Laminate, hardwood or engineered flooring.

[mycatisretarded]

I'm going to install a new floor soon, but can't decide on the type. I'd like to hear some real life success/ failure stories (maybe even some pictures). It all looks nice in the store but I haven't seen any real life installs. I'm thinking laminate but am worried that it may look too plastic. I have three young kids age 11 and under ( and a not so smart cat), so durability is a big concern- but adding value to the house is also a biggie. In short.....HELP! thanks.

[crokett]

I have laminate in the living room and hall and glue down engineered in my daughter's bedroom. Because the subfloor is particle board my options are limited. Other bedroom (carpet) and laminate will get replaced with the engineered at some point. Both floors are over 4 years old.

We have kids and dogs. The laminate looks more or less like it did when it was installed despite accidents (both kids and dogs) bottle spills, etc. The bedroom floor looks good except for a few dents and a scratch or two.

The laminate will go down much faster than your other options. OTH, if you are wanting to sell it comes up easily so the buyer can put down what they want. Hardwood will add the most value to your home but only to the right buyer.

[pelligrini]

I haven't delt with any engineered products. Laminate has fewer maintenance issues, but it can look artificial. What product is best also depends on what it is being installed on.

In the long run, a 3/4" hardwood floor would probably be better. A properly cut board with the tongue and groove set toward the bottom can be refinished several times. I believe real hardwood will retain more of it's value. Prefinished floor is supposed to last longer (the finish). In my recent experience, I've found out different. Matching a prefinished floor if patches are required can be difficult too. If you go with a laninate or prefinished, get a little extra attic stock.

There are some finish options that can hide the wear and tear of use. Some folks like the hand-scraped finishes, and the distressed finishes. Any new damage just blends right in.

[Tom Slick]

If durability is #1 then laminate is the way to go. If you are more interested in looks, hardwood or engineered wins. hardwood can be refinished and repaired more easily then engineered. If you aren't going to be in the house forever then engineered could be a great option.

If your house is "custom" or "mid to upper-end" then laminate will not add value because buyers expect a higher-end product. If it is a regular house then anything is going to be ok as far as value goes.

[SwingKing]

I put laminate down to replace the carpet in the master bedroom and the main living areas. I like it in the bedroom but I'm not as happy with it in the main family room / living room. With two boys, two dogs, and two cats, the laminate has held up very well over the last four years. My problem with it is that when the light hits it at an angle, it does look a bit plastic.

For me, I needed durability and I didn't think I'd get a return on investment for hardwood in my house. If you've room to increase you're home value in the market, I'd go for a quality engineered wood. From what I'm told, the factory finish is almost as durable as a laminate and has the visual depth of a real wood floor.

FYI, since you asked for pics here's my bedroom floor right after the install, including one of the culprits in destroying the old carpet.

-- Ken

[docrowan]

I recently installed a very inexpensive (cheap) laminate in a spare bedroom that my 5 year old daughter claimed while I was laying it down. Despite the fact that I picked it up on sale from Wall's discount center, it looks pretty good. I went with too light a shade of maple and it has a less realistic look, but we're still pleased. It's too early to tell about long term durability but it seems pretty tough and after getting the hang of it it was easy to install - much like Lego's. We plan to do the rest of our house with laminate, but we will use a higher quality product and a darker, more textured oak look.

I would echo the comments about the price point of your house. At about $100,000 our house is a very average range for our small town and the laminate looks good in it. I believe it would look out of place in a $350,000 home.

As to the renewability of a regular hardwood floor, perhaps I am wrong, but refinishing a hardwood floor sounds like a LOT of work. I've never refinished a floor, but I believe I could tear this stuff out and install new floor in less time than I could refinish a hardwood floor.

[Mr__Bill]

A few things to consider or just think about.

The slicker the floor the more fun it is to watch the cat.
The harder the floor, ie laminate, the noisier it is. Both as a reflecting surface and for generating noise as people, kids and pets walk and play on it.
Light floors don't show the dirt as bad but look more fake (as apposed to faker who is that guy that charms a snake or perhaps a flooring salesperson at the BORG)
Dark floors show footprints and kitty paw prints but look richer.
A floating floor spans the little dips and valleys in the sub flooring and will then be soft there as you walk about. The thicker the flooring the more it will span without feeling mushy. You may need to use some floor leveling stuff to make the sub floor flat.

The real things is, do they have all the little geehaws to go with it in the right lengths? The strips that join areas, ending and the like, and are they long enough for where you may need them. How do they attach, are you comfortable with it.

We have a cheap one in a duplex we rent, in 5 years the tenants haven't totally wrecked it yet, though there are some places where the picture of wood has worn off and it's just the understuff showing, luckily it's the same color as the flooring.

They make noise deadening/vapor barrier stuff for under the floor. Make sure that whatever you chose works with the noise deadening. Can't imagine that any would not but you really do want it under there.
You may also want to seal the sub flooring if there are any oder causing stains on it

When you have made up your mind and are ready to install come back for some of the horror stories and tips on installing, such as:

Kills the saw blade
Yes you really need those spacers
Yea you do need to use a hammer for a final tap together
And you really don't want to make the whole floor in the place one piece without a transition.
Is the gap around the edge less than the thickness of the molding that will hide it?

Bill

[poolhound]

We were thinking about doing something similar and from what I have found out the "engineered" solutions seem to offer the best option (at least for us).

I would go and have a discussion with some local reputable flooring places and see what they have to say. I originally was thinking HW but this can be a big problem if you live somewhere with extremes of heat and/or moisture e.g. where I live in AZ. Even though it would be the most expensive options a contact I have in the flooring business warned me that there have been lots of problems here and other places with extremes of weather. The engineered flooring offers the look and feel of real wood with the benefits of laminate.

[messmaker]

I put down laminate about 4 years ago. I have never been happy with it. Looks very artificial and does not clean easily. In order to get it to look right, sweep it, vac the edges, apply cleaner, damp mop, buff. I will give it credit for being tough. I have 2 dogs and 2 young daughters. They give it a workout.

[radhak]

If you have the opportunity, energy and money, engineered wins over laminate hands down.

I have engineered in my home, laid all my myself. Then I helped a friend lay laminate in his (rather, he helped me ). The laminate is much more liable to dents, nicks, et al than the engg. I remember that while laying the floor, one of us dropped a not-too-large screwdriver and nicked a plank in his home, and we had to strip off a bunch of strips to replace it.

The top layer of a laminate is just printed 'paper'; yes, with good protection, but still paper. Engineered wood has around 1/8" of hardwood at the top, and as you can imagine, it's much tougher than paper . My kids drop toys, chairs, and tape dispensers all the while, with not much to show.

The only caveat is : you need more energy, strength and stamina for the engineered floor than the laminates : the inter-locks are tougher to snap in, and the planks are stiffer and heavier. You would be very grateful for a helper or two. But the results are dramatically different! Love my floors!

edit : I had posted pics last year here : http://www.bt3central.com/showthread.php?t=34538

[wbsettle]

Like any product, there are good and bad examples of each. Some laminate brands now even have textured surfaces to emulate real wood that much better.

When faced with this decision four years ago, we chose a Quick-Step brand laminate when balancing looks, cost, and durability. The design we chose has relatively narrow (4") variable length planks as well as beveled edges/ends to enhance the visual realism. A good installer can make it that much better by doing a good randomization on the pattern/lengths. Most folks are hard pressed to recognize our laminate as not being real wood given that we do also have tile and hardwoods (different species & coloring) that meets up with the laminate in a few areas.

For pure aesthetics, I'd still prefer a good finish on real wood. You just can't get that depth and lustre from laminate. But, when our German Short-Hair's nails are overdue for trimming and she decides to start sprinting and sliding around the house for no reason (or b/c I'm tossing tennis balls at her), I'm glad we have the laminate. She hasn't been able to scratch it, yet, when trying to regain traction for that cut back. $3/ft^2 for materials didn't hurt my feelings either. I think the least expensive engineered hardwood was at least double the cost at the time and installation is higher as well.

One last thought for the aesthetics part of the equation. Think about how much of the floor you're going to cover with furniture and area rugs. I have to laugh at our (general public) tendency to put in these beautiful real and imitation wood floors and then hide most of it. My house stands guilty as charged, but I can laugh at myself, too.

-Brent

[mpc]

My folks went with the original Pergo stuff in the house they bought to retire in... all carpets were ripped out to make clean-up easier for mom. It went in fine and has held up for 10 years now, with small dogs running through it too. Only one bit of real damage so far: near the kitchen counter where I dropped a heavy cutting board or something like it; I don't remember exactly what it was now. Put a triangular shaped notch in the floor... like an old style can opener. This floor was the type that had the traditional woodworker's square tongue-&-groove but was still installed with glue in the joints.

A neighbor/friend of mine put in the newer style Pergo about 6 years ago - no glue. Instead of plain tongue-&-groove joints, this thing had snap-in tonges (round cross-sections) that fit into round grooves. In cross section, the joint looks like a ball and socket joint like your leg/hip joint. After a year, the floor has lifted in places and buckled in others - it looks like a nicely waxed piece of Home Depot plywood now. And it squeeks when walking on it. The glued-up style Pergo my folks use has remained dead-flat and quiet.

mpc

[twistsol]

I installed a glue together Pergo floating floor in our last house in the basement bathroom and laundry room. It took alot of abuse, but when we sold the house after 5 years, it still looked as good as it did the day it was installed. Every click together floor I've ever seen has separated over time.

I just finished 1000 square feet of Thomasville Jatoba (Brazillian Cherry), floating, engineered in July. Installed it by gluing the tounge and groove together rather than nailing it down. It looks great, but the dark color shows every one of the dog's footprints and since we live on a gravel road, you can see the dust settle on it. It has some scratches in it and a couple of dents that wouldn't have affected the Pergo.

[drillman88]

I have installed and finished real hardwood ,prefinished and laminant.My favorite is the real hardwood, but everything about it is a chore especially the finishing but the results are worth the effort.My second choice is prefinished hardwood but the bevels on the edges are unatractive imho and you have to be careful when stapling down.The gun can miss the edge of board and ride up on the face putting the staple on top of board .The laminant installed pretty easily after I got the hang off it (about half a bedroom) but you had to be careful locking it in place the fiberboard distorts and breaks pretty easily and it does look fake but is pretty durable.
If you choose to staple it down don't do what my friend did nail through the groove be sure to nail through the toungue.Things work much better if you get a little information before starting a project.
Everyone has their own tastes but I think that a natural finish is more attractive and easily maintained than a darker finish.Also a semigloss will not show scratches as bad as a high gloss will.

[Scottydont]

I did 60% of our house in glueless laminate flooring. It was easy to install and still looks great 6 years later despite the abuse from my 2 and 9 year old boys. I don't think hardwoods would have held up as well. I was so impressed with it's durability, that's when I got started making benchtops out of it. (Great for jigs too!) We chose Quick-Step as well because it rated very well in quality while being easier on the budget compared to Pergo. Pergo spends a TON of money on marketing.

6 years later he only downside is that we have a couple of spots where water was left on the floor overnight and it seeped into the joints and swelled up a little.

Otherwise I would do it again without hesitation. Here is a pic of one room in the house.