Engineered v Laminate floor

  • Thread starter Thread starter JRJ
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I would not go for laminate /lvt. It looks and feels cheap, and you can tell straight away.

As it's going to be literally the floor of your house, isn't it worth spending a bit more?
 
We had quick-step laminate in our hallway and lounge. 7 Yrs later it looks as good now as it did back then.

Same couldn't be said about the 2yr old cream carpet :D
 
We've used engineered bamboo in main living room and it's been rock solid for a few years now. I think if you go for solid wood, part of the charm is that it marks and ages isn't it?
 
I suspect engineered wood is more moisture resistant, and if scratch that colours going to be the same all the way, where as the colour of laminate isn't very deep.
 
Laminate all the way..

The key is to get stuff rated for heavy use (I.e. lots of foot traffic).

We have dark oak scraped plank effect laminate that’s been in the hallway/living room for 14 years and it still looks good.. by contrast the real oak floor in the dining room looked a dogs dinner after 4 years of being used as a playroom, it scratches far too easily and had loads of small dents. We then merged the dining room into the kitchen and put down good quality tile effect laminate and it held up for the remaining 10 years, where we took it all up after extending the house.

I’ve just done the play/cinema room in oak effect laminate but got the harder wear rated stuff, it feels so close to real wood and yet is definitely more resilient..

there are plenty of YouTube vids showing the differences in wear/resilience that would be make it a no brainier.
 
engineered for me, looks better, nicer to walk on barefoot and can be more easily repaired. also mine will be fitted in one room(other room i'm doing is concrete) as a structual floor straight onto the joists so the actual oak layer will be 5/6mm thick.
 
I laid engineered oak when I moved in this place, not even particularly expensive/thick stuff. Looks great, really nice to walk on, no marks on it despite dragging furniture around. The dining room and kitchen have vinyl and it looks awful, and is cold.
 
bigfoot4616 said:
engineered for me, looks better, nicer to walk on barefoot and can be more easily repaired. also mine will be fitted in one room(other room i'm doing is concrete) as a structual floor straight onto the joists so the actual oak layer will be 5/6mm thick.
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:eek: is that legit?
 
LVT will be about the same price as engineered wood floor though won't it ?
I've priced up my hallway at around 14m2 total and I'm sure I got it to £700 just for the LVT alone, that's without sorting the subfloor or fitting it.
Laminate is also noisier than engineered wood, my mate replaced his wood with laminate due to cost and he immediately noticed it was more noisy, especially when the dogs run around on it.

I personly think I will go with LVT, we have it now in a 20 year old house, I assume it is the original floor as it is fitted throughout the downstairs apart from kitchen and lounge. and its still in good shape, apart from being a bit green next to the large patio door and the 2 side windows next to the front door.

If it wasn't in a god awful orangy brown wood effect I would be leaving it down to be honest.
NOTE: not our furniture
38700_100953080832_IMG_19_0000_max_656x437.jpeg
 
We went for one of these as it's their thickest laminate at 12mm. The fitter remarked on how nice it is when laying it as it stands out from the cheap stuff in the way it clips together and the thickness. Combine with a decent underlay that isn't too squishy, something like the following and I doubt anyone will tell the difference in small rooms. Also, if you can remove your skirting boards so it runs underneath rather than using scotia beading it will also add to the appearance being professional rather than a cheap laminate alternative. You need to calculate how thick an underlay you require after subtracting the thickness of the laminate from the depth you currently have on adjacent floors so you don't end up with odd levels leading in to those rooms. Included a couple that I had shortlisted when we did ours. You'll need a chair matt whatever flooring you choose otherwise the wheels will scratch. The LVT isn't something I'd consider with pets as our Karndean has marks and scratches just from humans using the room.

https://www.ukflooringdirect.co.uk/laminate-flooring?custitem_thickness=12mm&page=1

https://www.screwfix.com/p/vitrex-fan-fold-underlay-board-9-6m/9035h
https://www.screwfix.com/p/diall-aquastop-underlay-5m/2471r

If you want ultimate robustness it's also worth considering ceramic as they do plank shaped tiles these days that I would say are the least likely to succumb to pet scratches. Ceramic would also be the most robust in case of any liquid spillages or pee mishaps, although equal I'd say with LVT on this.
 
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dLockers said:
:eek: is that legit?
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I asked our flooring installer and his comments were, you can do it but its not recommended. Much better to lay a sub-floor and lay on-top as you have to use hidden nailing if you fix directly to joists. You also get more transmission and flanking noise fixing to joists, whereas a sub-floor helps to de-couple the walking surface from the structural elements, reducing sound.
 
dLockers said:
:eek: is that legit?
Click to expand...

as long as the flooring is rated for it its fine, will be 20mm thick and over a joisted floor with a biscuit screed over the UFH pipes.

SimonR said:
I asked our flooring installer and his comments were, you can do it but its not recommended. Much better to lay a sub-floor and lay on-top as you have to use hidden nailing if you fix directly to joists. You also get more transmission and flanking noise fixing to joists, whereas a sub-floor helps to de-couple the walking surface from the structural elements, reducing sound.
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the above mentioned UFH is why i'm doing it this way, a subfloor will have to much timber over the UFH and effect the heat coming through.
 
Same, I've got 22mm engineered wood floor upstairs I bedrooms nailed directly to joists over UFH, all works fine. Although it could have benefitted from double boarding and maybe resilient bars to lessen the noise from above.
 
thenewoc said:
We went for one of these as it's their thickest laminate at 12mm. The fitter remarked on how nice it is when laying it as it stands out from the cheap stuff in the way it clips together and the thickness. Combine with a decent underlay that isn't too squishy, something like the following and I doubt anyone will tell the difference in small rooms. Also, if you can remove your skirting boards so it runs underneath rather than using scotia beading it will also add to the appearance being professional rather than a cheap laminate alternative. You need to calculate how thick an underlay you require after subtracting the thickness of the laminate from the depth you currently have on adjacent floors so you don't end up with odd levels leading in to those rooms. Included a couple that I had shortlisted when we did ours. You'll need a chair matt whatever flooring you choose otherwise the wheels will scratch. The LVT isn't something I'd consider with pets as our Karndean has marks and scratches just from humans using the room.

https://www.ukflooringdirect.co.uk/laminate-flooring?custitem_thickness=12mm&page=1

https://www.screwfix.com/p/vitrex-fan-fold-underlay-board-9-6m/9035h
https://www.screwfix.com/p/diall-aquastop-underlay-5m/2471r

If you want ultimate robustness it's also worth considering ceramic as they do plank shaped tiles these days that I would say are the least likely to succumb to pet scratches. Ceramic would also be the most robust in case of any liquid spillages or pee mishaps, although equal I'd say with LVT on this.
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I have a sample of their 12mm in front of me at the moment, much better quality than previous laminates I've used.

No skirting on at the moment so nice and simple.
 
When you've got it down and it's a mix of about 5 or 6 patterns across the boards, you'd hardly notice it wasn't wood, with the grooves too around each one. We did our hall, lounge and conservatory with it. The previous house we had engineered and were impressed with how far laminate has now come.
 
JRJ said:
I have a sample of their 12mm in front of me at the moment, much better quality than previous laminates I've used.

No skirting on at the moment so nice and simple.
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yep , for ease of fitting and price laminate is pretty good these days compared to the thin flat boring looking stuff my parents used to have years ago

I’m gonna use 12mm laminate in my back living room, I just can’t decide which brand or colour / pattern to go for

my kitchen is click lvt and I have 2 box’s left over , I was planning to carry it on through the hallway to the front door so required 3 more boxes but after looking today they have discontinued that floor, gonna have to ring loads of places now to see if anywhere has some old stock

failing that I maybe just do the living room and hallway with the same laminate , only problem is the hallway door will require trimming , 12mm laminate + underlay might exceed the maximum I can remove from the bottom of the door as it’s a veneer , the lvt 9n the kitchen is only 6mm and has underlay attached
 
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