Flooring frustration in Canada

Okay - so I've been through all the thoughts for options. We've looked at laminate, we've looked at engineered hardwood and we've looked at real hardwood.

We've got a few boards of the aqualock laminate flooring with bevels on their edges, making it look a bit more like "real wood" - but I just did a test with a board in water for about 10 - 12 hours (something that might happen if we were gone out of the house for a day and we had an overflow in a fish tank, or if the dishwasher somehow ran out into the living room area.

The board didn't stand up very well at all, the seams don't lock back together much at all, and there is a huge gap now.

I'm at a loss as to what to do. I've looked at the options, and we DO need to go reasonable as far as costs go (we have about 800 - 1300 sqft to do, depending on what our in-laws want in their suite.) - we want to do it ourselves.

We do not want Vinyl flooring, we do not want nail or glue down. That we know.

I am REALLY at a loss here with what to do, it's not just a matter of "Laminate" or "Engineered Hardwood" - but comes down to a brand and price. We have twins and a dog, and we're a bit hard on floors.

We thought we were sold, looking at the Torlys uniclic system. The stuff was tough as nails, but for the refinishable hardwood, it would cost us something like $8 - 9sqft!!

I'm baffled, this seems tough to find on a budget in western Canada. I know this may not be the perfect place to post, but I'm really hoping that someone can give me something to go on here.

thanks,

Nick

The suppliers, again, would be happy to help you to find the right floor for you and your family.
You might consider the larger ceramic tiles; 1' squares or 2' squares. They have endless patterns and colors and can make a beautiful floor. And some of it is very reasonable on the pricing.
Glenn

the problem is that they can't. Every place I go to has the right option, and it's always a conflict at each and every store.

Every floor is great, every laminate is superb, every laminate is great against water, every this, every that.

I need personal opinions, and I'm also struggling to find flooring that's available in Canada within our budget.

We want to install the floors ourselves, we want to ensure that it'll stand up to beatings and against some water spillage.

We don't want to do tile, as this will be for our girls to play on, etc. We really want something that will be a warm "look"

Thanks

Com'on eh? ,there must be more than 1 or 2 stores ,even in BC.
is there no Home Depot? They usually have wide variety of affordable fixtures. Keep shopping around, your "hard to please" tastes seem to be the difficult part in a choice.
Better still,ask some of your neighbours, friends, etc. What do they suggest?

To have a floor to take that much abuse your going to have to pay the bucks because no $2-$4 sqft is going to cut it. Have you looked into Cork flooring??

The problem is there is an ample amount of stores, but there is a lacking amount of knowledge in the salespeople.

My brother in law, in gibsons, purchased flooring that was guaranteed against water damage. I don't know the make, but when he had an issue, they wouldn't cover it (his dishwasher blew) - now, I know that there's not much that can be done in those situations, but they wouldn't even cover the replacement of the boards.

Everywhere I talk to has a different opinion. One store says laminate is the best, the next store says no, Hardwood is. The store after that says Engineered Hardwood or Cork is the best of the bunch.

Then they all have opinions depending on the brand. Some say Torlys, others say Bruce, some say Aqua Lock.

how do I take any advice from the people there? As for my neighbors, I live in a neighborhood of people who have either used carpet throughout, or do not speak english enough to converse with. I am not "familiar" with most of the people I live around to even ask, if that was possible - that's why I'm coming to a forum like this to get that "peer advice" - and possibly some suggestions from a canadian "audience", or at least get some advice from those who have done it before.

Daryl - We've looked at cork, but due to the "pock" holes throughout, we'd run into issues with our girls. They already started to notice them in the samples we had! We'd end up with a very expensive toy for them

I'm going to look at more, but I think they'll pretty much be the same

Salespeople are there to sell. Nothing more.

Do you have a discount store like a Lumber Liquidators or some such? My boss got bamboo for 2.69 USD a sq ft. We are putting it down. Bamboo is pretty stable. Quality varies though, and with Lumber Liquidators, they delivered out of three different batches so we had to sort it out and figure the square footage per each shade.

In the kitchen, our customer changed her mind and went with tile, this after the house was framed for vinyl, so we had to get underneath and sister every joist beneath the kitchen to take the "bounce" out.

I prefer sheet vinyl since it's the only thing that is actually waterproof. Then I go and caulk the walls to floor and the cabinets to the floor. That water is not going anywhere.

I don't trust laminate, it's pressed wood with a plastic layer. Wood is nice but water and wood never go together.

In the end, you will have to sit down and write up the pros and con and just go with the best one.