Hello, all. We are about to move home and would like some realistic-looking wooden floor installed in the lounge. I have tried to weigh up the pros and cons of laminate, engineered and solid wood (liquid spillage, heels, scratches, etc.). We went to a pub at the weekend, where a refurb. had taken place recently. The 'wooden' floor looked very real (and certainly good enough for our home use) but I couldn't establish whether it was solid, engineered or laminate. The pub owners (national company remaining nameless!) wouldn't or couldn't help and neither could the manager of the pub, itself. I figured that, from a beer spillage and heavy traffic point of view, it could well be laminate but it looked to so real that I don't know. The 'planks' looked deep and rustic/hand-scraped and equally, the joints were (deliberately) very uneven, lending real character to the floor. The planks weren't closely butted up against each other. So, any ideas what the floor could have been, assuming that it was a laminate? Something new/special to the commercial world? Difficult without photos, I know, so sorry for asking a tricky question. Any help appreciated. Thanks...
i would take a guess that it would be a Engineered product. It wont be a laminate. You need to look for 'Distressed' products by the sound of it.
[attachment=0:3ga8olm5]Pub Floor 3.JPG[/attachment:3ga8olm5]Thanks. Found a photo from the the wife's phone. I figured, perhaps wrongly, that an engineered floor (or sold, for that matter) wouldn't cope too well with the heavy foot traffic and continual liquid spillage.
Laminate wont last 30 seconds where fluids etc are being spilt. It is either a solid or engineered. If it was me that supplied the job i would of used a engineered product. But it is impossible to tell without lifting a board up. I would recommend a Engineered over a solid anyway as the floor is a lot more stable.
Agree with Daz If your wanting something hard wearing and doesnt mind spillages/enviromental effects etc then try one of the various LVT options. Karndean, Amtico, Polyflor, LGfloors etc etc
Thanks, all. Have established that it is oiled engineered wood (20mm with 6mm top) that was used. Looks the business and costs £60m2. Have a mate who lays Amtico and Karnden for a living. He raves about it and it looks good. Wanted something with a bit more 'depth', though. Would go for engineered over solid because of stability but was worried about liquid spillage by the little one. Thought laminate would be better from that point of view. I know that liquid makes no difference to Amtiko and Kardean. From what's been said here, liquid would mess up the laminate. :roll: Not easy, this!
Yep, its Karndean as daz said. And as has been suggested i would personally go for the above rather than a real wood if you have kids etc. You cant beat real wood but it needs to be looked after properly. Its all down to how you look after it. but if you want a product open to abuse then i would be looking at LVT's .
I would go for lvt personally. It's hygienic, relatively warm to the touch, takes a lot of abuse, individual pieces can be changed and can be very realistic. I put it in the kids' bedrooms when they were teenagers as the carpets were disgusting. That was six years ago and it's survived all kinds including a broken permanent marker being smeared across it and forgotten about and cleaned off without trace. This is one of my favourites, the Karndean Art Select Hand Crafted range. It's incredibly realistic
That pretty much answers it, then, methinks. I suspect that wood wouldn't survive our household, so Karndean or Amtiko, it is, especially as my mate can supply and fit it at decent money (compared to going to a big company, that is). As you say, it looks very real. Had a look at the Art Select range and love much of it. Thanks to all for your input, gratefully received.
I'd say £60 (hope it was for fitting as well) is a bit steep for the pub floor this one is one that i did for a pub http://hmcflooring.com/portfolios/victoria-inn/ the flooring is distressed to order various styles stains and finishes. It would defiantly be engineered flooring in a pub. This pub gets a lot of foot traffic, to put it into context i went back after a year and they had 200 customers for lunch on Tuesday its like this every lunch, busier in the evenings and its packed on weekends. The photos in the link were taken after a year so the floor is many years old in domestic wear terms. I'd stick my neck out and say that the wood floor will last a lot longer than vinyl flooring. I have distressed oak flooring in my house as its just the best to live with, if I drop things on the floor its just more distressing!
