Many options in flooring

With the wide variety of flooring materials that modern technology offers, it may be difficult to decide which flooring to choose, But answering a few questions and knowing about

the products will help with decision-making.

The most basic flooring question is: hard surface or soft? Carpet is warmer, quieter and cozier than, say, a tile floor, but that leads to another question. How important is ease of maintenance? Carpets have come a long way thanks to technology, but food, pets, children and muddy shoes are still distinct threats to longevity.

The final questions deal with durability. What is the best material affordable with the current

building budget? And how much durability is worth the sacrifice for a certain look?

Essentially, flooring materials are going to break down into two categories: soft or hard surface. In other words, carpet or anything else, such as, tile, wood or vinyl. But an important point to keep in mind is that not all hard surface materials are created equally hard, and that is a good thing.

Now That Is Soft

When comfort and noise reduction are important, the experts point to carpet as the best solution.

While it might not be a good choice for the kitchen or bathroom, said Denise Thompson, sales representative at Valley Furniture, it adds the perfect touch to other rooms.

“Most people still like carpet in the bedroom,” she said. “You get up, you put your feet down — unless you have a heated floor — it’s nice to have carpet underneath you.”

People also like the feel of carpet, said Kelly Brandon owner of Brandon’s Drapery and Floor Covering, and carpet fibers have gotten significantly softer in recent years.

Though soft fiber texture doesn’t make a difference when walking on it while wearing shoes or slippers, in a den or bedroom — where people, especially kids, are barefooted, playing or lying on the carpet — having a less-abrasive feel becomes important.

Traditionally, other than specialty natural-fiber products, carpeting is made from nylon and polyester, said Brandon, whose primary flooring business has been carpeting. These materials have benefited from recent technology, and new fibers are also coming available.

Polyester carpets, which are generally less expensive, historically did not handle hard use, he said, but those fibers are stronger now, and people shouldn’t shy away from using them, especially in lower traffic areas.

Nylon, though, is still the most durable of the fibers, he added.

One advancement in residential nylon carpeting is Shaw brand’s LifeProof carpet, which Brandon said has just come out in the past six months or so. The backing on traditional carpet has a kind of loose-weave look, but LifeProof has thermoplastic backing which makes it waterproof.

“Shaw has had thermoplastic backs on commercial carpet for restaurant use,” he said, but they have now made it available in residential-style carpets.

“Nothing gets to the subfloor,” he said. “… It will not let water transfer through it.”

The importance of this is that stains don’t get through the carpet to the pad, so the stains won’t keep wicking out to mar the carpet. Dirt doesn’t get through either. This barrier is especially good for people with pets and children.

Another carpeting advancement comes from Mohawk carpets, which has a new DuPont-developed fiber the company is calling SmartStrand Silk that is soft and repels water, Brandon said.

While carpet-quality advancements help with maintenance and durability of carpet flooring, another important thing to consider is the padding under the carpet, the experts both said.

Carpet will wear out much faster without a pad, Thompson said.

And if the padding is too thick or soft, it will allow the secondary layer, the weave that binds the carpet together, to loosen and need to be restretched.

Brandon recommended using a pad with 3/8-inch thickness and 8-pound density for general purpose. A little bit softer pad he carries has a type of memory foam with a moisture barrier that is an antimicrobial, too, and this is helpful in basements that are a little more prone to moisture problems, he said.

A few ways to save money when buying carpeting, the experts said, is to find an in-stock carpet that doesn’t have to be special ordered; use a larger, in-stock carpet remnant in smaller rooms; and if any large pieces of carpet are left over from the install, have them made into rugs and runners for high-traffic areas.

Both Valley and Brandon’s can make the rugs in-house.

HOW HARD IS HARD?

Hard surface floor coverings are the current trend for much of the house, said Thompson, but the materials have varying degrees of hardness, durability and usefulness, too.

The experts agreed that natural hardwood floors are beautiful, but a little tricky in this area because they require a certain level of steady humidity that north-central Montana cannot provide naturally. This means that the flooring can heave from added humidity and gap between boards or crack from dryness.

Engineered hardwoods are a better, more stable choice, they said. Because this flooring is built with thin layers of wood laid in different directions and bonded together, similar to a plywood, it is less prone to swelling and shrinking.

Engineered hardwoods come with a variety of finishes, said Brandon.

A variety of finishes from high-gloss to highly distressed and hand-scraped looks are available, he added, but companies are turning out more products with a mat finish and a natural look with a just enough distressing or wire brushing to open the wood grain.

Both natural and engineered hardwood flooring are prone to getting marked up with usage — dented when something is dropped on the floor or scratched and scraped from sliding heavy objects across it or from the toenails of large dogs, they said.

For people who have their hearts set on a wood flooring, especially in a heavily used area, Brandon recommended getting a style that is a mix of light and medium-dark in color, with no- or low-gloss and slightly distressed or brushed finish, so the wear marks add to the character of the floor rather than stand out as flaws on an otherwise smooth, glossy surface.

Laminate flooring is a composite material with a top finish that is made to look like wood or tile. It is a user friendly material for do-it-yourself installation, the experts said.

While they disagreed on its durability — only one thought it stood up well to hard use — the exerts did agree that laminates have two significant design flaws: they are susceptible to water damage and are not a quiet flooring.

The latter point is particularly notable in homes with running children and dogs, they said, and recommended alternatives that will be detailed in the next section.

Of all the hard surface floor materials, tile is the hardest, very durable, easy to maintain and, in many ways, the most decoratively versatile.

Primarily, tiles are made of porcelain, ceramic or natural stone, though other materials can be used. Glass tiles are especially popular, as accents.

In modern manufacturing processes, ceramic and porcelain are surfaced with anything from smooth, high-gloss finish to tiles that looks exactly like stone, or even wood, but with all the benefits of a manmade tile.

Porcelain and ceramic come presealed, and the grouts are waterproof as well, said Thompson.

Natural stone tile, though, has to be sealed once or twice a year, Brandon said, and if it is not sealed, dirt gets into the stone pores and permanently stains the surface.

Manufacturing companies use an ink-jet printer to spray a pattern on the top face of the tile, and depending on the process and the company, up to 300 tiles in a batch can each be unique in look, Brandon said, depending on the manufacturer.

A code on the tile packaging shows the hardness of the tile. Called the MOHS Scale of Hardness, this number, from one to 10, with 10 being the hardest, tells customers about the scratch resistance of the tile.

“I would try to stay above a 3 for floors,” Brandon said, adding that glass tiles are not suitable for floors, or countertops, at all because they cannot handle the compression.

Standard tile sizes are 12-by-24 inch, 18-by-18 inch, and 3-by-3 inch or smaller mosaic tiles that come mounted on 12-by-24 inch sheets, Thompson said.

One of the beauties of the tiles is that they can be laid in a variety of patterns, with accent tiles, and floors can be matched to other tiled areas, such as kitchen backsplashes and bathroom tubs and showers.

Schluter Systems makes products to help with installation, Thompson said, including waterproof sheeting for walls and two different underlayments for floors — one of which can be wired to make a heated floor.

The main benefit of the underlayment is that it provides the smooth, stable surface that tiles require, she said, whether the flaws were in the floor to begin with or they appear later if a cement slab cracks.

Tiles have to be applied to a smooth surface which can add to the materials cost of installation. Tiles already cost more than a lot of other types of flooring, but some expense can be defrayed if homeowners are willing to install the tile themselves.

The stores can provide instruction and suggestions for installation, the experts said.

Specialty tools are needed for installation, too, but Brandon said his store has some tools to loan, and Havre Rental rents out a tile saw.

THE SOFTER SIDE OF HARD

For a softer, warmer hard surface, the experts recommend a vinyl or vinyl-composite flooring material.

The newer sheet vinyls are softer, more pliable, and can be installed as free-floating surfaces, or glued only at the edges, Brandon said. People tend to shy away from installing sheet vinyl themselves, he added, because the size of the sheet — up to 12 or 13 feet wide — can be intimidating and one wrong cut can mean starting over or having a flaw in the flooring.

A way to make this more workable is to install vinyl tiles. They are more rigid than sheet vinyl and are glued to floor, Brandon said, but they can be grouted like porcelain tile, too, using a premixed acrylic grout.

“Being the product that it is, it’s warmer underfoot because it’s not a porcelain or a ceramic, so it doesn’t hold that cold the same,” he said, adding the vinyl mimics porcelain tile in look because manufacturers use the porcelain inkjet technology. That also means that they don’t having many pattern repeats in the box.

They also come with wood patterns.

Another vinyl product, and by far the most exciting the experts said, are the vinyl composites.

They are waterproof; are easily installed with a snap-together, floating floor system; lay over uneven subfloors; come in tile and wood patterns; and are less noise-producing than the materials they look like.

Though different companies make them, the leader in this technology is COREtec Plus by US Floors, the experts say.

Both Brandon’s and Valley carry the product, which has a vinyl top layer over a solid, composite core. The COREtec system has vinyl over a solid, composite core and a cork back.

Mike Evans, owner of Valley Furniture, said he recently returned from a major flooring show and will be taking out displays of other hard-surface flooring to make room for a larger display of COREtec products, adding four more styles to the 11 he already carries.

It comes in 5-inch, 7-inch and 9-inch wide planks, and 12-by-24 inch tiles.

The COREtec costs more than most vinyl and some other flooring choices, but “you save so much on not having to prep your subfloor,” Evans said.

It is do-it-yourself friendly, the experts said, and one of many flooring products that homeowners have available to them.

(This story originally ran in the April edition of the Living Magazine.)