Kitchen Laminate Flooring

[Holladay]

My German Father in Law put down a laminate flooring system. He said that the floor does not like water.

Needless to say, the kitchen sink cold water shut off valve started leaking over the floor. I thought I caught it soon enough with towels etc. It turns out, the flooring planks are starting to worp a bit.

What to do? Wife put a few bricks on the floor to try and press it down and dry. I think not heavy enough. I will put down a 2x6-2x8 boards with cinder blocks (heavy) for a few weeks (right in front of the kitchen sink) to press down the laminate planks and let dry out.


Thoughts and ideas?

[Sorce]

Originally Posted by CanadianChief

I put down some vinyl plank flooring in my kitchen last year and the stuff is great. Waterproof and feels good on the feet. It was the Allure Trafficmaster stuff from Home Depot. A bit pricey but worth it in my opinion.

We bought the same stuff but haven't installed it yet, planning to do kitchen and living room in it.

[scho63]

Originally Posted by notorious

Which is why they designed engineer floor like plywood. It's a lot more moisture resistant.

Great for wood width over 4-5", too.


Putting radiant heat under wood is scary business. I would avoid the jobs if they want to use maple or hickory, even engineered, over radiant heat. Besides, wood floor manufacturers have some insane demands that need to be met to even get the wood warrantied.

I used to recommend high quality engineered flooring like Mirage or BR-111 or Listone Giordano when customers of my hardwood flooring store lived along the bay or ocean or wanted wide widths. The cupping during summer for standard 3/4" was horrific in some homes. The wear layers were just as good as true 3/4" solid.

I walked away from any job that wanted me to install hardwood or engineered over radiant heat. Not worth the risk of one nail or glue destroying the radiant heat.

Notorius, have you ever bought any unfinished wood from Rare Earth Hardwoods in Michigan for your clients? I used them a lot. Incredible variety of exotics and unique products.

http://www.rare-earth-hardwoods.com/

Do most of your clients do Red Oak #1?

They mostly buy prefinished from Bruce or Lumber Liquidators? (I hate both of them) Bruce Golden Oak makes me wanna puke. It's in 80% of all developers home when they add hardwood.

Do you do much Brazilian Cherry in the midwest?

[kccrow]

Originally Posted by scho63

I used to recommend high quality engineered flooring like Mirage or BR-111 or Listone Giordano when customers of my hardwood flooring store lived along the bay or ocean or wanted wide widths. The cupping during summer for standard 3/4" was horrific in some homes. The wear layers were just as good as true 3/4" solid.

I walked away from any job that wanted me to install hardwood or engineered over radiant heat. Not worth the risk of one nail or glue destroying the radiant heat.

Notorius, have you ever bought any unfinished wood from Rare Earth Hardwoods in Michigan for your clients? I used them a lot. Incredible variety of exotics and unique products.

http://www.rare-earth-hardwoods.com/

Do most of your clients do Red Oak #1?

They mostly buy prefinished from Bruce or Lumber Liquidators? (I hate both of them) Bruce Golden Oak makes me wanna puke. It's in 80% of all developers home when they add hardwood.

Do you do much Brazilian Cherry in the midwest?

I used to be an Ops Mgr for a millwork shop in Michigan and we never imported Brazilian Cherry. Did alot with NA Cherry though. Exotics are expensive. Mostly only the really big shops mess with that stuff. Even Aacer up here, the company that pretty much does all sports floors, doesn't mess with it. Besides, you can stain maple/birch/NA cherry to look just like it. Can also get butternut at a millwork shop and stain it to look just like walnut, for those of you looking to save a dime.

[scho63]

Originally Posted by kccrow

I used to be an Ops Mgr for a millwork shop in Michigan and we never imported Brazilian Cherry. Did alot with NA Cherry though. Exotics are expensive. Mostly only the really big shops mess with that stuff. Even Aacer up here, the company that pretty much does all sports floors, doesn't mess with it. Besides, you can stain maple/birch/NA cherry to look just like it. Can also get butternut at a millwork shop and stain it to look just like walnut, for those of you looking to save a dime.

The Janka rating for NA Cherry is about 950 versus 2850 for Brazilian Cherry and I warned the few customers who bought NA Cherry floors that they would get a lot of dents in their floor, just like I told my clients who bought American Walnut. I love American Walnut floors but they take a beating due to their softness. I would try to finish all unfinished soft floors with tongue oil to strengthen them up.

I did quite a bit of floors in New York City with White Oak, mostly rift and quartered.

I sold and installed a LOT of high end floors.

This is one of my jobs in NYC
http://www.dhd.nyc/portfolio/union-square-loft/

[kccrow]

Originally Posted by scho63

The Janka rating for NA Cherry is about 950 versus 2850 for Brazilian Cherry and I warned the few customers who bought NA Cherry floors that they would get a lot of dents in their floor, just like I told my clients who bought American Walnut. I love American Walnut floors but they take a beating due to their softness. I would try to finish all unfinished soft floors with tongue oil to strengthen them up.

I did quite a bit of floors in New York City with White Oak, mostly rift and quartered.

I sold and installed a LOT of high end floors.

This is one of my jobs in NYC
http://www.dhd.nyc/portfolio/union-square-loft/

I definitely agree on the hardness issue. It's also a big reason cabinet manufacturers don't use soft maple (same Janka rating) over hard maple, aside from taking stain. Also a reason most "Cherry" cabinets are stained hard maple at box shops. You usually only get real brazilian cherry cabs from a custom fab.

Yellow birch is a better sub than NA Cherry cuz its much harder (around 1300 janka iirc)

When I mentioned butternut, btw, don't use it for the flooring, its an adequate upper trim sub...

BTW Nice work.

[scho63]

Here is another job I did in a 10 unit building called the Dandy at 704 Broadway.
McCaulay Caulkin, David Bowie/Iman and Ron Burkle (Bill Clinton's rich friend) all were owners here. The famous swimming pool on the roof that you see in "Sex and the City" was improperly drained and came into this unit, destroying the original floors.

We put in wide walnut in the unit.

[kccrow]

Absolutely love wide plank, hand-scraped flooring. It looks phenomenal IMO.

Only regular production flooring we made was Hard Maple, Shagbark Hickory, Yellow Birch, White Ash, and Red Oak. Everything else was per customer request because it was either 1) not a really good idea or 2) expensive to get the wood. When I left doing this, Braz Cherry was somewhere around $3/bf delivered for #1 Com. Hard Maple was around $1.65. Big difference when you have a 67% yield, and so forth.

[scho63]

Originally Posted by kccrow

Absolutely love wide plank, hand-scraped flooring. It looks phenomenal IMO.

Only regular production flooring we made was Hard Maple, Shagbark Hickory, Yellow Birch, White Ash, and Red Oak. Everything else was per customer request because it was either 1) not a really good idea or 2) expensive to get the wood. When I left doing this, Braz Cherry was somewhere around $3/bf delivered for #1 Com. Hard Maple was around $1.65. Big difference when you have a 67% yield, and so forth.

If you are not into a regular import flow for exotics by buying containers, it makes no sense.

I did floors with exotics Purpleheart (Roxinho), Wenge, Ipe, Cumaru, Santos Mahogany, Angelim Pedra, Patagonian Rosewood-pink in color and beautiful, Amendoim-one of my favorites, Bubinga- one of the most beautiful floors I've ever seen, Australian Cypress, Bolivian Rosewood, Tatajuba, and Tigerwood.

[notorious]

Originally Posted by scho63

I used to recommend high quality engineered flooring like Mirage or BR-111 or Listone Giordano when customers of my hardwood flooring store lived along the bay or ocean or wanted wide widths. The cupping during summer for standard 3/4" was horrific in some homes. The wear layers were just as good as true 3/4" solid.

I walked away from any job that wanted me to install hardwood or engineered over radiant heat. Not worth the risk of one nail or glue destroying the radiant heat.

Notorius, have you ever bought any unfinished wood from Rare Earth Hardwoods in Michigan for your clients? I used them a lot. Incredible variety of exotics and unique products.

http://www.rare-earth-hardwoods.com/

Do most of your clients do Red Oak #1?

They mostly buy prefinished from Bruce or Lumber Liquidators? (I hate both of them) Bruce Golden Oak makes me wanna puke. It's in 80% of all developers home when they add hardwood.

Do you do much Brazilian Cherry in the midwest?

I have done every species imaginable. Split between unfinished/sanded and stained and prefinished. I have not sold a single job with traditional flat prefinished in years. Everything is handscaped/distressed and if they want flat I do unfinished. I was doing a shitload of acacia until a bunch of dum**** installers put it in without acclimating it properly and gave it a bad name.

I have actually put in a lot of Hallmark Organic lately. I saw it at Surfaces last year and got the first samples my Distributer received. Amazingly great product, amazingly expensive too.

[notorious]

Are you going to Vegas in January, Sho?

[Holladay]

It's probably toast, but you could try to liberally pour salt on it, cover with plywood, then put bricks or cinder blocks on the plywood. Leave it for several days then clean up the salt.

Seems like this is the best idea to try. We can't get this type of lament anymore (long story, imported from Germany). Thus cutting the bad section would be very hard. It looks really cool and was told by FIL that hates water. The hand writing was on the wall then. What Kitchens have water? Naw.

We did the under flooring heat and love it. The kitchen is on the northern side of the house with a 1 1/2 ft earthened crawl space under neath. Cold. Old "T" shaped farm house. The down side to the heated floor is with 2-3 big dogs, that's where they lay. Trip over them the whole time.

Thanks for all the comments.

[scho63]

Originally Posted by notorious

Are you going to Vegas in January, Sho?

No, my former business partner goes all the time. I left the flooring business in 2006

[notorious]

Originally Posted by scho63

No, my former business partner goes all the time. I left the flooring business in 2006

Well God Damnit. I was going to buy you a few adult beverages.

If you let me know who your former business partner is, I will kick him in the balls for you.

[scho63]

Originally Posted by notorious

Well God Damnit. I was going to buy you a few adult beverages.

If you let me know who your former business partner is, I will kick him in the balls for you.