Choosing new flooring is serious business because so much rides on your decision.
Even cheap flooring costs a lot, both in terms of money and the inevitable installation hassles. You’ve also got to live with your choice for a long time after your new floor goes down.
Before you make any crucial decisions, let me show you some things you may not know about three popular flooring options.
Ceramic tiles are a durable and beautiful choice, but even if you’ve installed them on a rigid base, cracking and loose tiles remains a danger. Expansion and contraction is the reason why.
When movement of the supporting subfloor doesn’t match that of the tiles, problems can (and often do) occur. That’s where something called uncoupling membrane can help. It allows a small amount of side-to-side movement of the tiles independently from the floor. I wouldn’t install ceramic tiles without an uncoupling membrane.
Invented by a German company called Schluter Systems, their flexible DITRA underlay allows enough independent tile movement to virtually eliminate the risk of cracking.
Complete your installation over a code-built wooden subfloor that meets Schluter’s installation directives and they warrant everything about the installation against failure for five years — cost of new tiles, cost of ripping the old tiles out, and cost of putting the new ones in. You’re completely off the hook financially if the system fails.
Although not just used for floors, a brand new material called structural foam tile backer board is poised to change the way walls, countertops, vanities and showers are built. KERDI-BOARD is the name of this product and it’s available in different thicknesses. The material cuts easily with a saw, and joins together with the same kind of thinset adhesive used to anchor tiles. Use it to build anything you want to cover in tiles, then stick them directly to the surface. Keep your eye on this new material because it’s sure to be copied. Laminate floors have become mainstream, though there are two things that few homeowners routinely fail to consider when choosing laminates. The first has to do with toughness.
Although not prominently advertised, most laminates carry an “abrasion class” (AC) rating from 1 to 5. An AC rating of 5, for instance, means the laminate is capable of standing up under commercial conditions — stores, restaurants, offices. AC-4 laminate is tough enough for heavy household use. Laminates with an AC rating of 3 are fine for ordinary household situations.
Is your floor flat enough for laminates? Most brands required a surface that’s flat within 1/4” in a 10-foot radius. Any more irregularity than this and your new laminate floor will make noise as you walk on it. It used to be that real wood floors meant putting up with sanding dust and finishing fumes. That’s one reason why prefinished hardwood has captured a big part of the market.
Another reason is durability. Factory applied finishes are thicker and tougher than anything that can be site-applied. Some factory finishes are even warranted for 35 years.
Click-together solid hardwoods is a variation on the wood floor theme and it’s gaining a growing share of the market.
These options go down just like laminates, without fastening to the underlying subfloor.
They have all the good looks of real wood (because they are real wood), they can be refinished and they aren’t as dependent as laminates on a perfectly flat subfloor.
Engineered click flooring is the most recent variation on the DIY flooring theme. The surface layer of this option is real wood — about 3mm or 4mm thick — bonded to a plywood substrate. This combination gives the floor all the good looks of real wood, plus greater physical stability, especially when applied over radiant infloor heating.
Steve Maxwell is Canada’s award-winning home improvement expert, and technical editor of Canadian Home Workshop magazine. Sign up for his free homeowner newsletter at www.stevemaxwell.ca