MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
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We're doing a house up. We'd like laminate downstairs. I've been looking around and holy crap, what a minefield! Anyone got any recommendations as to what's good and reasonably priced? Been looking at BerryAlloc, there's a seller doing 28msq for £270 on eBay which seems pretty good... Also Krono and Egger.
Just thought I'd bump this as I'm interested too.
And yes I'm sure engineered wood is wonderful etc, but cheap is good...
Also recommendations for kitchen stuff specifically...
I'd try going through a fitter: some friends were looking at buying and fitting their own, but the discount the fitter could get over retail more than covered the fitting costs.
I'll have a look at fitters, but all in fitted for £270? I'd be surprised if that even covered the labour!
Having been through the minefield recently, theres a huge swathe of variation in quality. I ended up spreadsheeting the whole shebang, including underlay, glue/sealant etc. Best deal i found for bang for buck was in homebase bizarrely (~£10/M2), comes with a decent warranty too.
Fitted it myself, but that ended up costing me about £40 in jigsaw blades.....its hard stuff. If you're going to do it, I'd invest in a rotary saw..... its worth it.
Carpetright had some nice looking stuff too.
cheap carpet/lino looks better than cheap laminate.
Fortunately I can borrow some decent saws, so that shouldn't be too bad. I'm now looking at engineered wood, but that's a bit more expensive...
What was the quality like on the Homebase stuff?
I've had to take back several packs of Homebase Ash flooring as the boards were warped. Only found out when I was laying it and it wouldn't mate properly.
Its schreiber stuff (from homebase), seems pretty good. top surface doesnt mark easily, warranty for 25 years (way more than I'll need).
Invest in a decent underlay though, thicker is better and if i were doing it again I'd do it with the underlay tiles.
So tiles rather than a roll? Noted.
Swaying toward engineered wood at the mo, it just looks nicer (and we're planning on being there for a good few years).
Use a sharp handsaw for most cuts; teeth cut down (no chipping)and you don't get a face full of MDF dust.
The main reason blades get blunt is the use of recycled timber to make the MDF (kitchen worktops are the same); it is full of small pieces of grit and metal!
Ikea or magnet