How to Choose Home Flooring Materials
Remodeling Choices Involve Price and Green Building Practices
Feb 14, 2009
So which is the best to install? It depends on room function, for one thing. For example, kitchen and bath floors get wet. The renovation budget is an issue. Re-purposed construction material, green building practices, and sustainable architecture are increasingly a concern. And then, personal preference always plays a big part in the decision-making process, just as with any other home renovation material choice.
Pros and Cons of Different Flooring Materials
Planks
Laminate
This is one of the fasting growing products on the market. On the pro side, it's inexpensive compared to some other products, it's easy to install, and it's readily available. On the con side, it is not recommended for wet areas such as bathrooms. Kitchens fall in the gray area. If the homeowner is know to splash a lot of soapy water around while doing the dishes, it should be avoided. Also, in large rooms (25' or 7.62 meters), most laminate flooring manufacturers, such as Pergo, recommend adding an expansion joint in the field since this is a floating floor and expands and contracts. Some home owners consider this unsightly.
Traditional Terrazzo
This is a great product to install over a concrete slab. It's durable, lasting for the life of the home. It's attractive and can be installed in virtually any color scheme desired. In some installations a metal grid is first installed into which the mix is poured. The mix is usually a epoxy resin combined with scrap marble chips or even recycled glass, which makes it a green and sustainable building material. The mixture is leveled, and after curing, it's polished with a terrazzo grinder. The downside is the labor cost. It is not really a DIY project and the marble chips can be expensive.
Classic Ceramic Tile
Ceramic tile is one of the most time-tested construction materials. Cost? It's a wide open field. The price ranges from cheap to very expensive. Styles, colors, borders, and shapes are so varied that any imaginable pattern is possible. As long as the grout is well-sealed, it does well in wet conditions, making it ideal for bathroom or kitchen applications. It's a safe bet for raising home re-sale value since its popularity has remained constant, from ancient Rome to today. The downside is that if it's installed over a wood or engineered wood subfloor, the subfloor must be beefed up and covered with cement fiber board to prevent future cracking.
Natural Stone is a Green Building Material
This includes marble, granite, slate, limestone, and onyx. It is a beautiful and durable material, and also a green product (remember the scraps from cutting may be sold to a terrazzo installer). Like ceramic, it demands a sturdy and level subfloor to prevent cracking. Natural stone floor maintenance is rather straightforward. Regular dust-mopping to remove abrasive substances like dirt should be done often. Damp mopping is also recommended. Strategic use of runners and area rugs is helpful. Be prepared for a hefty price tag, but it won't go out of style and will bump up home equity.
Hardwood Floors
Installing a hardwood floor is a great DIY project. Hardwood is generally manufactured from oak, hickory, pecan, poplar and other deciduous trees. Even so, others like pine ( a softwood or evergreen) and bamboo floors (actually a grass) are often lumped into this category. This is a very traditional building material and not likely to go out of fashion. The two most common types are tongue-in-groove planks and parquet tiles. Unlike laminate, these need to be sanded and refinished periodically; but on the upside, when finished with high-quality urethane, they do well in moist conditions, unlike laminate floors.
Economical, High-Maintenance Carpet
This is the old stand-by. It can be had cheaper than any of the other floors. Why else would rapid-turnover apartments use it? The downside is that needs frequent vacuuming vacuuming and shampooing to stay clean and it traps mites, pollen, dust, and animal dander that are bad for people with allergies.
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