Laminate Flooring/Parquet Flooring

[Carroll Courtney]

Guys,I have laminate flooring in the living rm and parquet flooring in the bedrm.Both rms were damage due to water from the clothes washer(laundry rm),not alot of water but the flooring needs replacing.Both rms the flooring was bout 5yrs old purchase from HD,the laminate flooring just started to show its age and the parquet flooring look as if it was bout 10yrs old.I like both rms but want something that will standup better to normal use(3 grand kids)so other than carpet what would you recommend for a good laminate flooring and maybe parquet(maybe not) thats not in a CEO's price range?The insurance is going to pay for what was there minus depreciation.So I will have to chip in some to up grade to better flooring,any thoughts or suggestions?????Thanks----Carroll

[Ole Anderson]

For a laminate, it is hard to beat Pergo, but if you are looking for something with real wood content, you have plenty of choices with engineered (plywood with thick veneer on top) flooring or even Bamboo which is usually solid and not laminated. Try to find something with the aluminum oxide based finish rather than a more standard poly finish. So many choices these days you should go to a store specializing in hard flooring that has all of the types available to see and have explained to you. LL is a good place to start and don't discount the borgs. I have installed a lot of Pergo as well as plank vinyl and even Cork. They make a fun DIY project.

[Steve Meliza]

Last summer we tore out about 500 sq. ft. of carpet and put in site finished 2.25" red oak flooring. We tore out the old floor and installed the new ourselves and brought in a professional to sand and put a Swedish finish on the floor. The new wood was about $2.10 a sq. ft., installation was a couple hundred for nails and other supplies, and the sand and finish was about $4 a square foot. If we had had the professional do everything the total cost would have been about $10 a sq. ft. (including the wood).

We went with site finished as we were matching existing floors in the house and I hate the grooves between the pre-finished boards, but my folks just installed their own pre-finished and seem happy with it and the cost was only about $3-$4 a square foot (they installed it). Stay away from laminate, it has a short lifetime as you already experienced. Pre-finished is probably the cheapest and most durable in the short term, but when it comes time to refinish it (say 10-15 years from now) you may find some flooring pros will refuse to take on the job and those that do will charge extra for all of the work involved in grinding through the hard finish.

If you're going to have any work done for you then I suggest getting quotes only from certified professionals like the ones you'll find here:
http://woodfloors.org/find-installer.aspx

[Andrew Fleck]

I have to agree with Ole about the Pergo. I installed Pergo in my home and have no issues with it at all. My son and the dog put it to the test daily and there isn't a mark on it. I find it reasonably priced at the home centers and easy to install. I got the kind with the foam already attached to the back.