ᐅ Click vinyl plank or laminate flooring over underfloor heating in a new build?

Hello,

we are building a semi-detached house and have underfloor heating in all living areas.

We want to install wooden flooring ourselves throughout the first floor and attic.

Which would you recommend more: laminate or click-lock engineered wood flooring?

What should we pay attention to when buying?

Of course, it must be suitable for underfloor heating.
Wear layer? How thick should it be at minimum?

I have seen that click-lock engineered wood flooring is available for about 30-40€/m² (3-4 USD/ft²) and is no longer as expensive as the reputation of wood flooring suggests.

Thank you very much for your help and experiences.

The inexpensive parquet flooring has a very thin wear layer and tends to get damaged all the way through to the base layer. That’s what I have in my condominium right now. With good parquet, the wood "lives," and dents and scratches look like laugh lines on a face.

With cheap parquet, you can immediately see something like particleboard showing through, which is more like a toothless grimace.

If you have small children, I would recommend starting with commercial laminate flooring. It stands up well to wear and is very affordable. However, parquet is naturally more appealing both visually and to the touch.

We don’t have children “yet.”

What should the minimum wear layer thickness be for hardwood flooring? At least 3mm (0.12 inches)?

What else should we pay attention to in order to distinguish good hardwood flooring from bad?

Is the same true for laminate? What should you look out for?

Is click-lock hardwood flooring actually good? We definitely want to install everything ourselves.

Yes, I would say 3mm, although there are also good options with 1.5mm. It probably depends on how hard the material is.
If you can only see it in the packaging, it will hardly be possible to assess, so you might have to rely on reviews.
If you can see it in person, I would pay attention to (geometric) irregularities, the straightness of the plank (especially the tongue and groove).
Also check if there are any visible cracks, as this can indicate how the wood was stored. Are all the planks the same size, etc.

Laminate is so inexpensive that I might buy a pack in advance and test it.

I like click systems. Some people swear by gluing.

At first, we thought about installing vinyl flooring, but now we want to go with click-lock engineered wood flooring or high-quality laminate.

There are click-lock engineered wood floors with a wear layer of about 3mm (many are only 2.5mm—would that still be sufficient?) that cost around 30–40€/m² (3–4 USD/ft²).

That would still be acceptable for us.

High-quality laminate would be around 20–30€/m² (2–3 USD/ft²).

You have no idea, I don’t know all the types of parquet available on the market – both could of course be good. I would start with a thickness of 3mm (0.12 inches) and if I don’t find a look I like there, maybe go thinner.

I claim you can also get laminate flooring cheaper. I have some from Kaindl. Apart from the limited number of designs, I find it very good.