About to put laminate flooring downstairs it is onto floor boards, was wondering if anyone can recomend any particular makes of laminate floor that have worn well. Looking to spend on a decent quality but can't afford engineered or solid. Was hoping for around £20m².

Any recomendations welcomed.

We have Quick Step in various rooms lasted well and easy to fit. Better than the B&Q shite I fitted at in laws.

+1 Quick Step, just dont get it wet!!

Intresting years back I was flooging Pergo flooring with some
of our fitted furniture approx £ 40 square M
turned out it was the same stuff being sold in B&Q under another name.
Used this in my daughters room 4 year back and no marks from the high heels and plenty of drinks spilt and nail varnish and no probs there.
So now always use the B&Q Aqua laminate.

I can get you engineered for £20m. 18mm oak stuff.

floors to go are having a sale at the min might be worth a look
http://www.floors2go.co.uk/

Don't go to floors2go! They're the equivalent of DFS, you're better off going to B and Q

And funky strikes again! I bought solid French oak for 20 a square. Best thing (having two young kids) we ever invested in homewise, would hate to think what a shit hole our gaff would look like if we'd had carpets!!!
I'm in the midlands and bought from a place called fitchet and wolacott in Notts. Quality stuff! Honestly it's worth a shop around coz laminate is tail!!

Oh and as a rule always lay at 90 degrees to original floor boarding!

Can't comment on the provenance of Pergo vs own brand stuff but we got a deal on some stuff and it's been great. We've also got a toddler and have had same experience as above. Also toy cars go really well on it! Worst stuff I ever had was Focus own brand stuff. Laid a third of a floor before taking it back up and returning it to shop for refund. Manager didn't even argue – think he knew it was crap.

Remember to budget for underlay

No underlay required with solid or machined 18 mm floors . Mainly used for your floating floors.

Other deciding factor for me between laminate and solid floor was 'stack height'. Already had flooring sorted in kitchen and didn't want a big height difference between the two. Mattered to me but may not matter to others. Other thing to budget for is new skirting and door strips

Rich is yours now down? A lot of the fitters can now rout out underside of skirt to allow boards to go in the rebate. Ball ache but cheaper than new skirts throughout.

We've had good results with B&Q stuff, would've only used Quik Step because of the cycling link.

Good knee pads essential, and while on floorboards it's good to lie the laminate across the baords, if it is a long well lit room, it's good to lie the laminate lengthwise to the light source i.e. window.

Look at that! There's an edvert for wooden flooring over there >>>

Proof that Satan is at work! 😯

Bunged some cheapo B+Q laminate stuff down at my Dad's place about 10 years ago, and it's still fine. Think it was about £11 sq/m. A friend had some fancy 'proper wood' stuff put down about 4 years ago; it's knackered and needs replacing.

I've always laid my own laminate flooring and take off skirting boards. Don't understand how you do the rebating of skirting boards all the way round. Don't see how you fit the sides or the last row?

It's not an ideal scenario granted, you have to back lay the last few rows, also you don't send it fully into the rebate you've created. I did my hall way like this due to curved walls where the original skirting had been curved to fit the Walls! Didn't fancy replacing that. It probably doesn't work with a floating system due to the Tongue and groove. With a 45 degree nailed solid you can remove the Tongue, and butt joint. As you say much easier to remove skirts but there is a way round it.

I've used loads of Floors to Go laminate and its fine, i 've got 12mm in the lounge, it's a bit overkill really and 8mm upstairs which is fine.

I fitted Wickes at my parents and its kak 😐

We bought Kahrs engineered wood flooring – plenty of deals about so you should be able to get to your target price…looks great.

Lots of fitters have also cut into hidden services behind skirting boards rebateing them this fitter included so I wont do that ever again .

Lots of fitters have also cut into hidden services behind skirting boards rebateing them this fitter included so I wont do that ever again .

Thankfully, got away with it the few times I did it, but never would again.

What sort of gap ( if any?) should you leave between the edge of wooden flooring and the walls? So floor products say 10mm 3/8'' – this seems a large gap?

I think the 'expansion gap' is to allow for, erm, expansion, so 5-10mm is usually recommended. I'd say, that in a house with heating, the extremes of temperature probably won't cause expansion of more than a few mm at most, so 5mm should be ok. The gap will hopefully be concealed by beading.

Moisture can create problems here though, and if a room is damp, then things can get a bit tricky. Hence, most types of laminate flooring aren't recommended or bathrooms. Not ideal anyway, as it's too slippery when wet. Better off with floor tiles or textured vinyl.

I have seen examples of when no gap has been left. Interior landscaping, anyone? 😀

Yer thought it was for expansion, but 10mm sounded awfully big! Think will go for 5 and cover with new skirting

Let the flooring adjust to your house temperature by leaving the packs inside for a couple days before you begin.

I leave 10mmish never had a problem, beading covers it.

Use a jigsaw to cut it also, it saves loads of time, don't be too fussy of the edges they get covered anyway.

Think will go for 5 and cover with new skirting

By all means do…and regret it.

New skirting should be at least 15mm anyway, so leave 10.

Darcy was going to remove all existing skirting, fit floor with gap to wall then fit new skirting to wall above new floor to hide expansion gap… So when floor expands it expands under skirting. That wrong? I could leave a 10mm gap and the new skirting will cover that.

Yes it be fine 😛

Yep, that's the general idea dude. You might get away with 5mm all round, but in general work to 10mm. You'll end up leaving 5 somewhere, so as long as it's 10 in most places, you should be fine.

We have just had Karndean flooring put in most of the downstairs rooms. It's guaranteed for life (I think) but it was a bit more expensive

Ok cool, diy tolerances etc seem massive when compared to engineering tolerances! And as I do jobs on our house, I'm amazed the people that threw it up could have gone home and slept soundly at night!

Ok and will use 10mm gap.

We have just had Karndean flooring put in most of the downstairs rooms. It's guaranteed for life (I think) but it was a bit more expensive

Ha Ha it might as well be guaranteed for life as they have never honoured a faulty product complaint in my experience

just have a look at an off cut tile and peel the top serface off with your fingernail

If you can borrow a slide mitre circular saw that speeds things up a lot in my experience. Also, laying laminate is a lot easier with two of you as you can clip together a room length 'plank' and then click the entire length down in one go. A gash bit of offcut and a hammer also works as a useful pursuader to seat errant bits and close gaps.

don't buy from tesco online – i got some cheap stuff which was poorly packaged and it was all smashed at the corners!

On ground floor scenarios which services are directly behind skirtings? And why are you routing beyond 12/15 mm that skirts may be? You do realise anything other than timber ain't particularly good for router bits. As I said it isn't the ideal situation, but is a good method when required. In my case a 1920's moisture bent bit of timber was not on my wish list to replace for sure!

Wrightyson
I agree it has its place in my case I managed to find 1 water pipe 1 alarm cable and the ring main in that order . now had I been going the other way the main cable would have stopped me severing the water pipe .

and the best bit was the skirting board had been recessed to accomadate said services. there was 5 mm of wood left .

The resulting mess and agro it caused was the point when I wont do that again .

There are other really cool bodges folks do that we floor layers find I bet DeadlyDarcy has a few hits or near misses on services in the past .

another one that comes to mind was the concrete floor that the owner/ architect said there were no pipes under and it was ok to drill across the doorway , metal detector said no pipes metal detector couldnt see the plastic pipe

Ooo trout that was seriously unlucky! You're right tho, it is in theory a bodge. I love architects as well, charge you the earth, ponce onto sight in there rangey sport, get their Paul smith suit trousers slightly dirty, then moan, then charge you again ha ha

On the whole undercutting skirting thing. No matter what excuse you have, it's not good practice. As trout and I have pointed out, you have no clue what's behind the skirting. Also, it's only hope you've got that the line of skirting on top of your floor will look the part. Skirting on a flat surface such as wood or laminate should always be scribed. I know a fitter who does the whole undercut thing with a multimaster…it looks rough as a badger's arse. He ends up using painters' mate at the skirting/floor interface.

As for architects…that's another thread!!