Parquet Types
Block parquet – a set of rather small blocks (15-22×40-80×190-500 mm).
Parquet board, panel parquet, multilayer parquet – most often these are a three-layer glued wood structures with the upper layer made of hard primary wood.
Glued-laminated parquet – three-layer structure where the upper layer is not factory-mounted (like panel parquet) but mounted while laying above previously laid underlayment.
Artistic parquet – glued-laminated or multilayer parquet with the upper layer made of shaped plates of different species of wood forming a complicated pattern.
Laminate – a set of long-length plates of waterproof MDF or HDF. Covered with hard plastic with wood pattern.
Frieze – plate, brick, stave. Semifinished parquet of different stages is usually called frieze.
Face – wide side of a block.
Edge – lateral longitudinal side.
Butt – lateral transversal side.
Tongue – a part of block that extrudes over the edge or butt surface.
Groove – hollow in the edge or butt for a tongue to enter.
Wear layer – upper block layer from face side surface to the upper part of a tongue or a groove.
Face side – external surface of wear layer.
Backside – surface opposite to the face side.
Lower layer – a part of block width from backside to lower part of tongue or a groove.
Right block – with butt tongue right (if to look on a face side putting the block edge tongue down).
Left plate with butt tongue left.
Block Parquet
Block parquet is a set of uniform blocks that are laid on the floor butt-joint. The thickness of blocks usually ranges between 15-22 mm, width – 40-75 mm, length – 195-490 mm. They are joint by two special laterally prominent tongues. Parquet differs from parquet board by just being not completely running-measurable. It has tongue and groove on butts also.
Multilayer Parquet
Multilayer technology is older than block one. Anciently complicated combinations of wood staves in the form of ornaments were most often cut in wood underlayment (intarsia technique), now they are glued (marquetry). Two or three layers of wood are laid so that the grain of one layer is directed along the length and of the second one – across the length. Such a solution is more stable at humidity drops.
Face wood layer
Face wood layer is hard and made of prime wood. These are thin (usually 3-5 mm) planks of 150 -200 mm length. The lower layer is made of thick blocks that can be made even of wood waste provided it is of the same wood species. It is very important for a board to be strongly varnished. It will be perfect to have five varnish coats as face layer is rather thin and so vulnerable. Varnishing can be factory-made.
Panel parquet
Panel parquet is technologically similar to the parquet board but it has square shape. Typical dimensions are 400×400, 480×480, 520×520, 600×600, 650×650 mm. There can also be other sizes. High manufacture grade of parquet board and panel parquet makes their laying several times cheaper then that of block parquet.
Glued-laminated parquet
Glued-laminated parquet is also multilayer one. However, its upper layer is glued outside workshop already in a parqueted room, on the ready multilayer underlayment. There are no general joints between large panels.
Artistic Parquet
Technologically mosaic (artistic, palace) parquet and glued-laminated parquet are the same. However, artistic parquet can also be made according to parquet panel technology. Mosaic plates often have complicated and even curvilinear shape. They are made of different wood species that have different colors. They can be laid forming regular or sparse ornament and even a picture. Plots of parquet pictorial art are usually romantic. Sometimes they are artistic in the proper sense of this word.
Other
In addition to the parquet types described above there are other types with their own technologies. Block two-layer parquet: upper thin layer is made of wood, the lower one is made of multilayer veneer. It is factory-varnished and has 6 coats of uv-harderning varnish.
Lamparquet (should not be confused with laminate) thin parquet staves without tongue-and-groove.