Laminate vs. Hardwood Flooring

[Blanky]

Many laminates have extremely long warranties on them, some are lifetime. I have no idea how long they will last or how often these warranties are actually honored.

I am installing laminate now because I got 10mm thick laminate that looks really nice for $2/sq and will install it myself. Hardwould was $5k and far more labor intensive. There is recently clickable hardwood, though. I saw clickable bamboo for $5/sq and it floats like laminate. It wasn't a layered, engineered product (well, not any more than regular bamboo is, which is of course bamboo all glued together), but regular bits of bamboo with slots cut in them.

Laminate is simply making headway against hard wood for good reason. It's very cheap, and history shows that most people who install it are happy with it. I've seen it in even quite expensive homes.

 

[Linflas]

Bumping this thread because we are looking at replacing our kitchen floor with 12mm Armstrong laminate as part of a kitchen remodel. The rest of the mainfloor is 3/4" oak hardwood but we are hesitant to go with hardwood in the kitchen given that we have 4 dogs and 4 cats and my wife uses the kitchen constantly for baking etc so there will inevitably be spills. From what I read ceramic tile (what we currently have) or laminate is most practical for our situation. The folks that did our original kitchen tile work did a really crappy job which is why we have decided to replace it even though it is only 10 years old. We have also looked at the wood look ceramics so if anyone has any experiences with that it would be helpful.

 

[cabri]

Last fall, we had the kitchen (tile) and dining room (purgo) replaced with a wood look tile.

Some sub-flooring was replaced, the proper barrier put down and then the tiling was done.

Wife/daughter had selected the tiles; but yours truly had to unload from the truck and stack them outside the weekend before.

Then bring each box upstairs and break them open to organize the patterns by grain.
Stack them up about 6 high for the tiler to go after.

Three days effort by tile man and family was very pleased with the result

 

[Linflas]

Last fall, we had the kitchen (tile) and dining room (purgo) replaced with a wood look tile.

Some sub-flooring was replaced, the proper barrier put down and then the tiling was done.

Wife/daughter had selected the tiles; but yours truly had to unload from the truck and stack them outside the weekend before.

Then bring each box upstairs and break them open to organize the patterns by grain.
Stack them up about 6 high for the tiler to go after.

Three days effort by tile man and family was very pleased with the result

When they did our ceramic floor they laid the backer board over the existing linoleum which ends up making the kitchen floor about 1/2-3/4" higher than the rest of the flooring so we plan on removing everything down to the sub floor before having the new flooring put in.

 

[cabri]

When they did our ceramic floor they laid the backer board over the existing linoleum which ends up making the kitchen floor about 1/2-3/4" higher than the rest of the flooring so we plan on removing everything down to the sub floor before having the new flooring put in.

We had some cracked/broken tile in the kitchen.

The dining room floor had shifted causing gaps against the living room carpet.

Better to get to the "bottom" and do it correctly. Flippers had cut corners.

 

[NutBucket]

The wood-look ceramic tiles on the market are quite nice. Might want to look at those since it sounds like you prefer wood if not for durability concerns.

 

[Blanky]

Bumping this thread because we are looking at replacing our kitchen floor with 12mm Armstrong laminate as part of a kitchen remodel. The rest of the mainfloor is 3/4" oak hardwood but we are hesitant to go with hardwood in the kitchen given that we have 4 dogs and 4 cats and my wife uses the kitchen constantly for baking etc so there will inevitably be spills. From what I read ceramic tile (what we currently have) or laminate is most practical for our situation. The folks that did our original kitchen tile work did a really crappy job which is why we have decided to replace it even though it is only 10 years old. We have also looked at the wood look ceramics so if anyone has any experiences with that it would be helpful.

I expect hardwood to tolerate moisture better than laminate.

Since this thread started I have indeed installed the 1000 square feet of laminate in my house and if I had my time back I think I would have just gone with hard wood for the following reasons:

1) Hardwood is structural and does a much better job of not telescoping even tiny irregularities in the floor; even a joist that is crowning in a direction other than the one next to it can cause the floor to be out of spec enough that laminate technically needs to have some leveling done to that floor first.

2) Don't need to fiddle around with expansion joints or room everywhere. Also, you won't get the gaps that many laminate installs end up with along the vertical joints, where the boards separate

3) Water longevity. Lamiante says water is okay as long as it's removed immediately. That's great in theory, but in practice how do you know? What if you spill a little water, or it falls off a wet jacket or whatever? Water left to sit WILL swell up the joints

My laminate looks fantastic, but some houses have hardwood that is many decades old. Despite many laminates (like mine) claiming to have a "lifetime" warranty, there are so many caveats I doubt it's worth much.

Meh, these are just my thoughts. Laminate is super cheap and the boards snap together easily, but the bulk of my time was spent cutting anyway and that's the same whether hardwood or not.

 

[Linflas]

If the floor is done properly isn't there a leveling compound applied that in theory flattens out the irregularities? Also I am very concerned about moisture as we have pets which means a water bowl always out and inevitably there is some water around it to be wiped up. It was my understanding that laminate was supposed to be better able to stand up to this than hardwood. On the other hand hardwood can be refinished for a fraction of the cost of a new floor so it has that advantage. We have decided to also consider ceramic/porcelain wood look so will probably end up getting estimates for each type and then decide based on what we can afford.