Flooring For Beginners

In case you are considering wooden flooring, you have three options that comprise of solid wood floor, laminate floor and engineered wooden floor, last being the most popular these days and there are good reasons to that. Let’s examine some of these here.

Aesthetics

Comparing the looks of finished engineered wood floor and solid wood floors is quite tricky. That’s because the top layer that one sees is almost identical in either case and what you see is largely due the type and quality of wood used and not the type of floor. You should know that the top layer of engineered wood floor is basically a thin slice of solid wood. However, laminates look quite different than engineered variety. Laminate wood floors can have so deceptive looks as to prompt an expert to go on his hands and knees to conclude that it’s not a solid wood or engineered wooden floor. As the two are one and the same thing it’s right to conclude that at a first glance engineered wooden floors have the appearance of solid wood.

Engineered Wooden Flooring Sounds More Solid Than Laminate

Did you ever realize that different kinds of wooden floors emit different kinds of sounds on being walked over? Yes, that’s true, as you step on a floor there is a sound created that varies with the floor material. It’s indeed interesting to know and understand the variation of sound on three types of floors or even the same kind of floor manufactured by different manufacturers. For example, laminate wooden floors have a hollowed sound as you walk over it. And, there are manufacturers who make it a point to mention in their ads that their product is devoid of this characteristic. On the other hand, a new average solid wooden floor hardly makes any noise that you can identify. However, over prolonged use, may be after a decade or so, these floors tend to make creaking sounds, but that’s not so were it a laminate floor. Engineered floors are difficult to predict. They could go either way. Usually they don’t have hollow sound, but then there are too many exceptions. They are not likely to sound too creaky, yet it happens. But for this creaking sound, which some people are not able to tolerate, engineered wooden floors come next to solid wooden floors. They prove to be ideal but for the said characteristic.

Damage Control

Leaving aside concrete, a solid wood floor is the most durable. Even if it gets damaged, you can have it repaired, though it does signal the damage being caused as you begin to notice scratches. Engineered wooden floor can be buffed and refinished to retain its looks, but that shouldn’t be too often. How frequently you may do that depends upon the brand and type, but be aware that its top layer is not thick enough to allow too frequent refurbishing. Thus, as in the case of laminate, serious damage may necessitate replacing the board to maintain its good looks. Laminate, on the other hand is nothing but a resin covered picture, can’t be refinished.

Price

Price of engineered wooden flooring is indeed difficult to assess accurately, as is in the case of hard wooden floors, and they are always fluctuating. That’s because its manufacturing depends upon the availability of definite kind of natural lumber.
Being derived from a natural product, the price of solid wooden floors usually has more fluctuations than the engineered one, whereas the price of laminate is governed by demand.

What makes the best garage floor is a matter of personal preferences. While many like to opt for rolled flooring, others consider tiles to be the best for the purpose. Whatever be the choice of material used for the purpose, it’s a good decision to have garage flooring. Some of its benefits are: bringing warmth to otherwise cold floor, cleaning becomes easier, adds to the looks of the garage, making it bright and cheerful and sound proofing quality, though to a limited extent.

This article is intended to inform you about garage tile flooring and the pros and cons you should consider before installing it in your garage.

Tiles are believed to have been around since Middle Ages and continued to constitute a popular form of floor covering for generations till date. One reason for their present popularity is the large variety in simple to highly decorative designs.

Tile flooring for garages is available in two types:
Interlocking type – these are square shaped compartment mats that are connected.
Peel and stick type – these tiles get bonded with the concrete.

The interlocking tiles can be installed on any kind of garage floor but are not as durable as the peel and stick type of tiles. The limitation, if it may be so called, with the peel and stick kind of tiles is that they demand the floor to be extremely clean or new. These tiles are unable to establish a bond with not so clean or stained flooring.

Many people don’t like to consider anything beyond tile flooring for garage and consider these to be the best and ultimate in garage flooring. Though concrete floors may be protected using painting, tiles are very convenient to install. Of course garage tile flooring has its own plus and negative points that we shall soon know.

Garage tile flooring could prove to be expensive, depending upon the design, quality and brand that you may opt for. Kits are available at most home improvement stores and the cost for an average sized garage could easily be around $500 plus the installation expense, unless of course you decide to do it of your own. A very economical option would be a floor mat, but then its maintenance and cleaning is not convenient really.

Garage tile flooring are easily the most convenient to install and come second only to floor mats. Installation of interlocking tiles is also very simple and you just need to connect as them as if you were connecting building blocks. The peel and stick kind are perhaps the simplest to install, you just peel off the back and stick the tiles to the concrete, but the floor has to be absolutely clean.

Undoubtedly, the installation of garage tiles is really easy, but that’s a very time-consuming project. It will be good to divide your garage floor into a few parts and take one part at a time rather than starting in a haphazard manner and getting frustrated and tired of it.

The practical difficulty that you may experience while installing interlocking tile flooring is that tiles tend to shift around as they are not tightly fixed in place. The peel and stick variety wouldn’t stick firmly unless the floor is absolutely clean and we all are well aware how difficult it is to achieve that.

Coming to the maintenance part of it, tile flooring is certainly among the easiest. Just mop up the floor with a damp cloth once a week to have a clean floor. You may like to have periodic thorough cleaning with detergent and water to get rid of oil stains etc.

Before you go ahead with your garage tile flooring project, make sure to go thru the instructions provided by the manufacturer for getting the best results.

Coming to the conclusion of having wooden laminate flooring for your home is just about half the story. The other half and perhaps an equally difficult if not more, is deciding the brand to go for. And that’s just not a good sounding popular name, but much more than that. You will need to consider factors like durability, installation, its price and above all how it would look in your kind of present surroundings. You may not necessarily like to choose from the limited designs often displayed on the walls of most hardware stores. Keeping that in mind, let’s see what Swiftlock Laminate Flooring has to offer:

Lots Of Options

Once you have a reasonably good thought of how you want your home to look like after the installation of laminate floor is complete, it’s time to look for a brand that meets with your imagination and specifications. There are pretty good chances of getting something exactly or vey close to your imagination and expectations from the manufacturers of Swiftlock laminated flooring. Anytime, you can find at least 160 varieties of laminated flooring from Swiftlock.

They don’t distinguish their products by giving different names to various collections like Quick Step Laminate Flooring, but they do mention the thickness right by the name of the selection, and that you would hopefully find helpful. As a consumer you may not really be aware of what’s riding the popularity chart when we talk of laminate floors, it would be worthwhile to spare some time to check a couple of different websites and arm yourself with some of the available features and narrow down to know what would best suit your requirements.

Cost

As you start looking around for Swiftlock Laminate Flooring, you wouldn’t fail to notice that the name is frequently associated with the words durable and affordable. You may be surprised, though, Amazon does not stock Swiftlock. So, you need to look other places, should you like to compare prices. Swiftlock is the cheaper laminate flooring from its parent company, Armstrong. It won’t be wrong to ad that you’ll find Swiftlock to be the cheapest of laminated floor, wherever you may buy it from.

Difficulty Of Installation

You don’t need any experience in installing laminate flooring, being the easiest of them all. Here’s a perfect project for a novice DIY enthusiast. The process of installation is further aided by the provision of installation instructions on the website of this provider. Yet, if you encounter any difficulty during its installation, you are certain to find online help and tips as this is one of the most well known and used brand. Though lighter than either solid or engineered variety, it lasts for at least as long, if not longer.

Durability

Like any other wood laminate floor, you are concerned about its maintenance and durability. Swiftlock flooring proves pretty good as far as normal floor traffic is concerned. However, there are reports of its getting warped up, even in the absence of standing water or if heavy items fall upon it. And mind you, this kind of flooring can’t be subjected to buffing, though claimed to be offering resistance to dents and scratches. So, anytime some damage is caused by whatever means, you may have no other option but to change the board. Well, there are quite many complainants having used this product, but doesn’t that once again confirm its popularity? That leaves no doubt about its price worthiness. Further, most retailers acknowledge that Swiftlock Laminate Flooring is one of the top selling brand.