I’ve done a lot of remodels in my life, but have never dealt with a laminate wood floor. My Wife and I are about to do a rip and replace on our Kitchen and one bathroom.
The sub floor is concrete. And not real smooth. I’ve been told that a pad under the floor will help with that.
The only recommendations I have so far is to get the thick stuff – 12mm. Makes sense. We have a bit of a rough and tumble life with dogs and lots of snow. I need something as tough as possible.
All recommendations are welcome. But I would love to hear of personal experiences and brand names.
We installed them about 6 years ago. Pros are that it’s much easier to sweep than it is to vacuum and IMO they look a whole lot better. Cons are, if you let dust collect it’s very visible, if you spill a liquid, it goes EVERYWHERE instead of being contained in one spot, and it WILL CHIP, no matter how strong they say it is. Also, we noticed our house seemed a bit louder. The hard wooden floors reflect sound while the shag carpet tended to absorb it.
I would choose it again. But it does have drawbacks just like carpet does.
ETA: Just realized you’re talking about a kitchen and bath. I’d do some research. One thing we were warned about was the possibility of laminate flooring warping if exposed to too much water.
We have the laminate “wood” floor from Ikea. It has been in 5 years and is indestructible. We have 2 kids and a boxer-mix dog. We also live in a dry, dusty climate and walk in and out the door eleventy billion times a day.
In the right light, and laying down with your head on the floor you can see the scratches, otherwise it looks the same as when we put it in. There are a few small dents from toppled furniture and dropped things (roller skates? hammers? you never know with kids), but the dents don’t develop into bigger issues. We also have this floor in the kitchen and laundry room and water has not been an issue. Now, we did have a little buckling where the solstice tree leaked a little under the tree skirt and no one noticed for 2 weeks, but once it dried out it went right back down and you can’t even find the spot any more.
We installed this as a “temporary” floor until we could afford a nice tile, but at this rate I think we’ll be keeping it until the kids move out in 10 years.
Laminate is not wood. It is a picture of wood covered with plastic. But it really looks like wood and in a lot of ways it is better than wood. And cheap. We paid like $1.20/square foot for the materials. Buy about 20% over for scrappage, and start in a less-used corner for install. There is a learning curve and your installation will look way better as you go along.
I laid an Armstrong laminate floor over concrete about 5 years ago, and it was bulletproof. If I dropped anything on it, I was worried that the thing would be damaged by the floor, and yes, I did once drop a hammer on it. Made a hell of a loud bang, but no mark.
A couple of the boards did chip in installation, but I used the chip-fill stuff and a month later, I’d have to search to find the spots - it was like “I know I chipped one over here, but where is it…” After the stuff was down though, I never had a chip, despite falling hammers, canned food, and the best efforts of an occasionally hyper 60-pound dog.
I really wish the house I’m in now had a good laminate - the builder used a real cherry veneer over some sort of soft spongecake material that dents, chips, gouges, scratches and just plain looks like hell after three years.
I don’t remember the brand names but when we redid the floors in the house we went with a lower thickness in the kitchen in order to get the colour I wanted. I didn’t think that the 6mm would stand up to the traffic in the kitchen but it’s been 5 years of high speed dog chases and the only issue in the entire kitchen is a chip that occured during the installation. There have been too many spills to count under the dogs water bowl and still no buckling.
That said the 12mm that’s in the basement is much nicer overall so if I was replacing I would still go with the thicker version but it wasn’t nearly the problem I was concerned about.
Thanks all. I think I will go with the 12mm. Sounds like overall the stuff is pretty bullet proof.
While we do get a lot of snow, and trapes it in with our boots, I’m not two worried about the little bit of moisture. I suspect we will have a number of throw rugs for high traffic areas.
We redid our downstairs with WilsonArt laminates (at our contractor’s recommendation), it’s been great so far, although it was only about a year ago. Two dogs and reasonable foot traffic, still looks like new.