new flooring needed

[Flamingredhead]

Am moving into a new house and other than Kitchen and bathrooms.There is no flooring down so need some help advice please

Downstairs is all open plan so lounge through to diner area with back door in and then its is L shaped into the Kitchen area .

Upstairs is 3 bedrooms and hall .


Do not want carpet as im in a wheelchair and it will end up filthy in less than a week also is tricky to self propel on it .But worried that laminate may not cope with the mud dirt waters that will come of my wheels .

Not sure what flooring I can put down with it being a new build does this affect it as was think ceramic tiles .Though may be cold on dc feet but lol mine wont be

[Flamingredhead]

oh and erm cheap please as need to buy wardrobes and other things to

[narmada]

Tricky one. Rather than tiles (which may crack if things are dropped on them, and which will be bloody freezing in winter) how about some sort of vinyl? The one thing to beware of with all flooring is the fitting costs - they add quite considerably to the overal £££. Amtico/ KArndean for example is around £25 a sq meter but costs another £20 quid or so per square meter to fit (according to our local flooring supplier) .

If it's new build, aren't the developers putting flooring down??! Is that par for the course???

There is a type of laminate intended for bathrooms, made by quickstep. It's called lagune, and www.flooringsupplies.co.uk has it for about £20 quid a square meter. It's sort of a ship's deck pattern, looks really nice. I wanted it but we couldn't have hard flooring in our place in the end.

[minipie]

Hmm, I think that tiles in a living room or bedroom would be unusual in the UK.

Do you have a hallway or lobby that you go through before getting to the lounge/diner? If so, you could lay coconut fibre matting or similar (basically like a massive doormat) in that area. That would get the wheels fairly clean before you come into the rest of the house? Or is that too hard to push the chair on.

for downstairs, I would suggest maybe this kind of thing which is what they use in public buildings so pretty robust. For upstairs, I would probably go with some kind of laminate.

[Flamingredhead]

Thank you If i use front door yes theres small hallway but coconut fibre would be to hard to push on but coming through back no straights into the open plan downstairs

narmada .From what I gather there will be flooring down in the kitchen area and the bathrooms as one is a wet room .But don't think will be elsewhere as it is HA new build rather than developer .

My toes will not et cold as they don`t touch floor but true the dc would .May need to look at lino wonder how much the non slip is and if stands up to heavy wear

minipie that looks really nice but at the prices then cost of fitting

[minipie]

I found this website which might help with your question.

Having read through it, it looks as if your best bets are vinyl or lino. Hardwearing laminate would be ok. Amtico is top end, I am sure there are cheaper versions (albeit not as posh looking).

I do think it would be worth embedding some kind of large doormat at each entrance if you can, to get the worst off the wheels. If the coconut matting is too resistant, you could look at rubber doormats maybe?

Tiles would be not only cold, but also very hard (should your DC fall or you drop anything) and very noisy too!

[hophophippidtyhop]

how about this vinyl. got a sample a while back , intending to do the bathroom one day.

[follyfoot]

Engineered wood? Its a layer of proper wood on top of some other wood type stuff underneath so isnt laminate but is cheaper than solid wood. Oh and apparently it behaves better than solid wood flooring eg if there is moisture around.

[Flamingredhead]

thank you .

miniend have had a good read of the site

bugger reading that link hop there sayinmg 6 months for a new concrete floor to dry out before laying it hmm think time to find someone to have a chat with in person.

Follyfoot

thank you am going to ask about engineered wood

[Lizcat]

We have just had a bamboo floor laid - it looks like oak. It is solid boards and is supposed to be extremely hard wearing I imagine a wheelchair would be no problem. Plus as it is solid you can sand it and re-stain. Bamboo is cheaper than even engineered would. We purchased from Simply Bamboo who will send samples and are really helpful my first sample was not what I had expected I phoned them up they asked what effect I was looking for sent me a sample which was exactly what I was looking for. The fitter said it was the best click and lock product he has ever used and he's used a lot.
I am one very satisfied customer loving my new bamboo floor.