We’re in the process of building a lakehouse and are getting to the point where we need to order floors. My initial thought was to install tile that looks like wood so that we can mop it and not have to worry about wear and tear. My husband wants solid hardwood, but doesn’t like the price.
While shopping around, I came across a Pergo-like flooring that looks incredibly like real wood. You literally cannot tell the difference unless you turn it over. However, a few people have said that you have to be careful because it warps if wet. Our house is under roof so there’s no chance of it getting wet during installation, but obviously people will be traipsing in and out with their wet feet and wet bathing suits. Another person warned that it sounds really hollow when you walk on it.
Does anyone have any experience with a higher-end laminate? It’s 15mm and made for commercial traffic, but nearly 1/3 of the cost of wood.
We put it in our last house, and I wouldn’t do it again. Ours didn’t hold up all that well, and it doesn’t sound or feel like wood when you walk on it. I know some people have had better experiences, so ymmv, but I definitely would not want it in a location where it’s frequently wet. Ditto real wood (which is always my first floor choice). I’d do the tile if you think it’s going to get wet a lot.
I’ve laid Pergo several times, and taught the weekend “here’s how to install Pergo, ya dummy” class more times than I can count when I worked at the Home Depot in my twenties.
Pros:
Super fuckin’ easy to install. Easier by far than real wood. Easier than any other flooring I can think of, and I’ve done 'em all.
Super easy to keep clean.
Super easy to remove, including removing single panels for damage replacement.
Not that you’ll need to often, since it’s amazingly resilient. Part of my demo/class at Home Depot involved me hitting it as hard as I could with a hammer. Not a mark.
Cons:
I’ll agree with those who say it doesn’t feel or sound like wood, nor does it look like it from a distance of less than six feet.
The water thing, but honestly Pergo is pretty good with water, when compared to cheaper laminate floor systems. (And there are much, much cheaper ones. Ick. Avoid.) A spilled glass (or even bucket) is not a problem as long as it’s cleaned up pretty quickly. Overnight flooding? Not so much.
For my own dollar, I’d cheerfully go with Pergo if I had dogs or younger rough-and-tumble kids. It would absolutely be my choice for a rental property.
I have Pergo XP (Home Depot) installed in my house. I’m pretty happy with it and it looks nice. And it’s tough. I’ve got two largish dogs and there are no signs of scratches or marring from dog nails.
Not terribly happy with the installation, though. The installers left raw wood ends on the quarter round.
If I had to do this again, I might go with luxury vinyl plank flooring simply because it’s easier to install than laminate for a DIYer.
As far as looking like real wood, I agree 95% of the time. But I have about 350 square feet sitting here that you’d be hard pressed to tell if you didn’t know better.
Unfortunately it’s stacked in my dining room, waiting for me to replace the front door before I install it.
I have installed the cheaper stuff in the past and it went down ok. The vinyl plank would be awesome for a lake house, but it’s not cheap.
I have Pergo in my house. It looks great, stands up beautifully to dog nails, kid feet and chairs being dragged across it. It doesn’t sound as solid as wood when walking across it but it feels pretty solid, thanks to a decent subfloor.
At the seams (where one panel clicks into another) it warps and swells if it gets wet and the liquid stands on it for too long. For an area that is expected to get wet - like underneath towels that are hung to dry, I either would not use it or be religious about having a tray or mat or something to collect the liquid. Just quick spills don’t cause this problem though.
I would invest in a real wood floor in a forever-house but in a just-for-now house its working out better than I hoped for.
Hmm…I’m seeing nice looking vinyl plank at Lumber Liquidators for prices way lower than decent laminate ($2.59/sqft for most Pergo XP). Of course, I am seeing the “As Low As” weasel words on LL’s site…
Installed Pergo in our house 20 years ago. Never again. Looked good only at a glance, was surprisingly easy to ding, surprisingly difficult to repair invisibly.
The ijit previous owners of our house installed it in the kitchen. They also failed to properly install the dishwasher, which leaked, so now we have a lot of warped Pergo in our kitchen.
I’d say it’s fine for dry rooms, but a bad choice for wet ones. Also, we had to install a few planks in the library to fill in where we’d taken out a built-in. Absolutely not the painless installation that was advertised. It took both of us, lots of swearing, and an installation method *not *described on the box to get it right.
So, nyeh. Fine for dry rooms if you get somebody else to put it in. Otherwise, I hope you have a strong marriage.
We have wood vinyl planks through my downstairs in my home. It’s been 3 years and has held up very well. Even survived a “flood” when our ice maker went out. If a section gets heavily scratched, it’s very easy to remove and replace that one section.
I installed Pergo in my kitchen by myself around 15 years ago. It has not held up very well.
Several noticeable dings. A little warpage in front of the dishwasher from a one-time overflow. Seams are becoming more obvious. And it does not look like wood, it looks like…Pergo.
I have a commercial grade vinyl plank in my kitchen and dining area. Most folks can’t tell it’s not wood without close inspection. And by close inspection I mean on your hands and knees. It even has embossed wood texture. We’ve been very happy with it. Two big dogs have made no scratches at all.
I’ve recently seen the wood grain tile and while I’m impressed with the look and durability I’m not impressed with the feel underfoot.
I hate it. Never put it in the bathroom, at some point you WILL have a toilet overflow and it will create all kinds of problems. Not good for entry hallway either. Snowy shoes come in, water enters floor, you’ve got problems. First week we had it, dropped a screwdriver and instant permanent nick. Never again.
Just some further notes - include me in the group that really doesn’t like laminate much. Yeah, it’s relatively cheap and easy and fast to install and can be imprinted/embossed with almost any design and pattern imaginable… but the tak-tak-tak sound of walking on it and the inevitable Hollywood-fakey look no matter how good the representation of a material just weighs against it.
Laminate was developed to be a semi-permanent but removable floor for apartment dwellers in Scandinavia. Within that kind of narrow range, I guess it’s okay.
We put slate-tile laminate in a small living room and it’s lived up to all its reputation. I put it down in about one day, unassisted (one tricky cut around a stair footing). It’s Pergo XP and we used best-grade sublayer foam and all. It’s held up for two years with big dogs (with clacky nails) and I’d be hard-pressed to tell it from new any time it’'s freshly swept and mopped. It’s probably a little warmer on the feet than tile would have been. The matching edge trim was ridiculously expensive - about 1/4 the cost of the actual material, bought on sale.
But the look is still… not quite. The sound ambience is… off. The spousal unit is still pining for the tile floor it was spozed to be. So… it will probably be replaced, and the whole experience kind of confirmed that no matter how premium and special and upscale and so forth, laminate is in that kind of “Home Depot Best Quality” zone… pretty good for DIY and homeowners who want authentic teak floors without having anything like the budget for them, but pretty inferior overall to most other choices, 5/4 hardwood included.
And there’s the water thing. But I guess if you can throw it down in a weekend for a couple of hundred, with no special prep or install costs, and get kinda sorta the wood floor you wanted… shrug
We put Armstrong laminate flooring down in our house a few years ago. In very high traffic areas.
We have active dogs and track snow and dirt across it a lot (gravel drive, mountain living). Still looks like new.
I think tile would hold up better in the long run. But would worry a bit about noise and how hard it may be to walk on. Basically concrete. Not sure if any padding can be put under a fake wood/tile floor. I doubt it.
Our laminate does have a very thin pad under it. It’s free floating. Not nailed or glued down. It makes a difference IMHO.
When you install it, apparently you have to leave room for it to expand/contract, since apparently it changes size with temperature. To prevent unsightly gaps, you have a sort of molding just above the floor with an overhang, beneath which the unattached edge of the Pergo can expand and contract, with that overhang covering the gap.
This seems like an invitation for water to get in – that intentional gap leads to the space between the laminate and the “real” floor, and the Pergo rests on some sort of soft material that fills the space between, cushioning it and allowing the Pergo to slide when it expands or contracts. But that stuff seems to me would absorb any spilled water that flowed under the overhang of your molding and through the gap, soaking it up like a sponge and retaining it. And keeping damp material in contact with the laminate seems like a recipe for warping, not to mention breeding mold.
Yes, laminate, like hardwood, needs a little expansion room against walls and other barriers. I think an eighth of an inch is good for hardwood across the planks, and a quarter lengthwise; haven’t done any in a long time. But laminate wants a half inch, 3/8 minimum, on all sides, so you have to use trim strips that allow it to float underneath, and wall trim that conceals the gap and allows this creep.
A flood on a laminate floor is a disaster, whether it reaches an edge or not. More than a thin puddle for about an hour, and you’re going to get joint penetration. (Good laminate has a plastic seal strip that helps keep moisture out of the locked seams, but it can be compromised by things like pulling apart and resetting boards, something that happens every few dozen in most installations.)
Water getting past edges and underneath is going to lead to warp and damage. That’s why it’s really, really not recommended for bathrooms, not a good idea in kitchens, and should be avoided in any room with outside weather exposure (like foyers or near sliding glass doors.)
Laminate is very much a case of “You want it good, fast and cheap? Pick two and call me back.”
How much water are you talking about? About once a month I just wipe up ours with a wet rag (it’s not Pergo, but Armstrong). I’ve had no problems with wet feet or snow that we track in. I don’t even worry about it.