Burmese? The ones that use for flooring bro.. Is it much expensive than merbau? Hmm

In 2011, the difference is about 50% more expensive. That for the teak with nice wood grain. There some cheaper teak forgotten what the name is dark color. Teak have many type, some can even go upto 200% more.

burmese teak is super expensive, should be similar pricing to walnut.
but i am not sure whats the price after they T&G it. usually i get quoted per tonne or m3

thank you sifu

u planning for solid wood flooring ah?

oh no la, jus helping someone ask

Burmese Teak is expensive because the Myanmar Govt has restricted supply of the wood for export. Is the wood quality good for the price currently offered in the market? Not in my opinion.

Malaysian teak is comparable in terms of quality (assuming hardwood flooring and not engineered wood) but at a more reasonable pricing. If you want to determine the "hardness" of the wood, Google the Janka rating of the wood. This will give you a scientific test on the strength of the wood.

Another consideration is teak wood tends to be more "yellowish" / golden brown in colour. It's quite hard to match the colour palette of teak wood to current modern design. Most of the chalets on the East Coast of Malaysia uses teak for their hardwood flooring.

Nevertheless teak has proven to be quite hardy and well suited to tropical weather. Other possible woods to explore are Balau, Merbau and Belian wood.

This post has been edited by bigred: Nov 2 2017, 12:04 AM

I just saw this topic.

I have a good friend who specializes in wood. He did for Shangri-La resort in Sri Lanka.

If anyone here wants to get his advice or quotation to compare, just pm me. I will give his contact to you so you can liaise with him directly. Tq

Merbau timber flooring supply & install how much per sf now?

Borneo Merbau Timber Flooring work at KYO Club, Mandarin Oriental Hotel, KLCC.


FB: www.facebook.com/NestTimber
blog: nestconcept.blogspot.com/

have been milling some merbau lumber to size to make big bed frame.
thickeness of 48mm down to 35mm (remove all the twist and cupping) from 6-7feet boards down to 0.5-1mm differences.
super straight after i processed it.



after merbau is done, its w.oak pile below it to make a big table top for one of the forumers!

Looking into hardwood flooring - what's the difference between direct glue on (like old fashioned parquet flooring) vs batten?

batten system is about putting some sleeper wood battens/joists, by nailing & glueing them on the subfloor, before installing floor planks over these battens. pros are airy, less susceptible to water/moisture/vapor attack from subfloor, con is, some say, less solid than direct glue down.

Direct glue down- as the name suggests, is to directly apply glue on the subfloor and lay the wood floors into the adhesive. pros. all of 'em - solid, and depending on the type of glue used and application method - sound deadening, sound barrier (lower floor to upper floor), moisture/vapor barrier if applied as membrane - 100% coverage.

I'm not a floor guy but glue guy, working heavily with flooring guys inside and outside of Malaysia.
Most Malaysian wood flooring projects are installed with cheap water based white glue (PVAC) that comes with filler, which are rigid and not moisture resistant - the reason you see those old houses installed with finger parquets, the little strips peeling off one by one after some years. some high end projects would use water less glue but those are minor cases. worse, white glues used in MY are of lower grade than those used in Singapore HDB projects (without filler).

for most individual house projects - chances are - cheap glues are used - as most people only focus no the wood, but not the glue. Some wood species are more water sensitive, expand/contract more than usual, when WB glue is used to bond it, bonding line can snap broken (wood moves too much, glue line isnt elastomeric enough to follow together).

Self-levelling - thse sifus are right - level the subfloor first for installation is always recommended as subfloor condition is critical to the floor condition for years to come.

But in most cases Malaysian installers also omit one important step - applying moisture barrier, especially wood floors installed on ground floor. Did you see them using some kind of protimeter to measure the slab moisture level? it has to be <5.5% to be fit for installation. hell, the really accurate way of measuring is destruction method where you need to drill the slab to a certain deepness and put in a probe for 24 hours.

and what about the moisture content in the wood planks themselves? acclimatized to the environment enough? measure the moisture level before installations? they gotta be like 9% +-2%, too dry cannot, too wet also cannot. if you install when they are too wet (expanded), and later on when dry up more you will see gaps.


tips? use good glue - elastomeric type - MS Polymer based. Westerners have long ditched the use of water based adhesives but went for PU based, or since probably 10-20 yrs ago started to use MS based flooring adhesives. but the price is easily easily >3 times higher per kg wise. You get what you pay.

Wood flooring if installed and maintained correctly, would easily last tens of years - but not a good thing to those industrial players - less recursive business. Had a wood flooring project installed correctly, and maintained correctly, its service life probably outlasts our life. More often that not when an exist wood floor is removed, all you see underneath are those glue residues, moisture built up, so on and so forth? simply because there was no proper moisture barrier and adhesive were used.

oh yeah, Moisture Brrier is expensive, and you can hardly find it in Malaysia. it's not those cementitious waterproofing product you used to waterproof your bathroom, the vapor impermeability property of these Moisture Barrier is way higher, and often in 2k epoxy type.


perhaps also the reason why Malaysians generally only install wood floors on first floor, but tiles on ground floors.

haha sorry long text

Anyone know what's the current price range for supply & install solid timber flooring now? burmese teak, merbau, belian, chengal etc.