Hi all! My husband and I built our house 6 years ago, we installed a hickory engineered hardwood floor throughout our dining and living room, hallway and 3 bedrooms. The thing that swayed us was the comment “you’ll never come home to real hardwood and wish you put in laminate” but we do :|. We have a large dog who likes to run around the house and 2 kids under 5. We have radiant floor heat as well in our home. We have never really been happy with this flooring as it scratches easily and some boards have splitting on them, not sure why but I found other reviews with people complaining of the same. About a week ago it rained extremely hard and water came in our living room window (we realized our contractor never put j channel around our windows which is now a separate issue and don’t know how we never realized this). We now are looking at installing new flooring. My husband doesn’t want to have to remove all of the baseboard molding and likes the idea of luxury vinyl tile as this could be installed over the current floor, I am liking the look of pergo outlast+ Which would require us to pull out all existing floor and start over. Im
looking for opinions on the durability of both floors, can they really hold up to kids and dogs? Can we install over our current floor or either way would it be better to pull out the current floor and suck up having to pull off baseboards?
Discussion Forum
Discussion Forum
Up Next
Video Shorts
Featured Story
Learn more about the pros and cons of single-room ERVs.
Highlights
"I have learned so much thanks to the searchable articles on the FHB website. I can confidently say that I expect to be a life-long subscriber." - M.K.
Fine Homebuilding Magazine
Fine Home Building
Follow
-
Fine Homebuilding
Dig into cutting-edge approaches and decades of proven solutions with total access to our experts and tradespeople.
Start Free Trial Now -
GBA Prime
Get instant access to the latest developments in green building, research, and reports from the field.
Start Free Trial Now
Replies
I also have 2 children under 5 and a dog and we installed a Johnson Hardwood LVP product and absolutely love it. My house is much older but had original hardwood floors throughout. Wanted a different look in the living room area about 400 sq ft worth and it’s holding up great so far been about a year and it was very easy to install. Just used an underlayment and went right over the older hardwoods. (They were scratched up pretty good but structurally still solid and level.)
I’m not familiar with the pergo outlast+ but have used other pergo flooring in other rooms and wasn’t very happy. Just my two cents.
Hardwood floors take a beating, especially with a dog and young kids, and if soaked with water, you have a big problem. Laminate floors also have substrates that do not like water in most cases. The laminate floors have improved, but LVT flooring is amazing, durable, and very conducive to DIY installation.
Go to a store that specializes in flooring, so you can see some of the amazing LVT products, that look great, and have a thicker wear layer, which is key to longevity. Since LVT is thinner, you can install over the existing hardwood. You can install as a floating floor or glue it down depending on your preference in feel and sound as you walk on the floor. And don't assume that you can just run the flooring over a substrate that is not flat and has irregularities...
Regardless of your new flooring selection, I would probably remove the baseboard trim carefully, and reuse it if it's in good shape. (If you have to buy new baseboard, buy it from your local lumberyard, as box store trim is overpriced.) Cut the paint/caulk seam at the top of the baseboard, remove carefully with a stiff putty knife or equivalent, and pull the nails through the back of the baseboard with nippers (end cutting pliers) to avoid scarring the baseboard. Also, be sure to have an oscillating multi-tool on hand to trim door jambs and casing. (Harbor Freight sell cheap, but effective oscillating multi-tools...)
Also, look on-line for information on flooring. I think that the following link provides excellent information on the pro's and con's of LVT flooring: https://www.flooringstores.com/blog/best-vinyl-plank-flooring-brands/
You can use shoe molding: https://www.thespruce.com/how-to-install-shoe-molding-1822791
Hickory is very hard, but is one of the less stable hardwoods. It does move around a lot. The finish is just as important, though. The newer, catalyzed finishes are amazingly scratch resistant compared to traditional floor finishes. Refinishing might be a worthwhile consideration.
I'm saying that in part because I don't like vinyl anything. PVC is no friend to the environment.
Use shoe molding.