Choosing Your Kind of Floor
Your flooring options include solid hardwood, engineered hardwood, laminate, various forms of vinyl flooring, bamboo (which some think of as a style of hardwood), cork, ceramic tile, stone tile and carpet. You may have a very good idea of what you want, you may have no idea, or you may have questions about whether your selection will be the best fit for your room. Here are some very broad tips to get you started, and links to go deeper on any topic you want to investigate further. Our links lead to definitions and further explanations, not to ads or other websites. We also have some shopping tips we think you’ll find useful.
Location
First, on what level will you be installing your floor? All floors can be installed above ground level, called above “grade”, in flooring circles. If you’re installing below grade, say, in a basement, You still have most of the flooring options we listed above, but two should be crossed off your list. Generally, solid hardwood is not recommended to install below grade, and bamboo flooring is also considered a bad candidate for a lower level installation. At or above grade, all floors are available.
Subfloor
The surface onto which you will install your floor is called a subfloor, and these are usually made of either wood or concrete. Wood is pretty versatile. All floor types can go over a wood subfloor. With concrete, solid hardwood gets another knock. The vast majority of solid hardwood floors must be nailed down to the subfloor, not glued, and not floated. Nailing through wood into concrete being a difficult proposition at best, solid hardwood should be off the list if you have a concrete subfloor.
Moisture
Does the room get a lot of moisture? Now here we’re talking about the potential for spilled or tracked in water (or snow), but also for high humidity, say in a bathroom with a nice, hot, well used shower. There are better and worse floors for each type.
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In rooms with high humidity, the options are more pass fail, not so much a matter of degrees. There are floors which will soak in that moisture, and those which just won’t.
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With laminate, if the humidity will be really high, we have to recommend against it, but they really can be quite moisture resistant, and there are technologies in place which may make some of these products just perfect for a steam room, so if you’re hoping to use a laminate in a place like this, do call us in case we have something new and exciting.
Pets
The issue with pets is not so much general traffic, say from a small, frisky dog. It’s the big, heavy dogs with unclipped nails, the deep, sharp impacts or scratching about which we are concerned here.
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AllergiesDo you need your environment to be as hypoallergenic as it can be? Here is what we know:
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Sound reduction
How important is sound reduction to you? Your best options are limited to carpet, vinyl, cork and some laminates, if you use good pad underneath. The hardwoods and bamboo, as well as the ceramic and stone are simply going to do what hard surfaces do when you walk on them.
High traffic
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There are rooms where you will walk around in a casual manor, maybe wear slippers or bare socks most of the time, and rooms where people will run around, or entryways where everyone comes and goes. Some floors are not designed for heavy wear, and some are made with that in mind. |
Best | – Ceramic tile or stone |
Great | – Laminate |
Optional | – Hardwood – it will depend on the species you choose |
Good | – Vinyl |
Okay | – Carpet |
Not great | – Bamboo and Cork |
InstallationIf you are a flooring novice, and want to install your floor yourself, there are more and less conducive options for the success of such a venture. If you plan to hire an installer no matter which floor you choose, then the following list can help you save money. Easier to install floors should take less of an installer’s time. Of course, this list is very generic. If this is a serious consideration, do check the links to the installation sections for the choices in which you are interested.
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Related blog posts:
Why You Want Samples, and Things to Try with Them
What Type of Floor is Best for a Family?
What’s the best floor for your bathroom?
Best Floors for Allergy Sufferers
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David is a Writer at Floors To Your Home (.com), as well as the PPC Manager, a Marketing Strategy Team member, a Researcher, Videographer, Social Strategist, Photographer and all around Resource Jitō. In my spare time I shoot and edit video, explore film history, mix music (as in ‘play with Beatles multi-tracks’) and write non-fiction for my friends. Connect with me on W. David Lichty’s Google+
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How do the new vinyl planks hold up in a seasonal home that can get to. The low 30’s F? I know they don’t expand and contract much but worried about warping.
Thanks
Kevin, I don’t think our floors will help you very much. All of our current vinyl (laminate and hardwood, too) needs to be in homes with temperatures kept within ranges of the 60s to the 80s. It’s possible that a certain floor might still work well for you, but for all that we normally carry, such temperatures would void the warranties. Even our Loose Lay floors, designed not to expand & contract, are only guaranteed not to do so in those normal home temperature conditions.
You may need to look for flooring rated to be installed outdoors for a home which will come close to freezing temperatures for long periods of time.
Thanks for asking, and I’m sorry we can’t help you with that kind of flooring at this time.
My husband and I had Supreme Click Landmark Series Laminate flooring put down in our new home we are building, what is the best way to clean the floors and what’s the best product to clean it with?
Thank you,
Lisa
Hi Lisa, your best bet is a little bit of regular maintenance. Regularly dust mop or vacuum your laminate floor with a soft brush or wood floor attachment. You can also use a slightly damp mop for spot cleaning.
I am tossed between engineered wood and ceramic tile, we have small dog only 4.5 pounds, The house is on a slab in Wallace, NC and we need about 1600 square feet. Also, the main room get little light so we need to stick with lighter colors, but don’t want any yellow looking product.
Hi, Carolyn! Have you seen wood look porcelain tile? It’s durable, attractive, and combines the best of both worlds! Here’s a link to our wood look tiles.
Can you recommend an installer for the plank vinyl flooring in the Santee, CA 92071 area?
Hi, Janyce, we really can’t. We’re best with that sort of advice more local to where we are, Indianapolis. Here’s what we say in our FAQ section where we had been asked if we do this ourselves: “Being a national company, we cannot really offer installation services. Outside the Indianapolis area, we recommend contacting your local home store for local installation service referrals, or going online to a site like http://www.servicemagic.com (renamed ‘Home Advisor’) to obtain bids from installers in your area. We can refer installers in the Indianapolis area. If you call our showroom, they can get your floor measurements and answer installation questions for you. The number is 317-472-8888.”