquiries@tedtodd.co.uk or contact one of our team on 01925 283 000.
Can I purchase my flooring directly from Ted Todd?
Our wood floors are sold through independent wood floor specialists across the United Kingdom and we will direct you to the most convenient company. You will need to identify the best floor for you and you not only need to find a wood floor that you like, but also somebody who understands all the technical aspects of the installation. This is the value that independent advice will add to your project and this will help you to avoid many of the mistakes that other people make.
Where can I obtain prices?
Unless you are a trade customer, you can obtain a price for your retailer. The Ted Todd team can provide you with a RRP for guideline purposes.
How long will I have to wait for delivery of my Ted Todd floor?
We have one of the largest stocks of wood flooring in the UK and this means very short delivery times. If we have the product you want in stock we can deliver the next day if your order is placed before 2pm, but our standard service is for delivery within 3-5 working days.
The project I am working on is offshore - is Ted Todd set up to service and deliver my project?
This is no problem at all. We deliver hardwood floors all over the world.
How long should the wood acclimatise for once delivered?
The flooring should be left unopened in the room where it is to be laid for at least 48 hours to acclimatise before being fitted.
Why should I spend more on a floor from Ted Todd when I can buy cheaper elsewhere?
One of our retailers recently told us about a Ted Todd floor he had fitted 5 years ago.
He went back to the house because the customer was moving to a new house and wanted the same floor again. Originally he had supplied two floors, one a Ted Todd’s floor and the other an Asian produced wood floor for a playroom. The customer wanted the Ted Todd floor again and not the Asian one, the reason was clear to see. Our floor still looked great, the boards hadn’t shrunk or cupped and the finish still looked great but the other floor looked totally different – there where gaps between the boards and most of the lacquer had worn off. We are a very fortunate business because many customers like this buy our floors over and over again and I suppose this is why you should buy one of our floors (for a full technical comparison you can view the quality comparison).
The quality of our floors have resulted in them being specified for projects around the world within high traffic areas, these include the O2 arena, Langham hotel (London), Armani (London) and many more, truly showing the quality of our floors is second to none.
Why should I buy European products over Chinese products?
Wood flooring has been used (private houses, government buildings, Schools, Churches, Hospitals, textile mills, for hundreds of years and it is a very traditional industry. Wood floors were a long term investment, the original buyer has to pay at the beginning so that everybody else can benefit for the years to come! Many wood floors are hundreds of years old and still in use. Longevity and wood floors go hand in hand. If we try and achieve this by only focusing on the price of a product it is unlikely that it would have any other features other than being cheap.
If you trawl through the internet you can see solid wood floors for sale from £14m². To put this is into context, if you only buy the Oak raw material to make a wood floor in either Europe or North American it costs more than this. If you consider that this material has to be dried, then machined several times, graded, filled, sanded, lacquered, measured, boxed, transported to the port, shipped, cleared through customs, transported to a warehouse, marked up by the importer, transported to a retailer and then marked up again, you must surely begin to wonder.
Wonder where the original wood came from to make this floor – was it paid for? Wonder how it was manufactured for such a low cost – how much where the workers paid to produce it. Wonder – can any sense of quality ever enter into this equation. Wonder – why you did not find out a bit more about your floor than just the price?
So quality can be a real issue with Chinese produced wood floors – but even if the quality looks acceptable, consider this. China has little or no Oak of its own, in fact logging is pretty much band within mainland China. It is a know fact that most of the Oak processed into China from Eastern Russia is stolen and the Russian government is fighting a loosing battle to stop its forests from being illegally logged and shipped across the boarder to China. Recent surveys show that up to 70% of all timber crossing the boarder into China from Russia is stolen. Combine this with the statistic that over 3,000,000m2 of Chinese produced wood floors was imported into the UK in first 6 months of 2008 ( 600 football pitches) and you begin to understand why we think that it is not a good idea to support this trade.
(Chinese floor items are normally 18mm thick for solids by 90,100,110,120,130mm wide and 15/20mm thick for engineered in 148/189/190/220mm wide) If you buy an Oak floor and you want it to be European ask your supplier to give you a money pack guarantee if to it is proven to be from China. A wood DNA test has been successfully tested in Germany and this may in time confirm your timbers exact origin.
How can I be sure Ted Todd flooring is environmentally friendly?
We do not believe that the last person in the wood floor chain, i.e. the end user, should be the driving force when it comes to issues regarding wood floors produced using illegally logged material or is endangered. The last person in the chain is the least informed and we should not use their preferences as our own. We are a customer of many timber companies across the world and as an informed customer we take our environmental responsibilities very seriously. These words are supported by a stringent environmental policy which forms the basis for us supplying over 250 items that are FSC certified (audited by BMTRADA) and an absence of any wood species that are on the endangered list. Ensure that products supplied are described as FSC certified on the suppliers delivery note and invoice.
FSC (Forestry Stewardship Council) is an international, non-governmental organisation dedicated to promoting responsible management of the world’s forests. It was founded in 1993 in response to public concern about deforestation and the demand for a trustworthy wood-labeling scheme.
Every year an area half the size of the UK is cleared of natural forests: from temperate and tropical, North and South and on every continent. These forests, which once covered half the planet, are irreplaceable and their loss has a huge impact. Unknown numbers of people and countless species of plants and animals are wholly dependent on forests to live; forests support up to 1.6 billion of the world’s poorest people.
Ironically, the responsible management of trees includes cutting them down. The important thing is that this is done with the minimum damage to the environment, whilst helping local people to see the profitability of protecting their native habitat and planting more trees.
So, when you buy responsibly sourced wooden flooring, certified by an independent Forest Certification Scheme, you know that you are helping to protect the world’s trees. By buying wood products with a FSC logo, you are supporting the responsible management of the world’s forests to ensure that they still exist for our children, for biodiversity and the communities which depend on them.
The more FSC certified products that are demanded, the more forests will become certified to meet the demand.
Do FSC products cost more?
Ted Todd are so passionate about the ethical sourcing of timber that we do not pass any cost on to our customers. We were one of the first companies to appreciate the importance of sustainable sourcing creating a company that not only produces stunning products but genuinely cares about the impact we have on future generations. To this extent you will see that almost all of our floors can be traced back to the forest they came from with the help of the Forest Stewardship Councils (FSC) chain of custody scheme. In fact, we began using the FSC chain of custody scheme a long time before sustainability was even a mainstream issue.
Firstly many people consider engineered wood as a variety of “laminate flooring”, laminate is constructed from plastic and designed to imitate wood whilst “engineered” wood is a 100% natural product.
Engineered wood flooring is precision-made of layered sections of solid wood bonded together. With Ted Todd engineered wood, the grain of each piece runs in a different direction to the adjacent layer, enhancing strength and resilience and reducing the woods’ natural tendency to expand and contract. This means they are less susceptible to movement form moisture or heat and thus are recommended for use with underfloor heating. Engineered wood, unlike solid planks, do not need to be nailed or glued to the sub-floor. Ted Todd is unique in that all of our engineered boards are constructed of nothing less than 100% hardwood.
Which is the best flooring to buy, a solid or engineered wood floor?
Firstly, we only recommend an engineered wood floor for over under-floor heating, so in this instance the engineered floor would be best. It would also be best if you needed to glue wide boards ( 180mm and wider) down to a concrete subfloor – as we do not recommend gluing solid boards over 160mm onto concrete. Other than those two instances the choice would be down to your personal taste, for example: some customers like solid floors because of the small gaps you get between them give the floor a real feel, they also like the idea of having a 20mm thick board that can be re-sanded and sealed for years and years to come. It is all down to personal taste.
Can I fit Ted Todd flooring myself?
Even though the process of fixing wood floors can look quite simple, installing a wood floor is a professional job. The site conditions will need to be professionally checked – this will include the moisture content and level of the sub-floor, air humidity, expansion, under-floor heating and many other issues that might only be apparent to an experienced professional.
Who are your recommended installers and why do you think they are the best?
For residential projects we would always recommend one of our retailers as they are all specialists in their trade I would add that it is usually only the good installers that want to work with good quality floors. The bad installers all tend to work with the lower quality material. For bigger commercial projects we have a relationship with many very capable wood floor contractors who are extremely skilled at what they do.
Can Ted Todd flooring be fitted on Under Floor Heating?
Ted Todd’s range of engineered floors are constructed of nothing less than 100% hardwood and are suitable for use over under floor heating Once installed many of the floors will look no different to their solid versions. Many finishes are available in both solid and engineered versions. You will need to make sure that your under-floor heating system is properly commissioned to insure that your sub-floor is dry enough and the temperature requirements, as outlined in our guidelines, are complied with.
Under-floor heating-why can’t we use solid wood floors?
This is a very easy question to answer. Approximately 10% of wood is made up of water
and if you remove this water (i.e. dry it) it will get smaller (i.e. shrink). Underfloor heating heats the house by driving heat through the floor and this heat will dry your floor resulting in the solid wood floor shrinking. The construction of an engineered wood floor permits the more moisture (water) to be lost from the floor before it starts to move. This does not mean that any amount of moisture can be lost, even an engineered wood floor will start to move eventually if you over heat/dry it.
What wood can I use over under floor heating?
We only recommend that you install engineered boards over under-floor heating and all the engineered woods we do are suitable. We as a company recommend that even in engineered form that you do NOT use a product constructed using Beech as it is not stable enough.
How should I fix the wood over under floor heating?
There are two ways to install engineered flooring over underfloor heating.
Once the heating system has been properly commissioned you can either float or fully adhere the floor. We now supply a great underlay for underfloor heating called Universal Alu and this has four great functions – it acts as a moisture barrier, it spreads the heat, it reduces air borne noise and it reduces through floor noise, so with this underlay in mind. Our preference is for floating. However lots of people argue that by gluing the floor you get better transfer of heat through the floor!
Does Ted Todd flooring mark or scratch?
Yes. Most of our wood floors are made of hardwood and even though it is hard it will still mark or scratch. Some marks and scratches will be filled/removed by the maintenance regime as floor cleaners for both oiled and lacquered floors have filling properties. The natural wear and tear of a wood floor is a key part of its attractiveness – it will mellow and wear with age and this is what a real wood floor is all about .When the floor looks too worn you have the great option of being able to re-sand and seal it. This ability to re-finish is unique to wood floors – no other floor covering can be renovated like a real wood floor.
Can Ted Todd flooring be fitted in a bathroom or conservatory?
We advise that our wood floors should be installed by one of our experienced wood floor specialists as they will advise you on the risks of using certain floors in certain areas. In the instance of both bathrooms and conservatories our wood floors would look great in both of these places. For bathrooms my advice would be to minimise the amount of water that gets on the floor by using a good bath matt and you would also de-risk the use of a solid board by fitting a narrow board rather than something too wide. In a conservatory it is important to look at how much sun the room gets and whether it is heated through the winter, but essentially a wood floor would look great.
Why do we have to leave expansion gaps around the room and in doorways?
Timber is a natural product and it contracts and expands depending on the humidity and ambient temperature of the room. To enable the floor to move you should always
Approximately 10% of wood is made up of water and if you remove this water (i.e. dry it) it will get smaller (i.e. shrink) or if you add more water (moisture) to it, it will grow. The amount of humidity in the air and your sub-floor will effect how much moisture is in your floor. If the air is very warm and dry it will take moisture out of your floor and it will become smaller or if your room is damp your floor will grow in size. The expansion gaps around the perimeter of the floor enable the floor to expand if it becomes damper. Without these gaps it would expand and have no where to go other than up!
(for precise advice about humidity levels please look our installation guide)
Why can't we lay a timber floor on a just laid screed?
Approximately 10% of wood is made up of water and if you remove this water (i.e. dry it) it will get smaller (i.e. shrink) or if you add more water (moisture) to it, it will grow. The amount of humidity in the air and your sub-floor will effect how much moisture is in your floor. If the air is very warm and dry it will take moisture out of your floor and it will become
smaller or if your room or sub-floor is damp your floor will grow in size. If you lay your floor over a wet screed the moisture will be transferred to the dry timber and it will expand. With a
wet floor (over 2%rh) this will cause the boards to cup. We have a some great primers now available to seal screeds with excess moisture. Alternatively, if you are floating a floor you can you use an underlay with a moisture barrier.
( for precise advice about humidity levels please look our installation guide)
How do I look after my Ted Todd flooring?
Maintenance prolongs the life of a wood floor. Put simply, maintenance protects the finish on your floor and in doing this you will prolong the life of that finish. Maintenance also keeps the floor looking good. The specific maintenance regime depends on how the floor was finished in the first place as the maintenance for an oiled floor is different to the maintenance for a lacqueredone. Firstly, the floor needs to be swept, brushed or dry mopped to remove dust and tiny pieces of grit, this applies to both oiled and lacquered floors. We suggest the Ted Todd range of daily, weekly and monthly maintenance products, all of which are available from your flooring specialist.
What guarantee is there on Ted Todd Flooring?
Environmental guarantee- we think it is our responsibility to know exactly where our timber originates. If our suppliers can not prove where the timber has come from or that it has been sourced in accordance with our strict environmental and ethical policy, we simply do not do business with them. We scrupulously check every wood we trade to make sure that it is not on the Red Data List (a list of tree species under threat of extinction), where possible we try to source independently verified FSC-certified flooring, which we supply under our FSC certificate TT-COC-002154.
We only supply the best quality wood floors, they are dried, machined and finished to the highest standards and we have very few problems with our wood floors. If you have a genuine problem with a product you have bought then we will work with you to ascertain what the problem is. If you do not agree with our findings we will commission an independent inspector to prepare a report which will be chargeable if it is found that the fault is not with the timber flooring.
What are your terms and conditions?
Statutory rights, a full copy is available by request.
Can you change the name and address on our invoice, after it has been sent?
No
Can you arrange a credit note for returned goods?
Yes we can, but please note that goods returned will incur a handling charge to cover our costs.
How long does a credit note take to be processed?
This should take 14 days, as we have to check the goods and book them back into our stock system in order to generate a credit note.
How do I open a credit account?
We usually require the first few orders to be paid proforma. We will then send you an account application form check that the information sent is correct with our credit insurers and they will provide you with a credit limit. The credit limit issued will relate to the financial health of your business.
Do you have a dedicated line or web page where I can track my order?
We are working on this facility, but it is not yet ready. Our trade accounts can have an online stock checking facility that is real time and shows them what we have available.
Do you have showroom facilities in London for commercial customers?
We do not have our own facility, but we have several retailers/flooring contractors in London
who have our products displayed in their showrooms.