Choosing the right flooring is a key decision in any home renovation, as it affects both the look and functionality of your space. With a variety of options available, such as luxury vinyl tile (LVT), real wood, stone, and laminate, each type offers its own advantages in terms of durability, style, and ease of maintenance. Whether you’re looking for something budget-friendly, easy to clean, or a material that adds value to your home, selecting the best flooring depends on your specific needs and the room’s purpose.
What You Will Find Here
What is the best flooring for a modern house?
To answer this question we only need to look at the new house builders. The most popular flooring in new homes being built in recent years is luxury vinyl tile. The fact that the majority of flooring in the newest homes in the country is LVT strongly suggests that the best flooring for a modern house is LVT.
Luxury vinyl tile (LVT) is vinyl flooring consisting of individual planks and tiles and is available in two forms.
Click LVT Flooring – Rigid planks and tiles that click together to create a floated floor. No glue is required at all, and a thin underlay is usually built into the planks. This floor type is one of the easiest to install and is ideal for DIY projects.
Glue Down LVT Flooring – Flexible planks and tiles that are glued down without any underlay and without being connected to each other. Due to the requirement of glue, installing this floor type requires more skill and time than click LVT flooring.
Both of these types of LVT flooring have their advantages and disadvantages.
One advantage of click LVT is its quick installation, and one disadvantage is it’s more difficult to replace damaged planks.
One advantage of glue down LVT is it’s easy to replace damaged planks, and one disadvantage is the difficulty level of the installation.
What flooring adds the most value to a home?
It’s well accepted that real wood flooring adds the most value to properties, and there are multiple reasons for this including;
Renewability: No other floor type can be renewed to look brand new again and again like real wood can. If or when wood flooring becomes scratched or dented it can be sanded down and refinished. This removes the top layer or layers or wood to reveal fresh untouched layers of wood underneath.
The Real Thing: Other floor types such as laminate flooring and vinyl flooring largely replicate real wood. The predominant reason people choose laminate over real wood is the cost of the material. It stands to reason that a popular and expensive flooring material adds value to homes.
Timeless: Real wood flooring especially in natural colours and designs remains in style better than almost any other floor type. The other timeless flooring material is stone. Wood and stone have been around for longer than humans. Materials that are naturally produced so far have not gone out of style and wood is generally more usable in homes than stone.
Real wood flooring can be expensive but you should at least get your money back when time comes to sell.
What type of flooring is best for whole house?
Without a shadow of doubt the best flooring to be used throughout the whole house is luxury vinyl tile flooring. No other floor type combines the same amount of benefits, which include;
Waterproof, vinyl is 100% waterproof. This is why vinyl flooring products are perfect for bathrooms and toilets where water and moisture is frequent. However waterproof flooring is beneficial everywhere and is only an advantage.
Price, considering how well modern luxury vinyl tile products replicate real wood and stone, and the fact that it is usually less expensive, it’s easy to understand why it’s so popular. High end LVT flooring is genuinely difficult to differentiate from real wood or stone without close inspection.
Softness, whilst LVT is nowhere near as soft as carpet, it is a little softer than real wood and laminate and a lot softer than stone. This is certainly something worth considering when most of us are either only in socks or bare feet when at home.
Noise, LVT is quieter to walk on than wood, laminate and stone. This is especially important in flats and apartments where somebody walking on a noisy floor above can be heard in the property below. It is hard to think of an advantage for a noisy floor.
When you consider all of the above features it’s clear to see that LVT flooring is the best flooring UK wide when it comes to all round usability.
What is the best flooring for the money?
The best flooring for the money depends on the intended use and the budget.
For example;
Sheet vinyl is cheaper than laminate, but the look and feel of sheet vinyl makes it an unpopular choice for rooms such as living rooms, hallways, dining rooms and bedrooms.
Laminate is also a low cost floor type, but will become ruined if it gets wet so it can’t really be used in bathrooms and toilets.
Sheet vinyl is cheaper than LVT, but it looks and feels cheaper which prevents it being used in as many areas.
Laminate is cheaper than real wood flooring, but it also looks and feels cheaper and it’s noisier to walk on. It also won’t last as long as real wood.
Solid wood flooring has the potential to last longer than engineered wood flooring, but it is less resistant against temperature and moisture which makes it more temperamental. It is also usually more involved to install.
Carpet is softer and more comfortable than all other floor types, but it collects dirt the most too. Carpet is also a material that you don’t really want to get wet.
The optimum solution is usually a combination of floor types used in the most appropriate areas.
What is the easiest floor to keep clean?
The easiest flooring to keep clean is vinyl due to its waterproof properties. You are able to simply use a mop with water and cleaning solution without too much thought. If you need to scrub it with an appropriate bush to remove a stubborn piece of dirt or stain you can.
It’s much easier to clean vinyl than wood or laminate because with both of these you need to be careful to not get them wet. A tiny amount of moisture to clean a specific area before immediately drying is possible, but even this carries risk.
The main methods of cleaning real wood and laminate is simply hoovering and sweeping. As soon as you start using water and cleaning products you risk damaging the floor.
Carpet is similar in that all most of us do to clean the carpet in our homes is hoover it. If carpet needs more than a hoover you can clean it more thoroughly with devices such as a vax or you can hire a professional carpet cleaner. However both of these options cost time and money.
What is the best flooring to last a long time?
This again depends on the intended use of the flooring. Real wood flooring has the potential to last the longest, but it wouldn’t last very long at all in a bathroom for example. Vinyl and stone flooring will last the longest in areas with water.
Real wood and real stone flooring will last the longest of all floor types, but the fact that you can renew wood flooring multiple times means it will look the best for longest.
If budget is not an issue and you want the flooring that will last the longest, the best option will likely be a combination of real wood and real stone throughout. Stone flooring is ideal for kitchens, bathrooms, toilets and utility rooms. Then real wood flooring is great for all other interior rooms.
Providing they are looked after, real wood and real stone flooring will last for many decades which is why they are two of the most popular types of flooring UK wide.
We purchased some DFO Choice flooring recently for my craft office and love the result. Direct Flooring Online offers great deals and has excellent reviews from happy customers. They go out of their way to help homeowners find the best floor for their budget and needs.
Please note this post is a collaboration.
