Advice for choosing laminate flooring for lounge / dining area

Rosa_Damascena

I have engineered wood and I have to be honest I'm still not too happy with it. Its durable and resilient BUT 5 months after the builders have gone and its still looking dull, despite countless episodes of mopping and polishing. I'm starting to think I should be varnishing it to bring out the beauty of the wood.

tallac

nLdn said:

I'm in the process of refurbishing my lounge / dining room and planning to get rid of the off-white carpet that never looks clean. I'm looking to get a quality laminate floor and I've noticed there are so many websites offering flooring. What should I be looking out for to make sure I'm buying something good quality? What should I be avoiding? Are there any particular features I should be checking for?

Any brand or retailer recommendations?

If you have not had laminate (or any other hard flooring) then it is worth doing a bit of research. If you're new to it then one thing that might not be apparent is that it can feel very cold under the feet during colder months (when wearing socks or bare food). If always wear slippers then it's not a big deal. Even with under floor heating, it can sometimes feel a little cold (not stone cold) when the room is up to temperature and the floor is no longer circulating hot water.

Cleaning hard floors is much easier but it hides it less than carpet. But I'd rather clean more often than to have a flooring that just hides the dirt. Also, there's tons of robot vac these days that work super well on hard floors so it's not a big deal these days.

With regards to laminate advice, I found a lot of laminate have bevelled edges that create a V groove lines when fitted. These can collect a lot of dust that isn't always picked up from vacuuming. Sometimes, getting on hands and knees with something like a cotton bud or microfibre towel is the only way to clean them out. That's far too much work. It's not as common but you can still get some laminate boards that have square edges so there is no groove at all. This makes it far far easier to clean. I believe the square edges are easier to chip than the bevelled edges hence why they are more popular so pick based on what is more important to you.

Next bit of advice, make sure you get the correct underlay. I found that a thick but cheap B&Q underlay did a better job at making things level than an expensive QuikStep underlay that was thin but advertised as superior levelling.

I can't comment on which laminate products are good but I managed to get a bunch of discontinuing B&Q laminate that was on sale. It ended up costing less than £5 per sq metre but I have no complaints about the laminate, especially at that price. I've seen laminate flooring from more expensive suppliers and I can't notice any difference.

Silvertabby

Rosa_Damascena said:

I have engineered wood and I have to be honest I'm still not too happy with it. Its durable and resilient BUT 5 months after the builders have gone and its still looking dull, despite countless episodes of mopping and polishing. I'm starting to think I should be varnishing it to bring out the beauty of the wood.

We used Osmo wax oil.  There's a choice of satin or matt - we went for the matt, but it certainly isn't dull.  It's nearly £80 a tin, and we needed 2 tins (well, 1 and a half tins with the left over for touch ups if/when needed) but it still looks good 4 years later.

andyf1980

We have QuikStep wide board in the downstairs of our house. It’s a great product and has aged well. It just isn’t quite as nice as engineered wood in my opinion. We will put that down in our new house.