What is your favorite laminate?

Question

What is your favorite laminate? What thickness do you recommend for durability? Should the thought of floating install scare me?

Annchen Knodt · Answer

just want to clarify here that i think the Smartcore product Greg is referring is actually LVP and not laminate.

@Jessica Wygal floating installs are very common and work well for lots of people. the biggest downside I see is that it's much harder to replace an individual plank if you need to, since the whole floor is locked together and you would need to take up every piece up to the one you are replacing (whereas with a glue-down, you can just heat it up and pull it off).

I'll second John's vote for LVP over laminate due to waterproof etc.  For durability you want a decent wear layer (say at least 12mil), and you also want thicknesses of at least 5mm to hide any imperfections in your subfloor - and 5mm is still on the thinner side so you probably want to do a plywood underlayment (in the case of a wooden subfloor) to provide a very smooth surface.  I've shared my research on different LVP brands and my experience with an install in this post: https://www.biggerpockets.com/...

John Underwood · Answer

I do not like laminate floor. Prefer LVP (Luxury Vinyl Plank) this is a solid vinyl product that does not have a thin layer on top.

Greg Carrier · Answer

We use the stuff that runs about $2.89 a foot at Lowes.  It's called Smartcore.  It is thicker than the cheaper stuff.  We have tried it all from the base up and what we like about this level of laminate is that it lays way easier, goes over minor imperfections without coming loose (there is more room on the laminate for it to lock into the other pieces) and does not need a separate layer of padding underneath it.  We lay a lot of this both in our flips and rentals.