Wooden or Laminate Flooring?...

we have one room that has 'proper' wooden flooboards and another room with laminate flooring. The laminate is actually looking better as the flooboards are begining to shrink and leave some unsightly gaps.
With the laminate we spent an age looking at the various types, seems the thicker the better ours is 800mm. Also came with a 20 year guarentee and is pretty hard wearing, it is in the kids play room

Laminate noise can be reduced by the type of underlay used to a point. As with carpet, its the underlay which is important to!

I also believe laminate/wood floors are just as popular now as they have ever been and carpet is still lagging behind.............

If going for laminate, get a good one. As a fitter i would recommend quickstep 800 0r 950 and a timbermate excell underlay. this wont be a cheap option but a good one! It can even work out similar to some cheaper engineered wood floors.

I personally like laminate above wood floors, and its very easy to keep clean, but all down to personal choice. I had carpet in the house for years , but now only left with the stairs. I dont find the laminate cold or particularly noisy and its much better with the young ones asthma etc :)_

We sold our last house only 2 years ago, and the solid wood flooring was a definite plus point, so I don't think you need to worry about it putting off buyers. You shouldn't have a problem with noise in a bungalow, especially if you use a decent underlay. So the only question is what you like, want and can afford.

I personally would go for wood over laminate any time - laminate to me just can't compete with the colour and light variations in real wood, no matter how good it is. Also, wear tends to show up on laminate, whereas wood, being a natural product, just seems to look better with age (like leather does). If you do go for laminate, then I agree with gardnt1 - Quikstep is very good, especially if you go for the contract grades.

If you go for wood, Bruce is very good, so is Tarkett. Junkers also, but harder to get hold of. Floors2go always seem to have a good range, and prices generally very competitive. As for finishes, bamboo is very hardwearing, and oak is lovely, but be careful of the colour in such a big area - a dark oak can make the rooms look dark, especially as wood won't reflect light as much as laminate.

Re gapping - you're going to need an expansion gap around any type of floating floor. You need to have the boards in the house at least 48 hours before you start to lay to allow them to equilibrate with the house's atmosphere (level of heat, amount of moisture, etc), and I'd recommend at least a week with natural wood. If you're using glued boards, it's worth getting ratchet straps to apply even pressure on the floorboards and make sure they're fitting tightly against each other.

lol very low ceilings now for a guess now also

tawnyowls wrote:

I personally would go for wood over laminate any time - laminate to me just can't compete with the colour and light variations in real wood, no matter how good it is.

Me too - I agree. The laminate fad can't last much longer. It's asking for ridicule from TV makeover progs and style magazines in a short while, if they haven't started knocking it already. It may look a bit like wood but it really is one of the cheapest looking, nastiest, fake products ever invented, in my opinion. It's nothing but cheap plastic is it? - Just a synthetic photo of wood grain. Flock wall paper and chintz fabric have previously been lined up for ridicule but now seem classy in comparison to laminate flooring.

And yes, I do have some laminate flooring in my house and will be getting rid of it a.s.a.p. It was a big mistake. The room is not very large and, in hindsight, it would not have been much more expensive to fit solid or veneer oak. I was duped by the laminate fad too, just like with my Dyson vacuum cleaner.

Regards
George