As some of you know, i'm making a lot or repairs to the home I purchased a few months back. I have a section of the house that requires new flooring, it currently has self adhesive tiles, but they are in poor condition. The area of the house i'm working with is not a high traffic area, so i'm not looking to spend a fortune on it. I was considering some of the lower end laminate flooring, until a friend of mine told me some horror stories about his. He tells me that even a tiny bit of water is causing damage to his flooring. His son had placed a cold glass in the corner, and the condensation alone caused it to blister up and warp. Is this the normal, or did he just get some really poor laminate?
Sorry Bobby, can't help you on this one. I have pergo type wood laminate flooring. Tough as nails. Even the dogs don't scratch them.
I'm assuming you're talking about laminate wood flooring? If so, part of how well it will hold up is based on the original quality of the product, and the location it has been installed. Laminate, due to it's poor performance in relatively humid/possibly wet flooring locations (bathrooms, kitchens, entryways in areas where there's a lot of snow/rain) it's not recommended. I installed engineered wood flooring (basically 1/4" plywood w/another 1/4 to 1/8" veneer of real wood that is prefinished on top, and had no problems w/it at all. It was very easy to install in a floating floor fashion (same as most any laminate) and was only about 50 cents a square foot more.
I did look at some of the engineered woods, but they have been roughly double the cost (at least where i've looked). I was curious if that stuff went together as easy as the laminate though.
Actually Will, the entire house is hardwood. The part i'm working on now is an apartment, that was a later addition (no hardwood). It's one of those deals where it's totally separated from the main house, but attached. Since this is gonna be a rental, I want something that looks decent, but doesn't cost a ton. I priced doing hardwood, and it comes out to about 600 to use laminate (pergo at a hook up price) or $3,100 for hardwood. While hardwood is better, i'm not willing to do that on a rental, and the person I have who will be renting it has horrible allergy problems, so carpet is probably not the best decision. Linoleum, or sticky tile just don't offer a homely feeling for an entire house...IMHO This is doing a self install... I figure at the price I can get the pergo, if it lasts 10 years it would be worth it.
My whole downstairs is done in Pergo. This stuff is tough, doesn't scratch and maintains real easy. We looked at the low end stuff and there really was no comparison. As cheap as laminate flooring is, you definately want to stay on the upper end of what's available. I don't think you'd be dissapointed with Pergo. I had it installed professionally by a local contractor and it came out looking great. He pulled all the base boards so we didn't have to trim the rooms with quarter round pieces giving it a much better look.
None. No peeling or anything. Easy to clean. Use a wet wood floor cleaner or wet swifter on them all the time. Hi traffic dogs again.
It really seems like the direction I should go. I will consider some of the more mid price types, I don't want the same experience as my friend. Open to any recommendations you guys might have.
