ᐅ Which type of flooring is best for the ground floor – experiences?

Created on: 7 Nov 2018 10:07
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Zaba12
Hello everyone,

My site manager called me yesterday regarding the basement, and the topic of the flooring on the ground floor came up again. He suggested that we might want to reconsider mixing both types of flooring, mainly because of the feeling of coldness but also for future renovations, especially in the living area.

We originally planned to have wood-look tiles throughout the entire ground floor. Everything has already been selected. In the photo, the tile is shown at the bottom, and the laminate is placed on top.

Now I have come up with the following idea. See the picture.

- Yellow is laminate
- Green is tile
- Blue is the island

And yes, I have ordered the kitchen exactly as planned :-p

What is your opinion on this mixed approach?

Modern kitchen with central island, dark countertop, cooktop, and storage compartments.

Open floor plan: kitchen on the left, dining and living area, stairs in the middle, hallway on the right

Wood floor samples made of wood slats on a display, shoes visible below.
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chand1986
17 Nov 2018 22:40
When we talk about modern parquet, we are not referring to solid wood planks.

Vinyl is also not ideal in terms of material properties for underfloor heating, but since it is usually quite thin, it doesn't cause any issues.

With real wood, it is also important that the construction is not too thick. Additionally, the wood species matters for suitability, due to shrinkage behavior. Among local woods, nothing beats oak. However, that does come at a higher cost...
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hemali2003
17 Nov 2018 22:49
denz. schrieb:
How exactly did it go wrong?

We were sold an overly thick impact sound insulation layer for this flooring, which caused it to crack and break everywhere. Additionally, we had good intentions and purchased a non-toxic flooring, which was terribly difficult to install due to its complete lack of flexibility and extremely sensitive to point loads (even the smallest stones caused deep dents).

But aside from our particular bad experience with this flooring: visually, vinyl is usually not very appealing. Initially, the texture looks nice and the surface is matte. After a few months, it looked (not just in our case—I've noticed this frequently) like a gym floor. Plastic-like and somehow cheap. Price range about 25-40 euros.

Our cheap laminate flooring in the previous apartment still looked better after 15 years!
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Nordlys
17 Nov 2018 22:59
FrauHemali, that is, to put it mildly, nonsense. Both our offices and various daycare groups in our town have vinyl flooring, products from project floors or similar, at an uninstalled price of 25 euros per square meter (about $26 per square yard) today. All floors are intact and still look top quality.
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hemali2003
17 Nov 2018 23:04
Nordlys schrieb:
FrauHemali, that is, to put it mildly, nonsense. Both our offices and several daycare groups here in town are covered with vinyl flooring, products from project floors or similar, around 25 per square meter (25 per square yard) uninstalled current price. All floors are intact and still look flawless.
Yes, of course, it shouldn’t be generalized! This is just my personal experience.

I honestly don’t know any vinyl floor that still looks as it was intended after 1/2/3 years. Maybe we all just had bad luck... that’s possible.
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sco0ter
17 Nov 2018 23:34
Nordlys schrieb:
If not, we didn’t want to, nothing beats glued vinyl with FHZ, great thermal conductor, wide range of appearances, very durable

That might be true. However, I have often heard that thermal conductivity is generally somewhat overrated.

If the values are lower, it just takes longer for the heat to be felt in the room. The heat is not lost, you just need a bit of patience until it warms up. You probably only notice this during the transition period in autumn.
Whether this is correct, I (still) can’t say.

And I could imagine that parquet feels more comfortable than vinyl once the heating is off.
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aero2016
18 Nov 2018 09:26
Dr Hix schrieb:
He is not entirely wrong; solid wood is indeed not ideal for underfloor heating. But who can really afford that?
The common 3-layer engineered wood flooring, on the other hand, is not a problem.

The issue with 3-layer engineered wood flooring compared to solid wood is that the three layers expand differently when heated. This can lead to unattractive gaps forming.

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