Välinge Innovation UK has introduced the Välinge Flooring Brand to the market this year – and rewritten the rules on hardwood flooring in the process.
The company’s range of hardened wood products features the technologies of Woodura® and 5G® Dry™, representing the next generation of highly innovative engineered wood floors. Woodura® is a patented surface technology which gives outstanding durability and is also highly sustainable. 5G® Dry™ is a premium water-resistant fold-down system which is unique among hardened wood flooring products on account of its ease of installation and its water resistance.
These new products are getting an enthusiastic reception from UK buyers, who welcome the way in which the new products from Välinge Flooring combine the beauty and feel of a real wood floor with exceptional water-resistance, durability and sustainability.
To meet increasing demand for its new products in all markets where they are active including the UK and Ireland, Välinge is now ramping up its capacity, both at its headquarters in Viken (Sweden) and also by setting up a new mega-factory in Ogulin (Croatia).
The company is taking this step to protect its supplies in a situation where a raw materials crisis was already strongly affecting the wood flooring industry, and this has been greatly exacerbated by the war in Ukraine. Together Ukraine and Russia account for about 25 per cent of all oak top layers produced for the European market and the shortage of oak in general and parquet floors in particular is now having an impact on the market, jeopardising many construction projects, which now face the risk of major delays due to cancelled deliveries of traditional wood flooring products.
The first phase of the new Croatia factory is scheduled to be operational in 2023 and the factory will be completed by 2027. The massive new complex will include a warehouse, press hall, process hall, powder production, energy station and offices. The two factories together will eventually have a production capacity in excess of 20 million square metres annually.
Given that the Woodura® surface technology maximizes the amount of product that can be manufactured from every log, it is possible to see that Välinge’s capacity in the future is going to be truly impressive. Ten times more flooring can be produced from the same amount of timber, compared to traditional engineered wood flooring and 30 times more flooring compared to solid wood flooring. The surface created also provides outstanding impact and wear resistance, making hardened wood floors truly worry-free.
The patented Woodura technology involves the fusing of a thin sheet of real wood with a wood fibre core through a powder mix layer. Compared to traditional wood flooring, the durability of the wood wear layer is massively increased.
In the UK, Välinge Innovation is headed up by General Manager Simon Darbyshire and National Key Account Manager for UK & Ireland, Richard Banham.
Simon says,
“We are now once again able to offer something very new to the market with our latest range of finished hardened wood flooring products in XL and XXL sizes.”