Best flooring options?

masterboy123

So our house construction has come towards and end and soon we will need to pick up flooring.

We decided to go for soft carpet on first floor and looking for laminated or wood flooring on ground floor. We have checked Tegola Vinyl flooring and liked some of its colour but not sure if it's durable enough for years.
We have also checked SwissKrono as suggested by a Boardsie, but it's out of our budget

Any advice on picking up a durable and reasonable priced flooring please? And what to look at like 12 mm thick? AC5 rating?

Thanks so much.

briaineo

Did you put in under floor heating? If so it will a bearing on some of your options

listermint

Why not carpet cheaply until a time you can afford the floor that you will have permanently.

Swisschrono AC5 is great I have it in my kitchen

JoeA3

Been looking at options in this regard recently too.

Most impressed with a product called “Karndean” which is a luxury wood effect vinyl tile. It’s supposed to be excellent for UFH as it is very thin and glued directly to the floor. Looks great and softer to walk on than a laminate. It seems a bit expensive at first glance but the price (at about €50 sq/m in the place we saw it) includes fitting.

masterboy123

No, we will have a regular gas heating through white radiators.

briaineo wrote: »

Did you put in under floor heating? If so it will a bearing on some of your options

masterboy123

What about in living room and dining area?

listermint wrote: »

Why not carpet cheaply until a time you can afford the floor that you will have permanently.

Swisschrono AC5 is great I have it in my kitchen

masterboy123

They look quite good. But again pricey. I have ordered a free sample from them just to see the quality

JoeA3 wrote: »

Been looking at options in this regard recently too.

Most impressed with a product called “Karndean” which is a luxury wood effect vinyl tile. It’s supposed to be excellent for UFH as it is very thin and glued directly to the floor. Looks great and softer to walk on than a laminate. It seems a bit expensive at first glance but the price (at about €50 sq/m in the place we saw it) includes fitting.

masterboy123

We liked a 12 mm AC5 flooring from Elka.
Any idea if they are a durable company?

budhabob

JoeA3 wrote: »

Been looking at options in this regard recently too.

Most impressed with a product called “Karndean” which is a luxury wood effect vinyl tile. It’s supposed to be excellent for UFH as it is very thin and glued directly to the floor. Looks great and softer to walk on than a laminate. It seems a bit expensive at first glance but the price (at about €50 sq/m in the place we saw it) includes fitting.

Where was this out of curiousity? I'd love to have our entire downstairs done in vinyl to be honest....we threw laminate down due to cost a few years ago and its by biggest regret (had no choice at the time due to cost)

randombar

Any updates here on flooring?

looking to put a “temp” floor in downstairs, need to take it back up in 6 months to put down ufh

thinking lvt that id pop up and put down again after?

NSAman

Just redid our basement area in LVT. Replaced carpet.

East to instal, warmer underfoot than laminate. Much more scratch tolerant (dogs). Cleaning is a breeze!

Have to say best decision we have made in the house was replacing all the carpets. House is cleaner, healthier and although some of it nearly killed me (thousands of tacks for carpet had to be pulled up by hand ) it’s so much nicer.

hesker

LVT doesn’t take well to being lifted after it is down. The tongue and groove click system is quite fragile. Goes down ok but not when taking back up.

randombar

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120626690#Comment_120626690

Ya I was wondering that myself, was I codding myself thinking it would all come up easy and go back down again, Seems to be doable in laminate?

hesker

I’ve never lifted laminate but if it’s a floating floor and not glued down it could work ok I guess.

Another reason to avoid LVT is it can chip if something hard is dropped on it. That will expose the layer underneath which is usually a different colour. In my case it was white underneath. That led to me replacing one plank which became two planks after one split on lifting, even being very careful.