Hardwood vs. Laminate
 

Hey all, my wife and I are considering new floors downstairs.

I have been researching and don't know whether to go with 3/4 inch hardwoods or laminates. I have already done the price checking and all that stuff, but am trying to determine with the dogs which would be better.

Ours are 90-95 percent housetrained with the occasional accident. We also foster...and those are always accidents waiting to happen.

According to some of the flooring people we have talked to they say that hardwoods are better for accidents because there is more moisture in the wood naturally and would not absorb as much urine, just to be sure to keep a good seal on it.

The laminate folks say theirs is better due to dog nails etc..(not like Yorkies are massive, but the running and scampering could leave marks on the hardwoods.

Any suggestions? Thanks!

Well,we have one Yorkie and a Pug/Chi mix - they are both elderly with medical issues and have potty problems.

We have laminate in our home, as long as the laminate is installed properly it is ok with potty issues, naturally I have never noticed issues with scratches since as you have said they are not exactly huge animals :)

However, laminate is very different than wood and if water/ pee is located in spot over and over again we have personally noticed a bit of warping. Lovely.

We also made the mistake of putting it in the bathroom as well, while it is fine through out the rest of our home the bathroom floor needs to be meticulously dried when getting out of the shower :)

If I could do it all over again, I would chose wood floors!

This is only my experience, I am by no means a floor expert! (My disclaimer:))

We have bamboo, which is beautiful, but if I had my time back I would of went with laminate. My bf has two bigger dogs and they have scatched the bamboo with their nails. If you have just yorkies, that shouldn't be a problem though :D..I don't know about the potty issue.

We have Oak throughout the house expect in the basement where we have the Laminate. The average Yorkie will not do an damage to the Hardwood or Laminate with their nails. A Large dog like Carlo destroys the Hardwood with gouges and deep scratches, but does not do any damage to the Laminate. As far as Urine, the key is to wipe it up fast, and not let it set. It can stain the Hardwood depending on the finish, and if it gets between the cracks of the Laminate it can raise the fibers. Nothing like the beauty of Hardwood, and it can be refinished several times. I think ours now looks Distressed....which they sell!

I love oak hardwood floors. This is what we had in our old house; and it just makes life so much easier with dogs. Any accidents can be quickly wiped away with a minimum of effort; it's a beautiful look; you can buy fairly cheap and large area rugs if you miss the feel of carpet; and those rugs can be replaced if there are too many accidents.

Hardwood all the way. No warping; etc.

I vote for hardwood...that is what I have now I have no problems with scratches at all but I don't have big dogs just a 8.6 lb Yorkie and 2 kitties, we have had to reseal it a few times and in a few more years we will have it refinished...we do have accidents Bella is only about 95% potted trained but she doesn't potty on my floors she potties on my throw rugs I think she thinks they are potty pads:eek: lol.

I had laminate insulted first before I went with hardwood cause laminate is cheaper and looks good as well, the laminate only lasted about 5 years...its started looking dirty and I cleaned it every week sometime twice...our AC intake leaked water and it warped the floor pretty bad:eek:...we made the mistake of putting it in our kitchen as well and our refrig. the ice maker got stuck woke up the next morning water was everywhere:eek: and warped the floors, $8500.00 thrown out the door:mad:...thats when we went to hardwood...I have had them about 8 years now still looks great and kicking myself in the butt for not going with hardwood in the first place..lol

I know with dogs tile really is best:rolleyes: but I love wood;)

Thank you YorkieZoo for opening this thread. We have been considering our options for replacing our carpeting. I was thinking that I was going to be stuck with ceramic tile throughout the whole house but perhaps I still do have an options of beautiful hardwood floors afterall. I wouldn't have known that without this post. Have a GREAT day!

Peggy, Monkey & Maddie :daisy:

We have laminate (because it was cheaper) Have never had a problem..but then Thomas always sought out Carpet to pee on!

I guess it depends on the type of hardwood flooring.

Remember that hardwood over time will get cracks between the boards (my mom hired someone to make their floors look like that so they looked old), and crumbs, urine and god knows what else will get trapped in there.

I like laminent. We just moved into a new apartment with Hardwood. and I find it hard to detect accidents, that an if one goes unnoticed for a while it'll stain..

These are my thoughts... good luck.

I had a yorkie on hardwood and on Laminate. The Hardwood held up better. However I am looking to replace the carpet in my living room and budgetary constraints dictate Laminate will have to work for the temporary until we redo the kitchen and do all hardwood. If you have the budget for hardwood, it held up fine to yorkie nails. The Laminate will pock and lift a bit at the seams over time if there are too many accidents not caught and cleaned up immediately. You can also buy a glue that will make your seams more moisture resistant that could make laminate a good choice as well.

So much depends upon the finish of the hardwood floors; they usually scratch the finish and not the actual wood itself. I love oak hardwood with a Waterlox finish, a mixture of tung oil and polyurethane, you can just dab some more on a damage spot without resanding the entire floor. I have no problem with pee stains; they don't soak in. Wood floors usually increase the value of the home, but this isn't true with laminate floors, so you might want to factor in this. From my understanding, not all laminate floors are equal, and many people complain of scratching immediately after installation, and you definitely don't want liquid to sit on any laminate floor.

we have hard wood and my girls love it for the most part, except Dolly would slip sometimes. there is minimal amount of scratches, and as long as we don't leave urine on the floor for too too long, it would not sink in to the wood (sealed)

We have both hardwood and laminate floor. I honestly prefer the laminate now. The wood floor gets scratched so easily and is prone to water stains if something isn't cleaned up right away. It is such a pain because we are always having to finish it.

The laminate however has never scratched. We picked out a high quality laminate and had it professionally sealed. One of the dogs likes playing in the water bowl so often times there will be a huge puddle of water sitting on the floor for awhile before we find it and it leaves to harm. And it is so easy to clean and looks great all the time!!
The guy at the store even had a piece of laminate soaking in water that has been there for a long time to show it doesn't warp from it.

The one thing I noticed in our last house (which had both laminate and hardwood) was that the laminate tended to be a little bit slippery.

We have oak hardwood throughout and 4 dogs. It stands up well but my Cavalier really slides on it.

We recently replaced the whole house with porcelain tile and had to rip up the 20 year old hardwood in the dining room that was still good after all that time!
I like the warmth of real wood- the laminate- while nice, just doesn't feel "real".

Hardwood is better,if it scratches,you can sand it down and fix it.Laminate looks good,but it sucks,it is only like 1/16 inch thick,if you get a scratch in it,you cant sand it down and fix it.Go with the hardwood.

I have laminate in kitchen, hallway and breakfast area. I wish I had gone with the hardwood. Our laminate has some scratches from the casters on our dinette set and a plant holder tipped over and I didn't realize it right away and it warped.

We have laminate in on our first floor throughout with the exception of kitchen. We made the choice to go with a higher grade laminate because we were told it was easier take care of, not so true in my case since you can see every foot and paw print that walks on it.

Next time I am going with Bamboo.

I have Brazilian Cherry Hardwoods in my dining room and kitchen area where the dogs stay when we are not home. I love the wood floors. I can't wait to have enough cash to rip up my old berber rugs and complete the rest of the house. There are no scratches on the floors and they came prefinished so when I was training Lily if she had an accident, I just wiped it up quickly and washed the floor off. I vote for real wood floors...they are beautiful.

This is something many have asked about in the past. I thought you might want to check out a few other threads:

http://www.yorkietalk.com/forums/sea...archid=5043126

I had major problems with my wood floors ... if they are not sealed well and a dog pees on them, they turn black. You really have to get to it quickly.
Between my dogs and Hurricane Ike, my wood floors were destroyed and I put porcelain tile throughout. Much easier clean up, that's for sure.
IF I had seen this company first, I might have done some of their flooring...they were at the dog show this year. They are in Houston, but maybe there are other companies in other states. You could contact them for information.
www.petfloors.com
They have some beautiful flooring! :)

I have had my Yorkie on both hardwood and laminate floors (my parents house and my apartment, respectively). Her claws haven't scratched up either and her little accidents didn't affent either. We used to have a black lab and her giant claws did scratch up the hardwood, but I'm not sure how it would be on laminate. My Yorkie currently slides on both, but slides a little less on laminate than hardwood. My laminate flooring is a bit more matte tone than the hardwood, which is glossier, so it makes sense. :)

I have carpet now but i had hard wood before and i liked it i would say to go with real wood
my grandmother has laminate and the dogs slip on it and her dog was potty training in the dining room peed on the floor in one spot over and over and it smelled so bad after cleaning that she had to replace the floor in the dining room

I debated and debated between the two myself, then wound up going with a top quality tile! :) I LOVE the tile! It is a little cooler, but for FL that is a big plus. We have the pool right out the back doors and along with the dogs I just felt I could not go wrong with tile. My breeder found a tile that looks like real wood. I tried to buy the same one but it was discontinued. The only ones I could find loclaly did not look like real wood. So, I went with a color that almost looks like worn leather. Very pretty and everyone loves it. Maintenance is a breeze!

Wow guys LOTS of great info....yet again another reason to LOVE THIS SITE!

Thanks Yorkieusa, I did a search but didn't come up with a thread that I thought covered it, but see I overlooked this! Sorry gals/guys!

We have been reading and discussing an it looks like hardwoods are gonna be the way to go! We are gonna to tile in the laundry, kitchen, half bath, and master bath, and nook area, and then hardwoods in the living, dining, entry, and master bedroom (all on the first floor).

When we built the house 4.5 years ago, we did the "upgrade" on the carpeting (vinyl village dwellers here, tract home subdivision) and that carpet SUCKS. If I would have known that all that extra money was for cheap crappy carpet, I would have just saved it, had the carpet ripped out and had the hardwoods put into place before we ever moved in. Oh well, live and learn! (sorry, that was my little rant, but back to the topic....)

These are the areas that the babies all have access to in the house. I was a little worried about the area rugs, thinking that the babies might consider them to be large pee pads :eek:, but hopefully we will be able to train around this.

Looks like they will all be going on vacation with us since I know that hardwoods create a lot of dust and the sealant requires us to vacate for a day or two!

Any tips for rug vs peepad training?

I have no idea about rug vs peepad training. I hope someone can chime in on that one. I wouldn't think it would be a problem if they were already used to carpet and didn't use the carpet. If they used the carpet, good luck!:D

Have you guys heard about allure laminate floating flooring? is supposed to be water resistant scratch resistant and has a 25 year warranty.
As far as which being better wood/laminate I would say quality is going to be the biggest determaning factor in longevity and appearance in both your wood choice as well as laminate choice.

For ours, we had two rugs in the kitchen in front of the sink and in front of the oven.

The peepads were close by. We found them using the pee pads AND the rugs. I guess they would get confused, so we just got rid of the rugs altogether in the kitchen.

Hmmm....I'm Googling that now! Thanks.