Another flooring thread

NoNameNoNumber

NoNameNoNumber

NoNameNoNumber

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25 Nov 2009
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Hi guys,

My downstairs needs flooring, Around 40m^2 of which 10m^2 will be tiled (the kitchen and downstairs loo) The rest of it - hall way, lounge, diner and utility will all be wood/laminate/engineered etc...

Concrete sub floor, I'll be levelling it with a really runny compound mainly where the kitchen has been knocked into the diner and a double door is to be fitted as the two floors were different levels.

I dont have a huge amount of money to spend so amtico is probably out of the question but I don't want tacky B&Q laminate... Some kind of happy middle ground that will last, look decent and insulate well.

Some advice and pointers hugely appreciated :)
 
Pergo laminate seemed decent when I looked at it before, but I'm sure there's other decent laminates around as well that are cheaper than luxury vinyl (ie amtico/karndean).

How much do you want to spend out of interest?
 
I've not really got a budget, I'm renovating the whole house so ultimately ill just have to put it back a month or so if its quite steep... I guess £25/30/m all in would be reasonable at £900 max

Am I being realistic?

Edited... Tightened up the budget a bit...
 
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Tiles should easily come in under that price for something nice. Wood floor is such a personal thing I'd suggest going and looking at some in places such as floors2go or the floor store, find something you like and haggle the prices down, I went for a £90/m2 engineered wood and eventually got it for £62/m2 with step downs and t bar thrown in at 1/3 the price advertised in the shop.
 
Can't remember the specific range, but it's their standard stuff, oak effect or something similar. I have it in my hall, lounge and study. Shows no wear at all after 5 years.
 
Nearly finished laying 45sqm of Howdens Professional Fast Fit V Groove and it's been spot on. Really like the look of it, hardwearing, durable, easy to fit and is pretty cheap. Cost me a nudge over £500 for the flooring and I bought some Sonic Gold underlay for £57 so around £560ish all inc.

Had a joiner friend come round on Thursday night who helped me set it out and get the first couple of runs in so that it was all square. Spent from 5pm-11pm on Thursday, 1pm-8pm on Friday and 9am-3pm today and i've got about 1m square left in the hall to do around the bottom of the stairs which i'm anticipating to be difficult to get right!

There's been some tricky cuts through the doorway and in the hallway leading into little storage cupboards under my stairs but not much left to do now at all really. Couple hours work.
 
NoNameNoNumber said:
Ah now that sounds like good value! I'll have a Google later as again I've never heard of it... Approx £12/m sounds awesome! Got any pictures?
Click to expand...

I'll pop some up tomorrow for you.

The only thing with Howdens is they don't sell to the public, you need to be a tradesman and have an account with them (or have a friend that does in my case).

But it is very good value for money imo. See if you have one of their depots near you and pop down, you can see flooring samples at the one near me so I assume you can at all of them.

I was originally going to go with some Ikea flooring that we found, then I settled on some Quick Step Impressive (the waterproof one), then my mate who uses Howdens a lot said to check out their Professional Fast Fit stuff as its certified for light-commercial use and can be used in kitchens etc fine.

It does look nice down and was a piece of pee to put down compared to some horrible older stuff I put down years ago. No idea if all laminates are this easy nowadays but you don't have to put it down in full rows you just click each one in one by one, no using pull bars and hammering them together, really simple slot and click.

In fact here are some part done pictures I took the other day (excuse the poor pic was done on my phone, will get some proper pics tomorrow of the finished product)....

IMG_20150618_WA0001.jpg

IMG_20150618_WA0003.jpg
 
alx said:
Any particular reason you went for Pergo over Amtico/Karndean? Better value for money?
Click to expand...
Pretty much, I think I was about £40/m2, including removal of carpets, lifting skirting boards, underlay and edging and what not. I had a recommendation from a work colleagues who had used it for 10 years with no wear.

I've a couple of damaged bits where I've dropped stuff like an iron on it and it's left a small dent that's not particularly noticeable.

My only concern/advice is to make sure you don't leave water on the board edges as it'll bubble it up and you can only do so much to repair it without replacing it.
 
Howdens Professional Fast Fit V Groove
Click to expand...
Good stuff that
I always try to get the boss to get this stuff for me to lay down
Easy to fit as you can lay 1 plank at a time,whereas a lot of `other`makes/brands i have found need to lay a row at a time.Not easy to do!!
 
Right guys, Thanks for the suggestions and input thus far.

I'm going to nip to Howdens tomorrow hopefully and pick a couple of samples up, American Pecan and Oak. I've got a friend with an account so we're sorted there ;)

Then from tradepriced I'll get 3 rolls of the sonic gold underlay. This doubles up as the DPM with the vapour tape ready to lay the laminate onto directly as I understand it...

How level does the concrete sub floor need to be? I've just flooded some levelling compound across the kitchen to hopefully bring it about right :)
 
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