Wooden floors - Durability advice

[pjsmith]

Hi,

I'm after a bit of advice.

I laid laminate flooring in our previous flat, and now in a few rooms of our house. I've been pleased with it's durability, even the £7 a pack B&Q special offer stuff! I've dropped hammers on it, alsorts, it just doesn't break.

Now I'm at the stage where I want to repalce the entire 1st floor. I wanted real wood. I find it simply looks better than the laminate I can get locally. My problem is I find it too soft. We are not ones to take our shoes of every time we come through the door, and I can't find anything durable.

I read up on bamboo flooring which is supposed to be tougher than most hardwoods. I got various samples, including the 'super' ones for clubs, pubs etc. I even got the strand woven one which is supposed to be twice as hard as regular bamboo again. I did a simple test. Dropped my bunch of keys from pocket hight onto each sample. This caused significant damage to all but the strand woven sample, but that was still dented. The laminate though, 2 different types I have in the house at the moment, doesn't even notice it!

Am I being completely unrealistic about the durability of real wood? Is this typical?

If it is, can somone recommend a high quality realistic looking laminate? We actually have one room finished in a B&Q 'forest oak', which looks really nice, but typically, they stopped selling it and we can't get any more

Thanks.

 

[Dunnster]

Hi there,

I think you should expect any real wood to mark if you drop things on it from a reasonable height. This is one of the inherent problems. Obviously the tighter the grain the more hardwearing it is likely to be. This is one of the reasons I have always stuck with laminate.

Of course you trade of practicality against appearance and like with many things in life, there don't seem to be any alternatives that provide the best of both worlds.

Can anyone prove me wrong? I hope so...what do people think?

 

[WoodYouLike]

Of course you trade of practicality against appearance and like with many things in life, there don't seem to be any alternatives that provide the best of both worlds.

Can anyone prove me wrong? I hope so...what do people think?

It's like you say: appearance versus practicality etc. All down to personal choice.
Melamine laminate will always be 'plastic' and will 'sound hard'. Soft pine boards will always indent very easily, hardwood will have a better resistance against that, but that's life, not? Some tropical wood types are very hard on their own, but even those will get 'damaged' over the years. Treat your floor as that: a floor - not a show house and enjoy what real wood does bring: added value, easy maintenance, lovely looking and warm (melamine is cold)