real hardwood flooring vs laminate flooring

seatbeltnoob

Hi

Just want to get an idea whether it's worthwhile getting real hardwood flooring laid or to stick with the laminate stuff.

A friend of mine recently had flooring laid (it was an inbetween product with maybe 3-5mm of real wood with a mdf type reinforcement underneath.

I have to be honest it didn't look special at all compared to the cheap laminate flooring. Just wondering if this was true with other people/s experiences?

I have 7mm laminate flooring in my house, it would be simple to just replace it with the same prduct so I dont have to take out and cut the doors shorter etc.

thriftylass

We had hard wood flooring put down 4 years ago and I wish we had gone for good quality laminate. We already see marks, dents, scratches. My BIL had his laminate for years and not a mark on it.

dermonte

We have just stripped all our laminate. They were all peeling on surfaces. Also a friend have hardwood and she says never again. Looks so scruffy with scratches and dents. We are going with wood effect porcelein tiles this time. Time will tell how it will go.

suki1964

We stripped the laminate out of our hallway and replaced it with wood effect Lino. It's fantastic. Doesn't show a mark, easy swept, warm and soft underfoot and so less noisy.

spadoosh

Got polished bamboo and agree with whats been said. Scatches very easily (becuase its polished) doesnt dent easily though.

Mate has a solid (what looks like) pine floor. He never invites women to his house because their heels trash the floor.

You can avoid some of the issue with wood floors if you go the hard wood route and avoid anything polished.

The top layer wood stuff tends to be softwood (or cheapwood) and dents/chips easily.

If looking at laminates, theyll have an AC rating, the higher the better, stay above AC3.

dermonte

suki1964 wrote: »

We stripped the laminate out of our hallway and replaced it with wood effect Lino. It's fantastic. Doesn't show a mark, easy swept, warm and soft underfoot and so less noisy.

We have wood effect lino in our bathroom, torn about 2cm. All going and getting tiles in bathroom too. I will use a washable rug on them to keep our feet warm and also keep clean.

Silver-Surfer_2

spadoosh wrote: »

Got polished bamboo and agree with whats been said. Scatches very easily (becuase its polished) doesnt dent easily though.

Mate has a solid (what looks like) pine floor. He never invites women to his house because their heels trash the floor.

You can avoid some of the issue with wood floors if you go the hard wood route and avoid anything polished.

The top layer wood stuff tends to be softwood (or cheapwood) and dents/chips easily.

If looking at laminates, theyll have an AC rating, the higher the better, stay above AC3.

:rotfl:How can the top layer of an engineered oak floor be softwood?:rotfl:

seatbeltnoob

the hardwood floor is really for wood buffs I think and it's meant to be quite rustic. It needs to be maintained, sanded down, retreated after a few years. I'll avoid it and stick to the laminates we've had for 15 years.

Silver-Surfer_2

seatbeltnoob wrote: »

the hardwood floor is really for wood buffs I think and it's meant to be quite rustic. It needs to be maintained, sanded down, retreated after a few years. I'll avoid it and stick to the laminates we've had for 15 years.

As long as your mums happy with that.

spadoosh

Silver-Surfer wrote: »

:rotfl:How can the top layer of an engineered oak floor be softwood?:rotfl:

Why would you selectively highlight something to say im wrong when you quoted the bit that made the exemption?

You can get engineered pine, cedar, fir etc floorings. The oak ones, in my experience are really thin layers and tend to negate any of the good properties of using hardwood as such they dent and mark a lot easier than real hardwood floors. Hence the reference to cheapwood.

:T Good contribution.

Silver-Surfer_2

spadoosh wrote: »

Why would you selectively highlight something to say im wrong when you quoted the bit that made the exemption?

You can get engineered pine, cedar, fir etc floorings. The oak ones, in my experience are really thin layers and tend to negate any of the good properties of using hardwood as such they dent and mark a lot easier than real hardwood floors. Hence the reference to cheapwood.

:T Good contribution.

Pine, cedar and fir are softwoods, what relevance do they have to this thread when the op asked about hardwoord v laminate?

None, but feel free to keep digging. :rotfl: