Pros and cons of floor materials? Wood, tiles, etc. Post Reply

[SouthLondonDaddy]

What kind of floor do you prefer for a property with babies and toddlers?

I wholeheartedly hate and despise carpets. They are simply impossible to clean as well as you would clean a wooden or tiled floor. We lived in properties where not even professional cleaning managed to get rid of certain stains – and professional cleaning is hard to do regularly, especially with furniture in the way.

I like wooden floors, but they are delicate and get scratched easily.

I also like ceramic tiles, but they are cold to the touch. Not much of an issue for adults, but might be for toddlers who love to walk barefoot and to roll on the floor.
What else? Vinyl and linoleum?

What do you think?

[nicki.bal]

Hey there,

My godmother's daughter had a baby recently and they had to purchase a new apartment. Now, they were faced with the same choice you are - they had a brand new flat, but the flooring consisted of laid down tiles, so they had to renovate. Since tiles would be really cold 'till they warm up in the winter, and the toddler could have gotten ill because of that.

As far as I know, they chose a laminate flooring with a scratch protective layer. I thiiiink they bought one of these, but I'm not sure - https://www.flooringsuppliescentre.co.u ... index.html .

They decided that the easy to maintain floor with the look and feel of real wood will be a good idea to go along with the little rascal.

As for the linoleum, it will have to be laid on top of a concrete floor, so it's going to be both hard and cold

[SouthLondonDaddy]

Do you know more about these protective layers? It’s the first time I hear of them. In our current property we installed wooden floor, bought from Natural Wood-something near the Wandsorth Town station. After less than 5 years, though, it’s badly scratched, and the area around an office wheelchair has turned blackish. Arguably we didn’t go for the most expensive option, so other types of floor might have been more resistant – not sure.

Also, another disadvantage of wooden floors is that they can be noisy! There was a period when our child was super sensitive to the squeaky noise of the wooden floor outside her room, and walking there risked waking her up.

[nicki.bal]

I did a little reading to write this reply, but the scratch resistant layer seems to be kind of a new technology for this manufacturer. I am not sure whether or not other companies use something similar or not. The people I was talking about haven't had any complaints for the past 3 years, and they even recently got a dog that also should contribute a lot to the scratching out.

Laminate is technically not a wooden floor, but it's made out of high-density fibreboards with a top layer that imitates wood.

Squeaking is usually associated with old floors, tho. If you have a new one installed, there shouldn't be any problems. Old floors tend to have problems with the joists, so it might have been from there. But there really could be a list of reasons why your floors were squeaking.

[LibertyLondon]

I'm planning on trying Amtico luxury vinyl flooring, you can get wood and tile effects which look realistic, plus it is very easy to clean!

[magicwrld]

<!--td {border: 1px solid #ccc;}br {mso-data-placement:same-cell;}-->I started to repair the house, and now the whole family is waiting for it to end finally. I try to constantly learn before taking anything so that I don't regret it later.