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Put $200 into a cheap laminate floor and now I'm redoing the whole living room
Bought that stuff from the big box store last year... thought I was saving money. But after one winter the seams started lifting and the edges chipped where the dog walks. Now I'm pulling it all up and spending twice that on something better. Anyone else learn this lesson the hard way?
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young.michael14d ago
Tossed mine in after a wet spring and watched the edges curl up like potato chips. The locking system gave out in the hallway after six months, made this popping sound every time you walked on it. Ended up going with a solid click-lock vinyl plank from a flooring supply house, cost more but the tongue and groove actually holds together. That cheap stuff is just glued sawdust with a picture of wood on top.
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kai_burns7314d ago
Heard a flooring contractor say once that most of these laminates are basically just MDF with a sticker on top. If the core gets wet it just disintegrates like a paper towel. Makes sense why yours curled up like that.
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walker.julia14d ago
@young.michael nailed it with the locking system thing. Nobody talks about how cheap laminate handles temperature changes like a wooden spoon in boiling water. I've seen guys lay that stuff down tight against the walls with no expansion gap, and three months later the whole floor is buckled. The real trick nobody mentions is checking your subfloor moisture before you even open the box. I've done jobs where the concrete slab was damp and the owner just put the flooring right on top. Six months later the planks were swollen and the locking edges were mush. You can throw good money after bad all day, but if you skip the prep work even the expensive stuff will fail.
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