Hardwood vs laminate

BMW F22 · 08-25-2013, 08:15 PM

What do you guys have in your homes? Also, which brands do you guys recommend for either one?

We're thinking about doing laminate for the entire house. We're thinking of going with Pergo XP Peruvian Mahogany but heard Pergo's customer service is horrible. Thoughts?

Mr Tonka · 08-25-2013, 08:58 PM

Why do you want laminate over hardwood?

Do you have kids? Pets? Are you guys hard on your floors?

Do you expect to have problems with the Pergo?

Arben72 · 08-25-2013, 09:00 PM

Nice laminate over cheap hardwood or nice laminate vs nice hardwood floor?

BMW F22 · 08-25-2013, 09:59 PM

We have 2 dogs so we figured laminate would be more durable (less scratches too). The laminate we looked at was $3.45 /sq ft. I think hardwood is about $5.00-6.00 or so per sq. ft. I HOPE we won't have problems with the Pergo.

ddk632 · 08-25-2013, 10:00 PM

If budget is not a concern there should be no reason to go with laminate over hardwood especially for an entire house which is your primary residence (i.e., not a rental or investment property). Unless bachelor pad, then Pergo

If budget is not the main concern but you have concerns about hardwood warping (for example with humidity in Florida this can be an issue as hardwood expands), you can go for engineered wood which handles humidity better and is generally priced somewhat between laminate and full hardwood, although much closer to full hardwood than laminate.

If you have concerns about kids/pets get nice rugs for the kids rooms.

If budget is a concern (realistically it always is, just on different scales) then get the best you can afford. If you want the whole house to have uniform floors, and that square footage is too expensive in hardwood, get laminate. Engineered wood is cheaper than the high end hardwoods but on the low-middle end it's similarly priced to hardwood, albeit slightly less expensive.

Don't forget when budgeting the flooring cost, you have to account for the total price not just the sq. ft. pricing of the flooring. Hardwood and engineered wood will need a better underfloor (or whatever it's called, it can range from a sticky substance which adds a water barrier to plywood needed for hardwood floors - I forgot what that sticky substance is called, Bostik's Best or something like that), all of which costs more money before you talk about labor. Labor wise, hardwood and engineered wood are also more labor intensive to install compared to Pergo which just clicks in.

Also there is no such thing as nice laminate - there may be more expensive laminate, but it's still laminate.

Last remodel, I went with engineered wood in the entire house except kitchen (did black granite tile there which looks awesome) and it is definitely very nice.

Why would you ever need to call customer service about your floors?

Templar · 08-25-2013, 10:11 PM

Laminate for me. With four dogs (2 big ones), I would be replacing the hardwood way too often.

Hardwood can be very nice, but if your dogs will destroy it there is no point.

BMW F22 · 08-25-2013, 10:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ddk632

Last remodel, I went with engineered wood in the entire house except kitchen (did black granite tile there which looks awesome) and it is definitely very nice.

Why would you ever need to call customer service about your floors?

I read a review about someone installing Pergo and it was scratched after a few weeks by his dog. It was supposed to be very tough and scratch resistant (XP) so he called Pergo and they basically told him to buzz off and call Home Depot which was where he bought it from. No support whatsoever. Granted most people would never need to call them but if there's a warranty issue it's good to know that a company has good customer service (or not).

ddk632 · 08-25-2013, 10:24 PM

I'm curious about that. Anyone have big dogs and hardwood floors? How long did it take before they look like they need to be refinished?

The thing with hardwood, it can be refinished many times. That is much less expensive than putting in new floors.

Engineered wood can only be polished 2-3 times depending on the thickness, since it's a layer of real wood on top of whatever it's engineered on

and each time you refinish the floors, some of the top is sanded down and gone; so that can be a minus if you think this would be done often.

Laminate I think just only can be replaced. So the question would be cost to replace laminate vs. frequency and cost of polishing/refinishing hardwood floors.

I can't imagine even with big dogs this would need to happen more than once every 3-5 years depending on your tolerance for the visibility of any scratches. But I only have little dogs so I can't speak from experience

ddk632 · 08-25-2013, 10:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BMW E90

I read a review about someone installing Pergo and it was scratched after a few weeks by his dog. It was supposed to be very tough and scratch resistant (XP) so he called Pergo and they basically told him to buzz off and call Home Depot which was where he bought it from. No support whatsoever. Granted most people would never need to call them but if there's a warranty issue it's good to know that a company has good customer service (or not).

I agree about that I am just thinking with something as relatively permanent as flooring, most people are just going to live with it. Did home depot offer a warranty or handle the issue, or did it just go by the wayside?

F1Venom · 08-25-2013, 10:30 PM

Laminate looks better IMO.

BMW F22 · 08-25-2013, 11:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ddk632

I agree about that I am just thinking with something as relatively permanent as flooring, most people are just going to live with it. Did home depot offer a warranty or handle the issue, or did it just go by the wayside?

Not sure what happened in the end but the warranty was through the manufacturer so Pergo should have stepped up. In the end he got no customer service.

M_Six · 08-25-2013, 11:51 PM

We have laminate (Pergo) and I'm constantly amazed at the durability. My wife's office chair causes no problems, sliding furniture around causes no problems, the cats cause no problems, not only from scratches but also the barfing. I've spilled beer and wine and so on and had no issues cleaning it up without a trace. I dropped my MacBook Pro from hip height and it didn't even ding the floor despite landing on the corner. It's easy to clean and looks great all the time. If money were no object, I've have hardwood and granite tiles throughout, but money is an object and so is time for maintenance, so Pergo was our choice. I don't regret it for an instant.

And we've had Home Depot (who installed it) come back out and fix one small issue which was really our fault and not a Pergo failure. They did it free of charge even though they would have been within their rights to charge us.

Quote:

Also there is no such thing as nice laminate - there may be more expensive laminate, but it's still laminate.

Have to disagree here. Our floors look great and have held up for years. The Pergo that was installed when the house was built in the early 90's is still in great shape. It has never needed to be resurfaced or waxed. The woodwork on our door frames leaves no doubt that we have cats. I'm sure the floors would also show evidence of that if we had hardwood.

This is our basement floor. Installed 2 years ago and looks exactly like this today (except for the presence of bookshelves and furniture).

bbbbmw · 08-26-2013, 12:11 AM

Is your house built on a slab of concrete (vs. pier-and-beam, or something else)? If so, maybe consider polished concrete? It can be far less expensive, more durable than anything else, and looks really cool. You may want to get area rugs, but the total cost would most likely be less than laminate. Sisal rugs on concrete is great with pets.

Laminate floors can be noisy - be sure to walk (in shoes) on the specific brand you are considering.

BMW F22 · 08-26-2013, 12:16 AM

Is there anything we can put on the laminate or hardwood floor to protect it from dog urine?

khaye1 · 08-26-2013, 12:37 AM

Good quality laminate...easy install, easy to clean, easy to maintain. I got the hand scraped with the side bevel...looks exactly like its wood counterpart

SinCalgary · 08-26-2013, 01:57 AM

With large dogs(50+ pounds) I would not waste the money on hardwood. Laminate is the way to go if you want the wood look with large pets but no matter what you spend it will never look as nice as real hardwood.

I am in real estate and have been in over 6k homes and have only once seen laminate that was hard to pick out as not being wood. I have also seen hundreds of homes with heavily damaged hardwood from even small dogs in the ten pound range.

If you decide you want to do hardwood go with a light color as it hides scratches far better than dark.

Foxrus14 · 08-26-2013, 07:27 AM

Go hard wood... 3/4" thick so you can refinish it many times if necessary. We put in 4000 Sq ft of Bruce 3/4" In the spring this year... We might do laminate in the basement and that is only because it is a basement and you can't do hardwood in the basement unless you use engineered.

bjayfan · 08-26-2013, 07:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BMW E90

We have 2 dogs so we figured laminate would be more durable (less scratches too). The laminate we looked at was $3.45 /sq ft. I think hardwood is about $5.00-6.00 or so per sq. ft. I HOPE we won't have problems with the Pergo.

We had some pergo in the house, does NOT hold up well. Unless you are going to put it in an area that has low to no traffic, pergo is a mistake.

M_Six · 08-26-2013, 08:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bjayfan

We had some pergo in the house, does NOT hold up well. Unless you are going to put it in an area that has low to no traffic, pergo is a mistake.

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

Quote:

Originally Posted by BMW E90

Is there anything we can put on the laminate or hardwood floor to protect it from dog urine?

I don't know of anything off the top of my head. We've had just a couple of instances where the cats missed the litter box, but the urine did not soak in, so it was no big deal. But you need to be careful when it comes to the quarter rounds, which are the finishing strips between the floor and your baseboards. They are soft(er) pressed fiber material that will absorb liquid. Ours are almost entirely hidden by bookshelves and furniture, so it's no big deal. But if you'll have baseboards showing, you might want to go high end on the quarter rounds and look for hardwood there.

Foxrus14 · 08-26-2013, 08:59 AM

Quote:

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?

I don't know of anything off the top of my head. We've had just a couple of instances where the cats missed the litter box, but the urine did not soak in, so it was no big deal. But you need to be careful when it comes to the quarter rounds, which are the finishing strips between the floor and your baseboards. They are soft(er) pressed fiber material that will absorb liquid. Ours are almost entirely hidden by bookshelves and furniture, so it's no big deal. But if you'll have baseboards showing, you might want to go high end on the quarter rounds and look for hardwood there.

They have PVC quarter round, paintable as well... that is what we put in the gym for cleaning purposes.

dreamingat30fps · 08-26-2013, 09:14 AM

I have laminate, mainly, because I'm cheap. Found this guy that buys discontinued laminate from a lot of the big store (Homedepot etc). Only shitty part is he doesnt always have enough of each so you have to go there and figure out which laminate you want from the ones he has enough to do what you need. Anyways we did all the bedrooms because they had carpet and probably paid like $2/sqft installed. They had cheaper but wasnt a fan of the color of the other ones.

This one is pergo also and I havent noticed any real wear issues in like 3 years. We have a dog but it's small so. I did notice in my office my chair was starting to scratch it pretty bad so I got a mat for the chair. Other than that it's been fine. Even had a huge leak in one of the rooms floor sat in water for most of the day till we discovered it and it seems to still be fine. I had laminate at my last place and loved it also no issues at all.

Maestro · 08-26-2013, 09:14 AM

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.

08-25-2013, 08:15 PM	#1
BMW F22 Major General 3659 Rep 9,783 Posts Drives: ///M235i Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Bay Area iTrader: (8)	Hardwood vs laminate What do you guys have in your homes? Also, which brands do you guys recommend for either one? We're thinking about doing laminate for the entire house. We're thinking of going with Pergo XP Peruvian Mahogany but heard Pergo's customer service is horrible. Thoughts?
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08-25-2013, 08:58 PM	#2
Mr Tonka is probably out riding. 6061 Rep 2,292 Posts Drives: Something Italian Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Sweatypeninsula iTrader: (0)	Why do you want laminate over hardwood? Do you have kids? Pets? Are you guys hard on your floors? Do you expect to have problems with the Pergo? __________________ "There is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of the law and in the name of justice. -Charles de Secondat"
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08-25-2013, 09:00 PM	#3
Arben72 Banned 54 Rep 462 Posts Drives: E92 M3 Join Date: Apr 2011 Location: Illinois iTrader: (0)	Nice laminate over cheap hardwood or nice laminate vs nice hardwood floor?
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08-25-2013, 09:59 PM	#4
BMW F22 Major General 3659 Rep 9,783 Posts Drives: ///M235i Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Bay Area iTrader: (8)	We have 2 dogs so we figured laminate would be more durable (less scratches too). The laminate we looked at was $3.45 /sq ft. I think hardwood is about $5.00-6.00 or so per sq. ft. I HOPE we won't have problems with the Pergo.
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08-25-2013, 10:00 PM	#5
ddk632 Chief Senior Executive Managing VP of Orange Sales 599 Rep 2,578 Posts Drives: 17 BMW F87 M2 6MT MG HBDGR ! Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: Aventura, FL iTrader: (2)	If budget is not a concern there should be no reason to go with laminate over hardwood especially for an entire house which is your primary residence (i.e., not a rental or investment property). Unless bachelor pad, then Pergo If budget is not the main concern but you have concerns about hardwood warping (for example with humidity in Florida this can be an issue as hardwood expands), you can go for engineered wood which handles humidity better and is generally priced somewhat between laminate and full hardwood, although much closer to full hardwood than laminate. If you have concerns about kids/pets get nice rugs for the kids rooms. If budget is a concern (realistically it always is, just on different scales) then get the best you can afford. If you want the whole house to have uniform floors, and that square footage is too expensive in hardwood, get laminate. Engineered wood is cheaper than the high end hardwoods but on the low-middle end it's similarly priced to hardwood, albeit slightly less expensive. Don't forget when budgeting the flooring cost, you have to account for the total price not just the sq. ft. pricing of the flooring. Hardwood and engineered wood will need a better underfloor (or whatever it's called, it can range from a sticky substance which adds a water barrier to plywood needed for hardwood floors - I forgot what that sticky substance is called, Bostik's Best or something like that), all of which costs more money before you talk about labor. Labor wise, hardwood and engineered wood are also more labor intensive to install compared to Pergo which just clicks in. Also there is no such thing as nice laminate - there may be more expensive laminate, but it's still laminate. Last remodel, I went with engineered wood in the entire house except kitchen (did black granite tile there which looks awesome) and it is definitely very nice. Why would you ever need to call customer service about your floors?
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08-25-2013, 10:11 PM	#6
Templar Lieutenant Colonel 271 Rep 1,883 Posts Drives: 2011 E92 M3 Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: One of the coasts... iTrader: (1) Garage List 2011 BMW M3 [10.00]	Laminate for me. With four dogs (2 big ones), I would be replacing the hardwood way too often. Hardwood can be very nice, but if your dogs will destroy it there is no point.
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08-25-2013, 10:24 PM	#8
ddk632 Chief Senior Executive Managing VP of Orange Sales 599 Rep 2,578 Posts Drives: 17 BMW F87 M2 6MT MG HBDGR ! Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: Aventura, FL iTrader: (2)	I'm curious about that. Anyone have big dogs and hardwood floors? How long did it take before they look like they need to be refinished? The thing with hardwood, it can be refinished many times. That is much less expensive than putting in new floors. Engineered wood can only be polished 2-3 times depending on the thickness, since it's a layer of real wood on top of whatever it's engineered on and each time you refinish the floors, some of the top is sanded down and gone; so that can be a minus if you think this would be done often. Laminate I think just only can be replaced. So the question would be cost to replace laminate vs. frequency and cost of polishing/refinishing hardwood floors. I can't imagine even with big dogs this would need to happen more than once every 3-5 years depending on your tolerance for the visibility of any scratches. But I only have little dogs so I can't speak from experience
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08-25-2013, 10:30 PM	#10
F1Venom Banned 76 Rep 961 Posts Drives: ZCP E90 M3 Join Date: Apr 2013 Location: USA iTrader: (0)	Laminate looks better IMO.
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08-26-2013, 12:11 AM	#13
bbbbmw Major General 2392 Rep 6,083 Posts Drives: 135i Join Date: Nov 2012 Location: Southwest iTrader: (0)	Is your house built on a slab of concrete (vs. pier-and-beam, or something else)? If so, maybe consider polished concrete? It can be far less expensive, more durable than anything else, and looks really cool. You may want to get area rugs, but the total cost would most likely be less than laminate. Sisal rugs on concrete is great with pets. Laminate floors can be noisy - be sure to walk (in shoes) on the specific brand you are considering. __________________ <OO (llll)(llll) OO>
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08-26-2013, 12:16 AM	#14
BMW F22 Major General 3659 Rep 9,783 Posts Drives: ///M235i Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Bay Area iTrader: (8)	Is there anything we can put on the laminate or hardwood floor to protect it from dog urine?
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08-26-2013, 12:37 AM	#15
khaye1 Colonel 161 Rep 2,811 Posts Drives: 24 G87 Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: San Diego iTrader: (8) Garage List [10.00]	Good quality laminate...easy install, easy to clean, easy to maintain. I got the hand scraped with the side bevel...looks exactly like its wood counterpart __________________
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08-26-2013, 01:57 AM	#16
SinCalgary Private First Class 10 Rep 128 Posts Drives: AW 2011 135i DCT M-Sport Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Calgary, AB Canada iTrader: (0)	With large dogs(50+ pounds) I would not waste the money on hardwood. Laminate is the way to go if you want the wood look with large pets but no matter what you spend it will never look as nice as real hardwood. I am in real estate and have been in over 6k homes and have only once seen laminate that was hard to pick out as not being wood. I have also seen hundreds of homes with heavily damaged hardwood from even small dogs in the ten pound range. If you decide you want to do hardwood go with a light color as it hides scratches far better than dark.
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08-26-2013, 07:27 AM	#17
Foxrus14 1 SLY 1 51 Rep 187 Posts Drives: 2014 328i work car... Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: Charlotte, NC iTrader: (0)	Go hard wood... 3/4" thick so you can refinish it many times if necessary. We put in 4000 Sq ft of Bruce 3/4" In the spring this year... We might do laminate in the basement and that is only because it is a basement and you can't do hardwood in the basement unless you use engineered. __________________ 2014 328i - Mine 2012 135i M Sport - Wifey 2014 z28 Hennessey 650 package - Mine 2014 Harley Davidson Street Glide Special - Mine 2014 Harley Davidson Breakout - Wifey
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08-26-2013, 09:14 AM	#21
dreamingat30fps Colonel 5964 Rep 2,023 Posts Drives: Miata, Cayenne, Model 3, F350 Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: South Florida & NC iTrader: (1)	I have laminate, mainly, because I'm cheap. Found this guy that buys discontinued laminate from a lot of the big store (Homedepot etc). Only shitty part is he doesnt always have enough of each so you have to go there and figure out which laminate you want from the ones he has enough to do what you need. Anyways we did all the bedrooms because they had carpet and probably paid like $2/sqft installed. They had cheaper but wasnt a fan of the color of the other ones. This one is pergo also and I havent noticed any real wear issues in like 3 years. We have a dog but it's small so. I did notice in my office my chair was starting to scratch it pretty bad so I got a mat for the chair. Other than that it's been fine. Even had a huge leak in one of the rooms floor sat in water for most of the day till we discovered it and it seems to still be fine. I had laminate at my last place and loved it also no issues at all.
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08-26-2013, 09:14 AM	#22
Maestro Major 1058 Rep 1,268 Posts Drives: 2007 335i Sedan, 2021 X3 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Philadelphia iTrader: (0)	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.
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