Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Pond Boss Need advice on flooring.

I realize that this has nothing to do with ponds or fish, but I sure could use a little advice from someone who's been there and done that. Lots of intelligent and handy folks here on the forum, And I would love to get as much input as possible.

We're going to be moving sometime in the next few months, and we are in the planning stages for a kitchen upgrade/overhaul in the house we're moving into. My question has to do with the choices in flooring material. We love the look of hardwood, and we have researched natural as well as laminate flooring.

Trouble is, there appears to be a concern over the inevitable spills and the resulting water damage. We think we want a continuous run of flooring from the kitchen into the dining room and living area, but we're bound to have spills, and water on the floor sooner than later.

Anyone here have wood or laminate flooring, and have you experienced any water damage? Swelling, splitting, cracking? Would you recommend it for a kitchen?

Thanks!

Porcelain tile
Can't tear it up

Our house is 15 years old. We have had it for 5. Laminate installed when new in kitchen, dining room and living room. There are two or three small places where there is swelling from the previous owner. We have not had any major spills and no new swelling. It is vulnerable to hard objects being dropped on it and has several little chips in it. We have two big dogs and they can be hard on floors but the laminate has held up OK from their damage anyway. From the look of it I don't think it was a very high end laminate. Would we install laminate again? Maybe, but a better grade. I would not put real wood flooring in my kitchen. Tile, laminate, maybe bamboo, maybe cork. We have oak in a couple of other rooms but they are dry rooms. I like tile but it can be cold on the feet in winter.

I second porcelain tile. It comes in designs that mimic natural stone. We have traditional hickory floors (purchased from a small mill) except in the kitchen and bathrooms. We installed all or our floors ourselves. We love all our floors including the slate that we cut for a mosaic at the French doors.

FWIW we were faced with the same problem in our 4 season room. We went with ceramic tile that looks like wood. We love it and so does everybody that visits when they see it. Comes in lots of shades.

The second kitchen is in the 4 season which is why we didn't go wood...fear of water damage. The main kitchen is 2' X 2' ceramic that looks like stone and transitions to real wood hickory flooring in the great room.

Beautiful work guys, one and all. We are considering ceramic tile, but we wonder about flexibility....this will be on the second floor, and while solid, we're not sure if we can achieve the absolute rigidity claimed as necessary for tile.

FWIW they tried to put plywood under our ceramic tiles (and we have a lot!). They assumed I didn't know any better. Needless to say that conversation ended quickly. Cement board screwed to all floor joists as an underlayment is a must. That gives you the rigidity.

I would prefer tile. It is easy to clean, impervious to water and leaky refrigerators, cat barf, dog toenails, children, etc. Only drawback is anything that is breakable and lands on it WILL break. China, glasses, your phone...

Just make sure and use dark grout, otherwise stains will start to show as the sealant wears out. Also run tile under all cabinets so that standing water will not pool under them (think mopping).

We ripped up down to the sub-floor, and then laid down one layer of concrete board, then leveling mortar, and then another layer of concrete fiber board board for build-up. If we ever have a natural disaster, the floor will be the only thing remaining. It has been 10 years and looks like brand new.

Wood looks great, I love it, but that is for areas with less risk of water damage.

Thanks all! We are leaning towards the tile.

Definitely use a cement or other suitable underlayment, and tape and mortar the seams. Spend the time and care during this step, or the rest will never end up like you want. Porcelain tile is tough stuff if installed correctly.

Ditto. Just like building a house, it isn't any better than it's foundation. Get a great foundation, and you won't have many problems, if any at all.

done 'em all, most more than once...
Laminate: Looks good, like real wood, from the normal viewing range of 4 feet and more. The real detraction is that most times the individual "rows" are ganged into a plank of 3 or 4 rows on one plank. This means that the ends of the planks are square cut and all the rows dead end. Ere go, the rows don't weave in the same pattern as the realistic weaving that occurs within the plank. For this reason, laminate will always look like a nice try to simulate real wood. The best shot at beating this detraction is finding a laminate that depicts very short pieces within the weave, creating a very busy pattern. We did this in both the BR's of our pond project with laminate. It looks better with the "busy look", but in the right sunlight, you can easily see the ends of the ganged planks. Also, underlayment is important. You are looking for firm support, but not solid. Also, a vapor barrier may be needed, depending on the install location. (sounds like your install has no issues with vapor transmission as long as the rooms below are maintained at similar temps throughout the year). I've used the big box foam; junk. The manufacturer's recommended (expensive) dense foam; better. Then I discovered Volara foam. It is a very dense, pex kinda cross link foam that comes in varying densities. It is the stuff that gets used for pool table tops under the felt, laudau roofs, etc. I got it on Ebay. We used Volara 4A at .093" thick. Absolutely the catsass! Comparable cost and superior in every aspect.
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Manufactured flooring. Have used snap-together and glue-together. The snap together is great, but it has the same ganged plank asthetic issues that laminate has. Seems a shame since the surface is real wood veneer. The glue-together, though was a super result. We used the same Volara underlayment noted above and used 3" wide individual strips made by Bruce Flooring. Yeah, a lot of glue, but the seams will never separate or open from humidity changes and the random weave of individual strips is totally indistiguishable from a true 3/4" solid hardwood. The only downside to manufactured is that the veneer is usually about .060" - .090" thick, so there is very little future for sanding deeply to remove scars or even refinish deeply. Past that, though, it is the best combo of lower cost and high return. We used maple stained with a deep red/brown in our pond project kitchen/living/hall and it is gorgeous.
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Solid wood. Not much to say except it's the real McCoy. It is also, typically, the most expensive. The downside is is that can/will open and close ever so slightly during seasonal temp and humidity changes. Acclimating the wood within the structure WILL make a difference. The time to acclimate WILL make a difference. We did our principal home in 3/4" natural Ash, acclimated for about a year (moving slow on this project; too much work at the pond project), and the seams stay pretty danged tight thru all the midwest temp/humidity changes. Regarding water damage? Well, we used Bellawood prefinished, in our living and kitchen space; gorgeous. We had a coffee maker malfunction and half a pot laid on that floor for a couple of hours. I mopped it up and 2 years later, you still can't tell.
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Final advice. Lumber Liquidators. You have to be savvy and patient to find the best deals. Within their website, you can access each store and see their clearance inventory. You can actually email offers. We picked up the Bellawood prefinished natural Ash for $3 sq ft, the manufactured maple veneer for $1 sq ft, and the busy cherry laminate for $.50 sq ft.

LAMINATE WITH BUSY PATTERN (snap together)



MANUFACTURED MAPLE VENEER (glue together)

Tile: Great durability, though dropping a cast iron skillet on it can chip it.

I didn't like laminate. Sure it's easier to put in and they do sell 20+ yr coatings now. But those can get scratched up and pitted too. Ditto to the comments above on design.

I like finish-in-place hardwood. When you install that beautiful 3/4" full-grained wood, you sand it until you're happy (days) and then you put a finish over the whole thing, you end up sealing the small gaps. It's the most labor intensive that I've done. You deal with sanding dust and finish vapors. They make some good finishes now.. and expensive. I settled on Bona and been happy. When the warehouse owner told me they only sell this product to professionals, I got interested. Didn't buy from him of course. Just because I'm not a professional, he doesn't know I'm rebuilding the house and can maybe do a complex, time-critical process.

Dropped a trivet on our porcelain tile and broke it into pieces. The trivet that is. The tile showed no damage. It did scare me though!

Thanks again everyone, your advice and experience are much appreciated. I suppose there is no absolutely perfect solution, just like everything else in life. You need to compromise somewhere and simply be satisfied with making the best decision you can.

sprkplug....I have tile in my kitchen but I see more and more high end homes here in Dallas going with hand scraped hardwoods in a kitchen. I would not mind wood in my kitchen. I suppose it has a bit to do with lifestyle. I am a bachelor who still has the owners manual in my dishwasher and oven and I've lived in the house almost 4 years. If you cook a lot or have young kids spilling stuff I would probably not go with wood. Also if you have a lot of "moving furniture" like dining chairs, bar stools, etc....wood may not be the best...even with the slide pads under the legs. I would say tile is the best choice (practical and cost-wise) for a kitchen in the majority of homes.

I have wood done like you are talking about and have had no issues with spills causing any problem. As far as water leaks I have a crawl space and we installed emergency drains in the island and cabinet were the water enters. The only real risk I am running is if something bust on the fridge and I have a major water leak. All we had to do is put in a wood lip at the cabinet / islands edge and caulk the seems. This makes it work like a catch pan for a drain we installed in the bottom thru to the crawl space. To me it is a lot easier to dry my crawl space than to replace the flooring.

For my tile installs I used plywood screwed to floor joist and then cement board screwed to the plywood. This made a solid area so that I have had no settling or cracking from flexing.


Another thought I had on laying wood in kitchens when I done mine is you can lay unfinished wood. Then finish the wood sealing it leaving no seems for leaks before installing the cabinets.

PS note the pic attached is part of my actual Kitchen with a rendering of what it would look like with a few changes my wife wants to make (like the blue island). LOL

Traditional hardwood flooring expands and contracts. The cracks will not remain sealed, even if you use a marine product like we did.

That looks great Tums!

I agree, nice kitchen.

I like the blue island!

Is that an engineered product?

You stated that your main concern was liquid damage to a wood floor due to occasional spills. I would remove that from the equation; it's a non-issue. As stated above, I have spilled plenty of stuff, hit and miss, cleaned it up in a reasonable amount of time, and zero change to the integrity of the wood floor in our kitchen.
Other considerations are that tile floor are great in summer cuz their cool; not so great in winter when you want a little warmth. Yeah, you can install electric heating pretty cheap; your call. Wood, though consistent and more temperature comfortable through all the seasons. The dishwasher and cook will appreciate this facet.
I used prefinished Bellawood and have zero regrets. If I was finishing it myself after install, I would absolutely, positively, use Varathane Diamond Coat poly for my clear finish after staining. It is the expensive (about $45 per gal), but goes on easy, clear, and hard as a rock. I use water base. I ditched every other poly years ago for ALL my wood projects. Varathane diamond coat is the nuts.
Also, remember that you will drop pickel jars (and trivets; ask RAH) onto a wood floor. Yes, it dents. Oh well; tough. Chalk it up the natural beauty of owning a wood floor.

If you use traditional hickory flooring, good luck denting it. If you are installing it yourself, use sharp tools.

FWIW we installed hand scraped prefinished hickory from Somerset in our great room. Last Christmas the tree stand cracked and a gallon of water or so soaked everything around the tree. No impact to the floor.

We went with the solid Somerset Hickory BTW (not the thinner engineered material) as we were transitioning to tile in the kitchen so the kitchen cement board underlayment plus tile thicknesses came out real nice for a transition to the wood. No transition strip was needed.

Tony, next time you are up this way I can show you the wood floor in the lake house. It's been pretty maintenance free and problem free for a long, long, long time. It's in the living room tho.....