Laminate Flooring Test

[Brian Kent]

We are considering laminate flooring for our bedroom. We have several other rooms with laminate flooring, and it has not shown any dents or scratches so far. But we don't know what kind it is, so we are doing a test of 22 Home Depot test samples. From the winners we will select the flooring that looks closest to the other rooms and hopefully a lower or mid-range cost.

Our criteria:
Resists canine toenails
Resists scuffing from furniture, though we almost never move furniture in this room
Although laminate flooring is not good for wet areas, we want one that does better with spills than others.

Test 1 - I took a HSS sharpened plane blade and scratched the samples with a corner of the blade
Test 2 - Scratch with the point of a nail
Test 3 - multiple scratches with the head of the nail.
Test 4 - Scuffing from the flat front of a chip breaker (softer steel than the HSS blade)
Test 5 - Scratch from the sharp corner of the chip breaker

I did not take exact measurements, but looked at the samples from the standpoint of whether I would find the floor damage acceptable.

11 samples had gouges and scratches deep enough into the surface that they would stick out "like a scratched piece of laminate flooring"
11 samples had barely visible marks.

Test #6 - Screw driver driven in with a sledge hammer. Lesson learned - Don't drive a screwdriver into your laminate flooring with a sledge hammer. I left a screw-driver head sized dent in every sample, but I did note that at least one showed a separation of the wood from the film finish around the impact.

Test #7 - Water test. I put all 22 samples into a tray with about 3/4 inch of water and soaked them overnight. 20 samples soaked up the water about the same depth as the original water mark. (I really don't care if they soaked up the water .745" vs .761"). Two of them wicked the water several inches into the sample.

Test #8 - empty the water, turn the samples water side up, and let dry in the hot window sill. I will be looking for separation or any other damage where the water was. I expect this not to be too meaningful since the real problem may come over repeated soakings / moppings / spills.

I'll post the results with photos.

Brian Kent

[Matt Meiser]

I'll share my experiences:

We had engineered hardwood in our foyer and hall that was in need of refinishing after 21 years. It can only be sanded once, so if we refinished it now, that would have been it and in who knows how many years we would have had to rip it up. We were putting new floors on either side of it and ended up having it all ripped out and replaced with the same flooring (Armstorng Alterna which is a tile-like product.)

I put $2.something/sqft laminate in my office 5-1/2 years ago. I work from home so it sees daily traffic. Even under my rolling chair it still looks good. Only damage is a spot where a UPS leaked acid. Nothing would have stood up to that. Real hardwood might have been repairable. Someday I'll get around to replacing the bad piece but its not that noticable. Luckily its in the last installed row. We are happy enough with it that we also put it in my daughter's room a year or two ago.

I put $1/sqft laminate in my shop office 8-1/2 years ago. Within the last few months the area under the rolling chair in there is starting to look pretty bad. That sees less frequent traffic, but a lot of moisture in the winter and a lot of debris that gets worked in. And it gets cleaned maybe 4 times a year if that.

I put fairly expensive engineered hardwood in our master bedroom. Its showing some scratches, more like dents, from the dog if you look just right after about 3 years but still looks good.

[Jeff Monson]

I've had quite a bit of experience with engineered hardwood and laminate. To easily sum it up, "I like the looks of engineered hardwood and the durability of laminate"

[Kevin W Johnson]

Brian,

If your concerned about the seams when it comes to mopping and spills, you can glue them. It's more work during the install, but makes the seams resist liquid intrusion much better. I have laminate in both bathrooms with glued seams and have no issues at all.

As for an impact test, I would have picked a (about to be replaced) pot, pan, or some other everyday object that is likely to get dropped (respective to the room the floor will be in) and use that to check for impact resistance.

[Brian Kent]

Good idea on the impact resistance. I'll try to figure out something we could drop in a bedroom that would be a worthwhile test.

[frank shic]

Good idea on the impact resistance. I'll try to figure out something we could drop in a bedroom that would be a worthwhile test.

how about the end of the towel rod when those little screws finally work themselves out enough?

[Brian Kent]

how about the end of the towel rod when those little screws finally work themselves out enough?

Good idea, or a hammer.

[Chris Tsutsui]

Maybe you can use a needle like a scratch awl with a fixed weight above it to apply pressure. THen you make a pass on each piece and note if the scratch was permanent. Then keep adding weight until it scratches the melamine. I imagine most of the floorings will be similar.

If you can see the cross section of the flooring, perhaps the thickness of melamine varies and that can be noted.

The issue I have with engineered flooring is if water goes on a seam, the seam might bubble. You can check to see if this occurs but you need to leave water on a board joint.

Then maybe there's the stain test, to see if some floorings are more resilient to stains more than others. I need a flooring that cleans easily.

[Brian Kent]

I used a hammer dropped from eye level for a dent test.
OK, Here we go. First the photos of the scratch failures:

7 by Home legend, Hardness ratings 2 to 5

3 by Millstead, Hardness rating 3-4

1 by Hampton Bay, wear rating AC-3

[Brian Kent]

Next are the acceptable lavel scratches. I'll include more details on these:

Allure Barnwood 261222
DuPont Real Touch Laminate Pine
Pergo Presto (rated AC-3) Santos Cherry, Cinnabar Cherry, Gunstock Oak
Pergo XP (rated AC-4) Highland Hickory
Hampton Bay Deep Espresso Walnut (rated AC-4)

[Brian Kent]

And the best for scratch resistance, with more detail:

The darkest one is Bruce Maple Chocolate, Sku #505-309. Excellent at scratch resistance but had the most distortion from the water on the soaked edge. $3.79 per square foot

Medium dark is Home Legend High Gloss Hawaiian Koa Cherry Sku #701-327. It has some minor swelling on the wet edge. If these two flatten when they are dry I'll add to that report. $3.39 per square foot

The light one is Traffic Master #229-928. No visible swelling. $2.74/sq ft

[Brian Kent]

I am changing my mind on one of the "acceptable" that now I think is in the good/best category. I just wiped it off with my thumb and the scratches almost disappeared.

Pergo Presto Santo Cherry (Wear Rating AC-3) $2.74 sq. ft.

My next step should be wiping all of them down with a standard laminate floor cleaner and re-examining.

[Phil Thien]

Fascinating.

Have Consumer Reports or any other magazines done any similar testing?

[Larry Rasmussen]

I looked at quite a few options before deciding on strand bamboo flooring 4 yrs ago, we had 4 dogs at the time. It's been fabulous and I am finishing up another installation of strand bamboo in a darker color and different style now. I suggest to anyone starting new on a selection process with flooring that you can use the thumbnail test on solid or engineered hardwood, bamboo, synthetics and sort them out right in the store. Many of these materials are so soft that you would likely be able to eliminate at least half of them, maybe 2/3s. Some results are a little suprising- you may find you can dig a clear deep line in some of the expensive hardwoods and not even mark an engineered flooring that costs much less. Anyway thanks for posting Brian, the selection is everything in some of these projects.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Have Consumer Reports or any other magazines done any similar testing?

Not sure - but - the North American Laminate Flooring Association (NALFA) has some ANSI standards you can download on their website.

What's interesting is that of the samples Brian is testing, the Pergo brand appears to be the one that's heading up the pack.
I believe, of the samples/companies listed, only Pergo has the NALFA certification that it meets or exceeds the test requirments....