Karndean. Is it worth it?

pjjafc

Hi

I need to order 50 square metres of flooring for a hallway and kitchen. A lot of people are suggesting karndene (we want a wooden "look" kitchen floor), but I've also read some horror stories.

My question is.. Is Karndene worth the extra expenive over a lesser engineered wood floor?

TheCyclingProgrammer

We have it in our house - it was there when we bought it 6 months ago and to be honest I'm not a fan of it. It hasn't been laid very well from what I can tell (our flooring/carpet fitter wasn't that impressed either) - the underlying screed was poor and its quite bumpy in places. It has also become sun-bleached where the floor is exposed to the sun coming through the conservatory roof.

Its quite practical and seems to clean well but I'm just not a fan of how it looks. It looks nothing like wood - it looks like what it is, shiny plastic. If you're going for a wood effect I'd look at either high quality laminate suitable for kitchen use (like QuickStep Impressive Ultra, but its not cheap at around £28/sqm) or wood-effect tiles.

At some point we hope to rip out the Karndean and old tiles in the conservatory and have the whole lot tiled. Practical, hard-wearing and much nicer looking IMO.

pjjafc

Appriciate that. Thanks.

I'll probably look elsewhere then. I was "happy" to pay around the £1200 for Karndean as its £23.99 per m2 so an extra £200/£300 for a better floor isnt really a concern.

TheCyclingProgrammer

FWIW, we have the QuickStep Impressive in our lounge/dining room/hallway and it's very good. According to our fitter the only difference between it and the Ultra is the Ultra is made for bathrooms/kitchens. So whilst I can't recommend it for its waterproof abilities as I can recommend it as a very good laminate. Very realistic, not shiny and really the main giveaway that it isn't real wood is the pattern repeating.

Its worth finding a good fitter (even better, a QuickStep master installer) who can offer you an additional guarantee on the fitting, although Quickstep's manufacturer warranty is very good too. I'd say this is even more important if you're having it fitted in a kitchen or bathroom.

The non-Ultra can be found online (flooringsupplies.co.uk was the cheapest I found) for around £22/sqm which is cheaper than the QuickStep RRP so you might find the Ultra for around £25/sqm. Our fitter supplied it for us for around that price as he needed to supply it himself to give us the guarantee. Our lounge/dining room/hallway was approximately 40sqm and the whole job cost £2300 fitted which included pouring a self-levelling screed in our hallway and some extra levelling in the lounge, and fitting of skirting boards after (which we supplied).

When we were shopping for tiles for our shower room I saw some very good looking wood effect tiles but I have no idea what they cost.

Hintza

I like Karndean, we have it in our bathrooms. Not sure I would have it in a kitchen though.

We wanted old fashioned linoluem in the kitchen but there was 18mm to to be made up so in the end went with a stone floor (we have UFH and a GSHP) so it works well and is always warm.

eastonian

Have it in our (large) kitchen and love it. Looks great, v hard wearing and easy to clean.

We got a good deal (partner got it wholesale price via work) but I would have been happy to pay full whack for the results.

no1catman

Had a Karn dean Floor fitted about three years ago.
After having restoration work done to the kitchen following water damage from a leaking pipe, the floor just didn't look good enough.
Had a Floor covering fitter in to advise, showed plenty of samples, put off a bit by the price - the one we were looking at turned out to be the most expensive premium tiles.
Just couldn't decide, so Sunday morning travelled about 80 miles to the Evesham showroom, to see what they had there. Pleased we did, very happy with the mid-range one we chose, and their advise about the edging to create a pattern.
Fitter, went and collected, and fitted - still looks great.