[Closed] solid wood floor v. slate

slate is like having a fridge in yopur house and have you ever tried to walk on wet slate NOOOOOOO NOOOOO NOOOOO NOOOOO.
It does look great but honestly it is absolutely freezing the room will never be warm again avoid.

Thats pretty much what I thought Junkyard.

Depends on what the floor is going down on. If its a suspended wooden floor then I would choose to lay a solid wood floor, if however its a solid (concrete) floor then I would choose the slate with a 10mm insulation board and electric heating underneath. Toasty and dry.

It is going on concrete but cost wise I doubt the underfloor heating will be an option. Kitchen is costing enough already 🙄

I saw a kitchen on TV once that had been tiled using reclaimed roof slates. They filled in the nail hole with silver. Looked fantastic.

If going for wood, buy engineered, not solid (as it is more flexible and will stand up to flex better). It still has an identical appearance to solid and to all intents and purposes it is the same and is only about 10% more.

Buy unfinished wood and seal with Osmo products then it you damage it, you can spot sand and reseal without it changing the colour of the surrounding area. It is microporous and is child/pet friendly too.

(Yes, I have just sealed a 20sq m engineered solid oak floor with it 🙂

Unless you have underfloor heating slate is v cold - I rather like my wooden floor in the kitchen.

Stone floors too cold for me - in Scotland at least.

Stone is ideal providing all your dropable crookery is made of wood or plastic 🙂

my wooden floor onto a concrete floor is cold enough as it is, slate would just be worse

As you do not have underfloor heating, wood will feel more comfortable, but will need more maintenance, especially being in the kitchen. Either way if you have a table in the kitchen you need to put felt pads under chairs as they will mark/abrade the finish as they constantly get pushed in and out.

Have you thought about something like limestone flooring which is lighter in colour than slate and has a warmer feel

IMO I wouldnt recommend a wooden floor in a kitchen. First sign of leaks and it will swell and cause all sorts of havoc.

So many sources of water: taps, sink, washing machine, dishwasher....

Amdigo for me. Warmer than stone/ceramic, extremely hardwearing, goes straight on to conrete plus fine self levelling compound. resistant to water both from underneath and on top.

We've got tiles (not slate) all the way through the hallway to the back of the house. It can get cold but possibly that's cos of the radiator in the hallway being too small and the CH pump being 2 floors above. The kitchen warms up nicely if you keep the door closed tho, despite the floor.

It's DEAD handy though in some ways as you can walk through the house wearing anything you like and you don't have to worry about scratching or dirtying the floor...

Make sure you are understanding the difference between underfloor heating and electric tile warming. Underfloor heating is generally the whole buried pipe thing using the slab as a thermal store. "Warmfloor" is a much more lightweight idea designed to simply warm up the tiles so they don't feel cold to touch, no room heating intended. You can get mat based systems or loose wire for complex shaped areas. It's thin and goes directly under the tiles. I think it's about £30/sqm.

all the ground floor of my house is slate, its not too cold (we have floorboards as well so think i can comment). it can be very easily cosied up with a nice rug. i would think that if you had underfloor heating it would hold heat beutifully, in our kitchen if the log burner is lit you can feel it absorb heat as the day goes on.

i am a big fan of the stuff for flooring. its robust, easy to lay and super easy to clean/maintain. also a real wow factor should you come to sell.

we paid £21m2 for a combination of 1200 x 900 and 900 x 600. i forget the total cost, but it was cheaper than if we had carpeted (not that carpets were ever an option). the slate is, if i remember correctly, brazilian. its the same stuff that the national trust in cornwall use as its identical to cornish slate - but to get slate from a quarry less than two hours away you can add another decimal point 'at least' to the m2 cost.

if you do go down the slate route it really pays to shop around and look at as many suppliers as possible as prices vary hugely and so does quality. how it looks (colur, riven etc) also varys also depending where its from in the world.

My inlaws have had slate down for ~20 years.

Observations. It is cold underfoot. They had it coated, as slate will stain. Over time the coating chips. High traffic areas have worn the slate smooth.

I hate walking round their house in socks even in summer it's cold on the toes.

considered karndean or amtico?

stone or wood.

warm, non slippy, good guarantee, won't die if it gets too wet

won't chip if anything drops on.

went through the stone - wood thing.

karnead/amtico best of both worlds.

We have a slate floor laid on to concrete - yes it is cold underfoot (but not ridiculously), it is very practical for the kitchen and we are very pleased with how it looks, so for us the pros outweigh the cons.

They had it coated, as slate will stain. Over time the coating chips

you have to seal slate and indeed all you need is a good sealent. the wonderfully named 'HG Impregnator' is what we've always used. no staining issues ever, even with 4 cats, one dog and two kids.

Can't remember who was the manufacturer but I laid 1'x2' ceramic tiles which do a good impression of slate. They have the advantage that they avoid the sealing/staining problems you get with natural stone. The cold feet in the morning problem was solved by an electric underfloor heating mat that is bedded in the tile adhesive. It added about £100 to the cost of the kitchen (+ the nominal fee (+ several rounds of drinks) to the mate who was qualified to inspect & certify the wiring). Its on 7 day timer so getting up on saturday & sunday morning isn't quite so painful. The rest of the week its left off because its a small kitchen and a cold floor is a good deterrent to our 2½ year old (who refuses to wear shoes or slippers round the house) getting under our feet when we're carrying hot pans.

Anywhere near the SouthWesy Gary (he said, shamelessly touting for work)...there are pros and cons for either choice to be honest. Personally, I despise Amtico and Karndean - fake, fake fake...I can spot them a mile off.

Darcy do you do floors then?

Just fitted solid oak flooring today to someone's bedroom. Looks fantastic, hard as ****, needed a new blade in the saw. Got the underfloor heating in my conservatory between concrete and laminate, as posted above it really only takes the cold of the floor as opposed to heating the room up.

Sorry deadlydarcy west of Scotland.