Flooring options

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mailmarshall

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#115584 31-Mar-2013 11:11

Hi

We are looking to go down a mixed flooring path in our renovation and was looking for advice.

At this stage we like Quickstep Laminate Flooring for the kitchen area, tiles in bathroom and SmartStrand in bedrooms/ lounge/ family.

Has anyone got any experience or stories to share about:
- Quickstep or ReadyFlor Laminate Floors
- Smartstrand vs wool carpet. The Silk Smartstrand is great to walk on but I don't like the fact that it shows footprints etc.
- tiles (don't get why Mitre 10 sells tiles that are 1/5 price of tile places - is there something wrong with them??)

Thanks

timmmay

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#789878 31-Mar-2013 11:23

We have long dark brown artificial carpet, not smart strand. The footprints isn't a big deal, but after I vacuum I do tend to to a quick second time over on the way back to where I keep the vacuum cleaner to remove its tracks.

Tiles MUST be heated, otherwise they're horrible horrible things in winter. Strongly suggest you're there when the underfloor heating mat is laid. Make sure it's got plenty of coils around the toilet, including where men put their feet where they stand to use it. Probably within 5cm of the toilet is best, heat doesn't travel sideways well through tiles I've found. Also make sure the coils outside the shower and beside the vanity. Basically everywhere you stand. A smart controller's great, I can program mine to have different settings each day of the week, or weekdays vs weekends.

If you don't want to heat, then don't use tiles, use one of the lino tile type things.

Niel

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#790062 31-Mar-2013 22:04

Wool carpet is good, and you get what you pay for so don't cut corners. Synthetics can get damaged (melt) if something heavy is dragged over it. Synthetics are also nasty in a fire.

Look up Torlys flooring. It is an engineered laminate hardwood. It is a top quality that does not scratch like normal cheap laminates. It is laminated HDF and ply, top layer of hardwood, and coated with aluminium oxide (making it scratch resistant). Solid hardwood bruises, softwood scratches, Torlys combine them to produce a long lasting product. Warranty is 25 or 30 years (can't remember). We've had it for 18 months now in our new home. The guy that installed ours has a couple of large dogs and claims no scratches. It is fully floating, if you need to replace one board in the middle of the floor then you can without lifting everything from one side of the room. Great stuff.

We were going to get bamboo flooring, but Torlys is better. There are a few show rooms around, one of them is Botany Downs Danske Mobler (East Auckland) where it is also installed in the staff lunch room so gets a good workout.

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timmmay

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#790064 31-Mar-2013 22:09

Wool isn't necessarily better - I chose based on feel much more than price. Synthetics don't fade, and are easier to clean. Interesting to hear about the downsides though, I never really heard any, and haven't experienced any either. My new (expensive) synthetic carpet is MUCH nicer than my old (cheap I suspect) wool carpet.

Thick carpet is totally worth it. It feels great underfoot. I think the default is 25kg/m2, I think mine is 50, then you can get 75 and above if you want to pay for it. I decided 75 wasn't value for me.

Handle9

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#790080 31-Mar-2013 23:33

mailmarshall:

tiles (don't get why Mitre 10 sells tiles that are 1/5 price of tile places - is there something wrong with them??)

Thanks

There is a huge variation in price, and quality of tiles. If you are laying tiles on the floor you need to make sure you are using floor tiles as they are much harder than wall tiles. Generally the more expensive the tile the more regular it is and the better it will look.

When we did our bathroom the wall tiles were half the price of the wall tiles. The floor tiles were all perfectly square and exactly the same size which made the grout lines perfectly straight. The wall tiles weren't as perfect so some of the grout lines aren't as good.

hairy1

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#790171 1-Apr-2013 12:12

Hey. I thought I would give you some feedback on Quickstep. Quickstep and Torlys are the same product. They use the same connect method and have the same colours. We got quotes from both floorscape and another crowd when we got our laminate around 7 years ago.

We ended up going with the Torlys guy as he was slightly cheaper. We got what we paid for with the service. The guy installing the Torlys was useless. Didn't show up when booked.

I would recommend going with Floorscape if you are looking at either product. Verena at floorscape has been very helpful as we put some carpet down and needed some transitions from laminate to carpet. I did this myself and it was super easy. The laminate has been great. It wears great and is very easy to clean. If you want some photos of the installation let me know. Also, make sure you get the laminate installers to handle the carpet to floor transition as the carpet installers didn't have any idea how to handle the laminate transition.

Cheers, Matt.

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hairy1

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#790172 1-Apr-2013 12:13

Also, you have obviously figured out that laminate isn't any good in the bathrooms due to ongoing moisture issues. It has been fine on our kitchen.

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Delphinus

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#790175 1-Apr-2013 12:22

Hi Matt, I would be interested in some pictures if possible?

hairy1

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#790183 1-Apr-2013 12:40

Sorry, the quality is not so flash due to file size limitations but you probably get the idea. We used the profile you can find here:

http://www.floorscape.co.nz/profiles-underlayments.html for the laminate to carpet transition.

Let me know if you need any more info.

Cheers.

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mailmarshall

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#790307 1-Apr-2013 20:51

Thanks Matt

Do you notice any 'bowing' or discoloring in the area that has sun going on the laminate?? The last photo above.

IS it difficult to install the laminate to carpet transition?

Regs

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#790310 1-Apr-2013 21:01

tiles: dont do it without underfloor heating... we did and regret it. mitre10 tiles are probably cheap ones from india, rather than expensive ones from italy. not sure if the difference in price is reflected in quality or design/aesthetics... dont take the floor price at a tile shop though. work out how much you need, ask for a price and then push a bit more...

flooring: we put in a new matai timber floor. it was pretty reasonably priced - quite a bit cheaper than recycled matai flooring from a demolition place. we got ours direct from http://www.cedarcorp.co.nz/ we also got cedarcorp to supply external weatherboards as a good price too.

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hairy1

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#790337 1-Apr-2013 21:59

mailmarshall: Thanks Matt

Do you notice any 'bowing' or discoloring in the area that has sun going on the laminate?? The last photo above.

IS it difficult to install the laminate to carpet transition?

No. All the flooring looks the identical colour to the day it was put down 7 years ago. The trim was added later as we originally had the whole living room done in the laminate. It was a huge area and after a while we found it a bit noisy so lifted it and replaced it with carpet. We left the kitchen and entry's in laminate and it is perfect.

The trim was easy to put down. It took me a few hours. Having a drop saw was handy to get 45 mitres where the corners were. I drilled and ramfixed the plastic channel that the trim clips into. Drilling took the longest as our concrete floor is very hard.

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Niel

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#791938 2-Apr-2013 21:13

I cannot make a judgement between Torlys and Floorscape, and have experience only with the current Auckland rep and installer. Based on the web site I'd say both are equally good quality however with Torlys we were not offered much in the line of trim options although the install videos do show options.

We went for a flat floor as my wife does a lot of baking and we did not want flour etc. stuck in bevelled edges, otherwise I would recommend bevelled edges because with flat boards you can sometimes feel a slight edge.

For the first year we had a lot of expansion and contraction, when I get up in the morning the floor would creek. This is now essentially gone since we got an aircon which regulates the humidity to the recommended range for the floor (which is also the comfortable range for people).

Floor tiles do vary in price due to brand/shop, but as others said also due to "binning" of tile size so the batch you receive will be within tight size tolerance. That labour cost extra, but is what makes the tiler's job easier and makes the install look more professional.

Our church is in the process of replacing a huge floor area of ~2 year old synthetic carpet because our youth dragged couches across the floor which caused burn marks due to friction (the fibres melted). Now if you make a load heavy enough then it will cause damaged, however these couches had (small) caster wheels on them for the purpose of easy moving and still melted the carpet. It is also not a cheap carpet, it is a commercial grade.

Fading depends on what is used for colouring. Synthetic and wool can fade just as easily, or last just as long, depending on the quality. However, and for me this is most important, synthetics are toxic in a fire and when barefoot I'll also rather run across smouldering wool than smouldering plastic (which will stick to my feet).

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hairy1

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#791951 2-Apr-2013 21:28

Oh yeah. I forgot about the creaking. Our laminate did it too. It doesn't do it anymore. Am not sure if it was bedding in or what.

I have been super impressed by the wear on the laminate. No fading and super hard wearing. We used LFC floating floors for our installation. We would have liked to have been offered more trim options at the time.

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bazzer

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#792062 3-Apr-2013 08:24

Niel: However, and for me this is most important, synthetics are toxic in a fire and when barefoot I'll also rather run across smouldering wool than smouldering plastic (which will stick to my feet).

Really? You based (part of) your decision on what would happen if you had to run barefoot across yuor carpet while it was on fire? I'd probably just put some shoes on!

Niel

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#792511 3-Apr-2013 16:57

bazzer:
Niel: However, and for me this is most important, synthetics are toxic in a fire and when barefoot I'll also rather run across smouldering wool than smouldering plastic (which will stick to my feet).

Really? You based (part of) your decision on what would happen if you had to run barefoot across yuor carpet while it was on fire? I'd probably just put some shoes on!

My shoes are in the garage, don't wear them if I don't have to. Actually GJ Gardner build standard with wool carpet, so we did not choose wool. However, I would go wool if it was optional.

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