Engineered hardwood floors vs. Pergo for a townhouse?

Question

What is better for a townhouse we cannot do normal hardwood due to the concreet bottom so it's between engineered hardwood (Brazilian Cherry Br111) or the wood laminate(Pergo Brazilian Cherry). What's better?

Answer 1

I just attended a Br111 product seminar and came away with a good impression. They are a small company and make a quality product.
Engineered hardwood is going to look the same as solid hardwood the only difference being that it is made of 3, 5, or 7 layers of real wood instead of 1. It will look and feel much better than laminate, but is obviously more expensive. If you use engineered, I strongly suggest full glue down installation. This will give a very solid look and feel making the floor indistinguishable from solid hardwood. Floating, hardwoods have proven quite problematic so far. Most Br111 engineered products can be refinished 1 time, laminate can not.
If you use laminate, Pergo is a good way to go, having a 25, or 30 year wear/stain/fade warranty.

Answer 2

Hardwood flooring would give you the best resale for the money, but is expensive. Hardwood could run anywhere from 3 to 10 dollars per square foot. If it is scratched, it can be sanded and redone later on. Engineered is a hardwood floor, but cannot be refinished in case something happens. Also costs around 2.5 to 4 dollars square foot. Laminate looks a little cheaper, but will hold up better than hardwood or Engineered in the long run. I would suggest the Pergo 30 year warranty. Hardwood has to be nailed down to the floor, Engineered has to be tacked or glued down and laminate is free floating. In the case of the hardwood and engineered, you would have to pull up the ceramic tile. With laminate, you MAY not have to do that. Laminate in stock should cost around 2 to 4 dollars a square foot. A lot of laminate floors now look like the real thing. I suggest you do some window shopping to find out for yourself.

Answer 3

We have 5 different types in our house!

We wouldn't do the Pergo again. It scratches easily and was a real pain to work with. And it sounds and feels like plastic.

Armstrong makes one that is similar, and it locks together without glue. It's the same stuff though, very plastically feeling. Ours looks like planking and it's on the basement level. It was okay to use direct on the concrete and each board had its own padding attached.

We also a "floating" engineered hardwood floor in our kitchen, installed on top of the laminate floor that had been glued down. I forget what brand it was but it was a real pain. Every groove seemed too tight. My huband ended up having to run every single board veritcally through his table saw to widen the grove. Otherwise they would never come together tight. It's the kind that looks like 3 boards together on one piece (9" wide). It came out good, but was a lot of work.

We also just put engineered hardwood in my husband's office (2nd floor above garage) and it was wonderful to work with. It's also a "floating floor" and we put 1/8" thick recycled denim insulating padding under it. That left it with a slightly "soft" feel, but we actually like it that way. It needed to be glued on all the seams, and each board was a single 3" wide. My husband really liked it because there were a lot of angles in that room and he said the single board width made it easy to cut those angles (vs. the 9" wide, which sometimes left him with almost impossible cutting/install situations). I don't think it was OK for a concrete bottom though.

And then we have real hardwood floor too. You can feel the difference, but it's already 10 years old and showing signs of age. Gaps, lost finish, etc. It really is due for a heavy duty refinishing. You can't use it anyway, but don't feel so bad. It's a pain in the neck.

Make sure you test fit some pieces and see how easily they go together and how good it looks. And find out whether you'll need glue or not. Read the packages. Sometimes flooring you think can't be installed on concrete actually CAN, provided there's padding between the flooring and concrete. The box should say.