Karndean vs engineered wood - help!

[hannah1122]

We can’t decide between using Karndean throughout our bungalow (other than bathrooms), or using tiles in the kitchen diner, then engineered wood in the hallway, living room and bedrooms.

We’ve never had Karndean or engineered wood before but need to switch to a hard floor due to allergies. Please help me decide! Would be great to hear the pros and cons of each :)

@IseeScottishhills

We have Karndean in the kitchen/utility room (we’re messy cooks DC is a chef and seems to be under the impression that a meal is only any good if you chuck food far and wide) and oak floor boards in the dinning room/living room and bedrooms. Karndean is very quiet and very easy to look after it’s quiet to walk on. I think you have to choose the colour/style carefully ours looks like wood in fact most people think it is wood. The shop recommended the one we put down said it was the most popular we then looked at lots of other samples and then chose the recommended one it’s a very safe choice. A friend put a different colour/style down it looks like plastic wood/posh lino. The wooden floor looks fab but it does scuff. I would say the wood is slightly more slippery.

Which colour/style did you choose, out of interest?

We have engineered wood in the living room. We did look at Amtico and Karndean but they looked very plasticky in comparison. That may not matter if you’re not going to go for wood effect, though.

Engineered wood pros:
Feels lovely underfoot.
Not especially slippery - probably less slippery than vinyl.
Looks great.

Cons:
Easily scratched with furniture (may be possible to fix this by oiling it but we haven’t tried).
Liquid spillages can stain if you don’t mop them up quickly.

Overall, though, I’m very pleased with our choice. The floor takes a lot of punishment from toys and food/drinks being thrown around and still looks pretty good.

[quote hannah1122]@AlmondFlat my friend has Karndean and it seemed the process for removing and replacing a damaged plank works well - she had it done and was happy with it[/quote]
oh that's good to know. They always look so perfectly laid that I wonder how they can ever get just a single one out and replaced, but I'm sure there are special tools. And there must be some companies that would do small jobs like that or they'd not advertise.

Are you doing a total renovation/refit, or just replacing the floor? It seems harder to fit engineered wood without taking up skirting and appliances and fixtures etc.

I don't know about engineered wood, but with Karndean/Amtico, I have read that you are not supposed to put furniture, appliances etc back on top of it for 24 hours after it is installed, which sounds like it would be a real pain for people like me who live in small flats with nowhere to put furniture in the meantime. Maybe installing engineered wood is easier from that perspective.

@SomethingNastyInTheBallPool thanks, that’s useful to know.

@AlmondFlat yes, it’s a full renovation so we’re less impacted by the extra work than if we were living there. I think they just use something a bit like a steamer to pull up the old plank and then they can lay a new one if a plank gets damaged

@IseeScottishhills which Karndean did you go for? Would be interested to know which looks more wood like!

There are different qualities of Kardean flooring. We have it in a sitting room and in the kitchen. Both times we chose the hardest wearing quality and we have not had any trouble in the 16 years we have had it in the kitchen. Things have been dropped and a Bosch dishwasher caught fire dropping melted metal/plastic onto the floor. We thought that would be it’s ruination but no it survived without any ill effects.

We have slate effect Karndean tiles in the dining hall which gets incredibly heavy wear as you have to pass through it to get to anywhere else in the house.

It gets no maintenance other than the occasional swish over with a mop and after 18 years still looks brand new.
.

I used to sell flooring -
Personally, for practicality with children, Amtico/Karndeen (basically the same product) every time.
It’s moppable, works perfectly in kitchens and bathrooms, you can get a much more seamless finish using the same material throughout and and it’s super hard wearing.
Amtico weathered oak is one of my favourites and looks very natural.
The only reason to choose engineered wood is if you LOVE real wood, and want that more organic feel enough to compromise practicality and put a lot of work long term into protecting your floor. It’s a soft material, it will mark easily, it can be stained and if there is a serious leak/flood, the lot would need to be ripped up and redone.

We have engineered Wood in our bedroom. It's beautiful and lively underfoot. But any liquid on it seems to strain no matter how fast I clear it up. For downstairs I want kardeen type flooring even though the wood looks so much nicer

@Pbbananabagel how many variations of pattern style is there for karndean?

ie my cheapo laminate that is in the office has 7 different plank patterns and I often wonder at LVT over large spaces and whether you can see a pattern repeat if it has distinctive marks such as knots or cracks.

I once asked this question in a flooring shop and asked the actual fitter and he couldn't tell me which either means he just chucks it down without paying attention to the pattern or he was unwilling to tell me they all have about 7.

I would use Karndean in any potential ‘wet' areas - bathroom, kitchen, laundry - and engineered wood elsewhere.
We have Karndean in a section of our house on the ground floor which has a laundry, bathroom, study and sitting room, and the same flooring makes the whole space feel cohesive and we went with it because of the wipe-down aspect in laundry & bathroom.

We have the same Karndean in main kitchen and upstairs bathrooms, again for practicality - an oak finish.

What I would say about it is it’s the quality of the fitter you need to look out for and be prepared to wait a bit longer/pay a bit more - same for any flooring type really.
Karndean has a repeating pattern, so you need a fitter who won’t just take a piece out of the pack and stick it down - it’s more involved so the same motifs aren’t all in a row shouting at you - they can be more randomised, turned around etc - takes more effort, thought & time.

We have a wide board engineered oak in the main sitting room and it is fantastic. We ordered it ourselves and got our builder to lay it so not as pricey as going through a flooring company.

I think you want to choose the same floor throughout though? I can find photos if you want. The Karndean is a definite vinyl feel underfoot. The engineered oak feels like a grained wood.
The Karndean needs a levelled base but then is quite easy to put down and skirting can stay in place; the engineered floor also needed a levelled base (concrete) then a membrane beneath it, and the skirting boards where removed and replaced once it was down.

Also, you should be able to go to a flooring shop and borrow their sample boards so you can put them in your rooms, with your lighting qualities, and judge which colour/finish you want (you’re not under any obligation to buy).

Following as need to decide what to get through our kitchen and back extension. Our kitchen is tiles at the mo, 4 years old, there are quite a few bits of damage including a chunk missing that I don't even know how it happened! They haven't stood the test very well at all. Our living room has karndeen that I know must be over ten years old. It was in perfect nick before we moved in 5yrs ago but we've managed to scratch it, I dragged the sofa forward to vacuum and there was a stone caught underneath. Generally though it's been good, warm underfoot, unlike the kitchen tiles, and I rarely mop it

I’ve got an expensive karndean floor in my dining room, it wasn’t just flat laminate looking planks, they were bumpier to feel more like wood. It’s beautiful, but we don’t use that room very much so can’t say anything about wear and tear.

@DoubleTweenQueen thanks for all your points . I think ideally we’d like the same throughout but I’m nervous of putting engineered wood in the kitchen .... so if we went with engineered wood we’d probably have tiles in the kitchen and dining room as they are open plan.

Would you say Karndean or engineered wood is easier (and cheaper!) to fit? We are planning on getting our builder to level the floor with self levelling compound and then the floor company would come in and fit the Karndean but I don’t know if it’s risky not getting the floor prep done by the floor fitters?

Any photos would be great! It’s hard to balance which would look nicer with which would be easier for busy family life!

For those of you who say the fitter is more important than the brand or choice of spec within the brand, how do you find a good fitter? With Amtico at least, there seem to be only a few shops that are approved to fit their flooring. Do you go with those, or with a builder, or friends' recommendations - what kind of things are looking to ask that would tell you whether it's a good fitter or not, before it's too late!

I have a few friends who have had Karendean and veen very proud of it. I really think it looks horrible.
I have also been in 100s of houses when househunting. I really find that flooring makes a huge difference to a house. Get wooden flooring. It will make your whole house look nicer.

OMG Karendean was a genuine typo

We’ve got wood throughout and I like it in most rooms but despise it in the kitchen. I find it much harder than tiles to keep clean and I think it was fitted badly so also quite big gaps between the boards that food gets stuck in.

My parents have karndean. One room looks fab- really realistic but the other looks quite fake.

Do you know what the different in style/colour/type of the Karndean in the two rooms? Or is it just them being fitted differently/different light/different underlay?

@hannah1122 First, the Karnedean, in oak, in part of ground floor, and in an upstairs bathroom:

@hannah1122 Wide-plank engineered oak:

I think we must have lacquered the oak floor, once in place, with a clear semi-matt for protection. It has UV lightened near a patio door to garden, but we can sand and re-laquer to even up again if we wanted to.

The Karndean is easier to lay - only a few mm thick. The engineered boards are interlocking.

I think you have your answer already - go for the best engineered wood you can afford (find special offers!!) with something a bit more practical in your kitchen/diner.

Engineered wood all the way. It's much more real looking and if you buy a good quality one, then it enables you to sand down if needed.

I have a couple of friends with Karndean and it really just looks and feels like a slightly better version of my mums lino/vinyl kitchen floor.

It is very expensive and I wouldn't spend that kind of money unless you can see and feel it actually installed somewhere to see if you like it.

I would possibly have it in a bathroom and maybe a kitchen, but really nowhere else in the house that I wouldn't normally have lino.