Best laminate worktop for rental property?

GSDog

My mother is renovating a house which she's going to rent out for a couple of years and she's trying to choose a worktop. Granite is too expensive and wood is out of the question because she wants something low maintenance.

What is the best type of laminate worktop to get for this purpose? She wants it to be good quality, affordable and easy to maintain. We've looked at some laminates in various shops but many of them felt really cheap.

Is there a particular manufacturer/brand of laminate tops we should be looking at?

Any help would be appreciated.

phill99

If she is looking at renting out it for a short time, spending money on expensive laminates is unwise. While many tenants look after rented properties, some don't. Some even seem to take pride in destroying rented accommodation. It would be ,ore copst effective to have a low cost laminate and then when she comes to movce back in, upgrade to a higher quality one. You can get some decent 'budget' type laminates from B & Q, Magnet Trade and Howdens. Howdens call them the 'contractors range'.

GSDog

She's considering doing that. The property is in a good area where tenants will expect quite high quality fittings though. We haven't actually seen any decent quality ones yet, only the budget ones which we didn't really like.

I guess it depends on the price difference between a budget and a more expensive laminate. If it's only a few hundred quid more for a good quality top then she'd buy it.

phill99

A company called Duropal make a very good laminate worktop and so do Formica under the 'Axiom' brand. However, just by looking at them, most people would be very hard pressed to see the difference between these and an unbranded one say from Howdens or B & Q.

And you need to remember, you need to get out of the habit of thinking 'I don't like these'. What you do for your own home and an investment house are 2 different things. With the latter you need to err towards cost effectiveness and robustness, not whether its the perfect shade or not.