[Templar]

Originally Posted by Maestro

I keep seeing people saying if you have dogs go with laminate since dogs will destroy the hardwoods.

This is not 100% true, it comes does to how the hardwoods were sealed, If you buy them pre-finished and it has the aluminum oxide clear on them this finish is as tough as nails.

I installed my hardwoods 8 yrs ago, they are 5" Brazilian teak and they still look like new. At first we were anal about not walking on them with shoes, especially street shoe. Well I had little kids and that did not last long, they even walked across the floors with soccer cleats. At this point my wife rather they walk in shoes on the floor than bare foot or their sweaty soccer sock this you can see the foot marks on the shinny floor

We now have a dog who has ran and slid across those floors for the last 2 1/2 years and not a single scratch in them.

I also saw that someone talked about Humidity, this is a concern with real hardwood especially if you live in area where the humidity swings up and down over time and I am not talking day to day buy over long period of time. This is true for area in the north where you heat your home in the winter time. I had to put in a humidifier, since out house would dry out in the winter and floors would separate.

Lastly, I have use both Laminates and Hardwood and had to deal with water spills and such. Unless the laminate is sealed at the joints with a glue laminates do not do well if the water ends ups soaking it. I mean sitting on is for a period of time, not a spill glass of water. Once Laminates get wet at the core you are screwed, there is nothing you can do about it. I had two laminate floor get ruined because water got under due to a leak.

On the other hand Hardwood if water leak on them and it is not that bad you can recover the floor easily. I had a washing machine dump its entire load on the floor and flowed out of the laundry room on to our hardwoods, and it was like this for hours. Came home clear the mess only to find the next day the hardwood bowed up. Well we brought in a dryer and dehumidifier and with in the week the floor was back down and never had an issue with it.

I can tell you this, real Hardwood will always look nicer in home than laminates. Laminated have their uses and places nut they will always look fake.

How big is your dog? OP too, take the size of your pets into consideration.

I'm 99% sure my large dogs would destroy any real hardwood floor, no matter what finish/sealing is on them. But I'm talking about real dogs, not some 10 pound rat looking thing. I have four dogs total in my house (two are my fiance's), my dogs are over 80 lbs each and the fiance's are the small ones (about 10 lbs). Two of the dogs are younger, and are constantly running and chasing each other inside the house. Where the floor is placed, they also hit it pretty hard when they run down the stairs. My one large dog scratched up a laminate floor in an apartment I stayed in once. I'm guessing it was a cheap floor, because in my new house I have absolutely zero scratches after a year.

I can see how a hardwood floor would probably stand up very well to a small dog walking on it from time to time, or possibly in a room where the dog almost never enters. When you have multiple dogs, especially large ones that run and play every now and then in the house, hardwood floors just aren't going to happen. Unless you want to refinish and replace all the time, then it's really up to you.

I do agree hardwood always looks better and nicer than a laminate, but laminate, like you said, has its uses and can still look decent if you pick the right floor for the room/area.

[Pillzilla]

I had hardwood that was replaced last year with laminate. I have a 75 pound dog that within 2 months scratched the shit out of the hardwood. Also, there were dents and chips in the hardwood from dropping various things.

I've had laminate for over a year now and there are no scratches, chips, dents or damage of any kind. I went with a dark hand scraped hickory look and love it. I will never go back to hardwood floors. Even if I didn't have a dog I don't think I'd ever do hardwood again.

[bjayfan]

Originally Posted by M_Six

Hmm, ours is holding up very well after years of use. We have cats and not large dogs, so maybe that's the diff?

Cats here also, no dogs. Pergo was in 7 years, looked fine the first 2 or so, then all sorts of problems. Replaced it with slate. Yes, have to seal it once a year or so, but have found nothing that slate can't take.

[OrangeCrush]

Originally Posted by Maestro

I keep seeing people saying if you have dogs go with laminate since dogs will destroy the hardwoods.

This is not 100% true, it comes does to how the hardwoods were sealed, If you buy them pre-finished and it has the aluminum oxide clear on them this finish is as tough as nails.

I installed my hardwoods 8 yrs ago, they are 5" Brazilian teak and they still look like new. At first we were anal about not walking on them with shoes, especially street shoe. Well I had little kids and that did not last long, they even walked across the floors with soccer cleats. At this point my wife rather they walk in shoes on the floor than bare foot or their sweaty soccer sock this you can see the foot marks on the shinny floor

We now have a dog who has ran and slid across those floors for the last 2 1/2 years and not a single scratch in them.

I also saw that someone talked about Humidity, this is a concern with real hardwood especially if you live in area where the humidity swings up and down over time and I am not talking day to day buy over long period of time. This is true for area in the north where you heat your home in the winter time. I had to put in a humidifier, since out house would dry out in the winter and floors would separate.

Lastly, I have use both Laminates and Hardwood and had to deal with water spills and such. Unless the laminate is sealed at the joints with a glue laminates do not do well if the water ends ups soaking it. I mean sitting on is for a period of time, not a spill glass of water. Once Laminates get wet at the core you are screwed, there is nothing you can do about it. I had two laminate floor get ruined because water got under due to a leak.

On the other hand Hardwood if water leak on them and it is not that bad you can recover the floor easily. I had a washing machine dump its entire load on the floor and flowed out of the laundry room on to our hardwoods, and it was like this for hours. Came home clear the mess only to find the next day the hardwood bowed up. Well we brought in a dryer and dehumidifier and with in the week the floor was back down and never had an issue with it.

I can tell you this, real Hardwood will always look nicer in home than laminates. Laminated have their uses and places nut they will always look fake.

I agree...I installed brazilian teak hardwood about 5 years ago when we built our house and the stuff is indestructable...it has endured a large dog running around, high heels, dog piss, dog shit, various spills and a toddler dragging everything she can find across the floors. Just make sure you get a species that is hard and has a durable finish. Our hardwood is Bella from lumber liquidators.

[OrangeCrush]

Originally Posted by bjayfan

Cats here also, no dogs. Pergo was in 7 years, looked fine the first 2 or so, then all sorts of problems. Replaced it with slate. Yes, have to seal it once a year or so, but have found nothing that slate can't take.

We also have slate in the entry way. Awesome stuff.

[Mr Tonka]

I've been in the floor covering business since 1988 and have owned the business since 2003.

To cover some points....

Pergo had no responsibility to replace the scratched floor. There are no scratch PROOF floors. All laminates are scratch resistant. And all floors will scratch in the right situation.

If your floors are concrete slabs - You have basically ruled out sand and finish on site hardwood. You can do it but you would have to put down 3/4" plywood and then nail the 3/4" thick hardwood to the plywood, thus raising your finished floor height by 1.5". This will require all your doors to be cut, door jambs, and baseboards to be raised. (for aesthetics)

With a concrete slab you'll want to go with an engineered hardwood floor. This is basically a sheet of finished plywood plank. Because the grain is turned 90 degrees for each layer the structural integrity of the plank is much greater. This type of wood floor glues directly to the concrete floor.

Adhesive for your hardwood floor - Improper adhesive is the cause of 98% of glue down hardwood installation failures. Use only what the manufacture recommends for adhesive to ensure your warranty is intact.

All the warranties you see with hardwood and laminate warrant the build quality and finish. They warrant that the product won't delaminate and that the finish won't flake off or wear away prematurely. That's it. Get it wet and you're on your own, scratch the surface and you're on your own.

Humidity and moisture - Both of these are the enemy of both laminate and hardwood floors. For hard wood, being glued directly to the concrete floor you should do a moisture test of your slab. This is the first thing anyone will ask if you have a problem with the wood buckling or warping. If you didn't do it, you're on your own. Many of the adhesives have a moisture rating which will cover X pounds of moisture per 1000sf. The adhesive warranty is separate from your hardwood warranty. If you have 4 pounds of moisture per 1000sf and your adhesive is rated for 6 pounds per 1000sf and your wood warps or buckles, your adhesive manufacture owns the cost of replacement and installation.

Surface water - Laminate typically guards against surface water better than engineered hardwoods. Because the core of laminates are MDF or HDF (compressed saw dust) they take more steps in moisture sealing the tongue and grooves.

With some hardwoods surface water can result in the grain getting hairy. Depends on the species though.

Small flood or .50" standing water - Engineered hardwood will stand up better here. 99% of the time a laminate will blow up like a balloon. Hardwood takes longer for the water to soak in so if both floors are in the same wet conditions, the laminate will always explode first.

If your hard wood soaks in enough water to warp, you still have a chance to rectify the situation by closing up the house and running your AC at the lowest temperature you can. Using a dehumidifier can help the situation as well. Hardwood does have a memory and if addressed quickly enough can go back to it's flat installed pre water state. I've personally experienced this on two separate occasions in two different homes.

Pets and kids - I have engineered hardwood floors and a 100' puppy. Prior to the puppy another 100 pound 11 year old dog lived in the house for 3 years. The puppy has done twice the damage in one year that the old dog did in 3 years. Prior to hard wood we had laminate and the old dog lived on that floor from age 2 to 11 and didn't hardly scratch the floor. But the laminate seams would peak every time it rained.

There are some characteristics of hardwood you can get to mitigate the visible damage of the hardwood. Dark color is good. Texture & variation is better. A product with a french bleed is awesome.

Things to stay away from, soft species of wood, light in color, uniform in grain, high gloss in finish.

Our current hardwood floors are dark brown, distressed with a french bleed. Here is a current picture. Unless the right light is on it, you can't see the indentations in the wood. This is walnut by the way. But in our normal lighting conditions the floor looks fantastic, people compliment it all the time. Create the right light condition though and you can see that it's really beat up.

Excuse the cellphone camera quality....


This was before puppy but towards the end of the first dog's time on the floor...


This was just after installation.....



Distressed can look like reclaimed wood, have intentional blemishes or be hand scraped.

A french bleed is typically only applied to wood floors that have been distressed. What they do is apply a black stain and immediately squeegee all of the stain off the surface. This only leaves the black stain in the pit marks, beveled and distressed areas.

What makes the french bleed so great is that when something scratches the surface you can just use a black marker on the scratched area and it just blends into the floor. You really can't tell. For a customer demonstration I've actually taken my knife made a 1" scratch in the floor, hit it with the marker and the customer can't find it. (if a couple i'd make one of them turn around when i did it, then have them try and find it)

So if you want hardwood and have pets / kids, choose something of darker color, distressed with a french bleed.

When comparing laminate to hardwood, look at it like this: Laminate flooring was created as a highly durable floor. It's not to be an inexpensive option to hardwood. It was designed and fabricated to be much more durable than hardwood. The added bonus was that they were able to make it look pretty darn nice as well. Most people find the biggest drawback of laminate to be the noise it creates when walking on it. Since it's a floating floor it has a hollow sound when walking on it.

[rdub315]

I'm also looking into flooring, and I had a floor guy tell me vinyl is the way to go now. Supposedly more durable and better looking than laminate.

Mr Tonka - can you confirm?

I have a couple dogs, so durability is a big factor but so is resale value when we decide to put the house on the market.

[991brothers]

Originally Posted by rdub315

I'm also looking into flooring, and I had a floor guy tell me vinyl is the way to go now. Supposedly more durable and better looking than laminate.

Mr Tonka - can you confirm?

I have a couple dogs, so durability is a big factor but so is resale value when we decide to put the house on the market.

Go with luxury vinyl planking. Coretec from US Floors is amazing. 100% water proof.

Mr. Tonka is spot on!

[Mr Tonka]

Originally Posted by rdub315

I'm also looking into flooring, and I had a floor guy tell me vinyl is the way to go now. Supposedly more durable and better looking than laminate.

Mr Tonka - can you confirm?

I have a couple dogs, so durability is a big factor but so is resale value when we decide to put the house on the market.

Originally Posted by NavidM3E92

Go with luxury vinyl planking. Coretec from US Floors is amazing. 100% water proof.

Mr. Tonka is spot on!

Looks like Navid and I are the resident flooring dudes.

I also have LVP in my house. I wanted a teak theme in the pool bath but didn't want to worry about the moisture.

Pardon the dust as it was just installed.....


We did the same thing in our laundry room as well. The installer who was installing the carpet in the adjacent room complemented on the wood in the laundry room. He flipped out when it found out it was LVP.

It is very durable and as Navid said, it's non porous so water won't affect it. You could have a fresh water flood in your house and you would be able to collect all the LV planks and re-glue them once the moisture has been mitigated. Another great feature is that when you do have a damaged plank, you just peal that particular plank up and replace it with some of your attic stock. Will take you all of 5 minutes to do the repair. Much better than paying someone $200 to $400 to replace a few boards of laminate or wood.

Another cool use for LVT/P (Luxury Vinyl Tile / Plank) is a wall finish. Instead of using paint to accent this wall, we put african slate on it, but it's actually LVT. 1/8" thick and i installed it myself in 6 hours. Professional would have been done in 3 hours. Nearly everyone thinks its real slate.

[khaye1]

I've installed LV tiles before...my aunts house. it didn't take long at all. My only issue with it is the lack of grout lines. But, I guess the new ones can be grouted...is this true? If it is then I'm doing my kitchen and bathroom.

[jlstyle]

Nice vinyl wood floors can be had under $5 SF and if they are installed right, you can't tell it's vinyl unless you walk on your bare foot.

[Maestro]

Originally Posted by Templar

How big is your dog? OP too, take the size of your pets into consideration.

I'm 99% sure my large dogs would destroy any real hardwood floor, no matter what finish/sealing is on them. But I'm talking about real dogs, not some 10 pound rat looking thing. I have four dogs total in my house (two are my fiance's), my dogs are over 80 lbs each and the fiance's are the small ones (about 10 lbs). Two of the dogs are younger, and are constantly running and chasing each other inside the house. Where the floor is placed, they also hit it pretty hard when they run down the stairs. My one large dog scratched up a laminate floor in an apartment I stayed in once. I'm guessing it was a cheap floor, because in my new house I have absolutely zero scratches after a year.

I can see how a hardwood floor would probably stand up very well to a small dog walking on it from time to time, or possibly in a room where the dog almost never enters. When you have multiple dogs, especially large ones that run and play every now and then in the house, hardwood floors just aren't going to happen. Unless you want to refinish and replace all the time, then it's really up to you.

I do agree hardwood always looks better and nicer than a laminate, but laminate, like you said, has its uses and can still look decent if you pick the right floor for the room/area.

Yeah we have a 30lb Terrier, the dogs are high energy and she runs around the house like a nut some time and as she is turning corners you can hear her nails scraping the floors. We also dog sit for my sister-in-law and have been doing since we installed the floors and they are all goldens and usually 2 at a time.

I am not saying that dogs can not ruin a hardwood finish or even the wood itself. As Mr Tonka pointed out, it comes down to the specie of wood. I have seen hardwood with lots of wear and tear, and most of them was the soft wood species and they were of the type which are install, sand, stain and seal, in most of those cases they are using some sort of polyurethane and today it is water based and the finish does not hold up.

When we did our entire first floor (1200 SqFt), we did lots of research and we had the same concerns about the floors looking like hell after a period of time since we seen it in the past. As Mr Tonka pointed out, you have to select a hardwood with a durable finish and that finish is the factory applies aluminum oxide, there is nothing more durable.

Also on the hardness (using Janka Hardness rating) most oaks are around 1200 to 1500 where as the Brazilian teak we used is 3500 it almost 2 to 3 times as hard, so the combination of Teak and Al Oxide you can not get anything better except going with ceramic tiles, which they now have wood looking tiles.

Do not get me wrong, I like and have used laminate and have it my son's and mine man cave in the basement. It looks nice and servers its purpose, however, it should not to use everywhere. Personally I think Laminate are cool feeling compared to real wood. Is you going to spend the money spend it on the right thing and do not cheap out.

[Mr Tonka]

Originally Posted by khaye1

I've installed LV tiles before...my aunts house. it didn't take long at all. My only issue with it is the lack of grout lines. But, I guess the new ones can be grouted...is this true? If it is then I'm doing my kitchen and bathroom.

I still don't get this. Why take the least desirable aspect of tile and add it to something that doesn't need it.

Originally Posted by jlstyle

Nice vinyl wood floors can be had under $5 SF and if they are installed right, you can't tell it's vinyl unless you walk on your bare foot.

That's a little on the inexpensive side of things. Not that you can't find it, but the selection will be slim and the quality won't be awesome. Some of the lesser expensive products can shrink after 6 months or so of being installed, leaving gaps in between the planks.

Another benefit of LVP is that because of it's thickness you can easily install it over existing flooring without any hight issues. This can be a major cost savings if you are planning on taking up ceramic / porcelain to install the LVP. I actually installed it over laminate in our rental house too. 1 year and it's still going well.

[khaye1]

Originally Posted by Mr Tonka

I still don't get this. Why take the least desirable aspect of tile and add it to something that doesn't need it.

Cuz it just looks off without it?. It looks like one big piece of linoleum?

[Mr Tonka]

Originally Posted by khaye1

Cuz it just looks off without it?. It looks like one big piece of linoleum?

yeah, but when EVERY customer who buys tile says; "Do i have to have grout lines? If so, how thin of grout lines can we do? Cause i want the least amount of grout possible." I still wonder about the powers at be making those decisions.

I know that markets are different, but in the south, with as much tile as there is in FL, grout is hated. Grouted LVT won't be a big seller in FL.

And for us flooring dealers, we have to train LVT guys on how to mix and apply grout. Not all flooring installers know how to or even want to install all types of floors. There are some guys who just want to do wood or laminate. Tile guys typically only do tile and most carpet guys are the ones who install the LVT. So they aren't well versed in grouting.

While grout is fairly inexpensive, this will drive up the installation cost by about $1.50 to t$2.00/sf to consumers.

[BMW F22]

Wow thank you for all the great info guys!! I'm leaning toward hardwood but it's about 3x as expensive as laminate.

[hudamang]

I have hardwood but it became distressed after my dogs started running on it. My buddy has laminate and I'm amazed what new styles they have for laminate now. It looks identical to hardwood and I actually prefer his to mine. It's pretty much scratch proof and beautiful. Get laminate that you can't tell is laminate. There are some cheap laminate that just looks cheap and ghetto.

[BMW F22]

I'd love to go with hardwood but at the cost of 3x laminate, we might just go with laminate this time around.

[BMW F22]

This is what you guys were talking about? http://www.homedepot.com/p/TrafficMa...e#BVRRWidgetID

Vinyl PLanks?

[991brothers]

Originally Posted by BMW E90

This is what you guys were talking about? http://www.homedepot.com/p/TrafficMa...e#BVRRWidgetID

Vinyl PLanks?

Its says its not waterproof. I would go to a specialist in the flooring business. not a home depot

[BMW F22]

Originally Posted by NavidM3E92

Its says its not waterproof. I would go to a specialist in the flooring business. not a home depot

Yeah that one is water resistant, not proof. I looked at Armstrong Luxury Vinyl Planks and those are waterproof.