Flooring 12mil vs 20 mil

[Craig Cann]

Hi Everyone,

We are crossing our fingers and hopefully getting are first rental and closing this upcoming week. We are just waiting for the official "clear to close" form our lender. I'm trying to prep as much as possible and looking into flooring. We'd like to do the entire house with the same floor; living room, kitchen, bathrooms, bedrooms, etc. We want to install something that's gonna last 7-10 years (if that's even possible with a rental).

I am open to all suggestion and type, wear use, size etc. I keep gravitating towards waterproof LVP 20 MIL with attached underlayment. 

What is everyone else putting into your rentals? How long have you had the flooring installed? If you could do it better what would you do differently?

Thanks in advance, Craig 

[JD Martin]

Years ago we started with typical laminate. Today I wouldn't use anything that wasn't waterproof. The wear layer being 12 or 20 wouldn't influence me much either way - I haven't had any of our 12 mils wear through yet. Scratches are a bigger issue than wear through. That said, I've got some very inexpensive laminate in some houses (back then, under $1/sf) in bedrooms that still look great now more than a decade later. So it also depends on what room it's going in. Living rooms and kitchens are the hardest on floors in terms of wear. Bathrooms in terms of water exposure.