WWYD Re: Parquet flooring in kitchen? Any experience? Advice?

[leeloo1]

We've had a wretched flood in the kitchen, which has been a total nightmare, but thankfully it now looks like the insurance will cover it. We have a choice of what the flooring is though and I'm feeling completely clueless.

We have had pine parquet flooring under lino. Either the contractors will repair/replace the rotten bits of parquet and put down new lino, or they will properly refinish the parquet - so repair it, sand and properly reseal it.

But... is parquet in the kitchen a really bad idea - especially softwood/pine. We're don't wear shoes in the house, but there would be table/chairs wear and tear. Does wood flooring need much maintenance?

Also we're looking to sell in a few years, so would it be a disadvantage to have wooden flooring in the kitchen (I know it wouldn't be if it was oak/hardwood, but would it be because its pine)?

Any advice would be appreciated.

What's the deal with the insurance? Can you slightly up the spend and get hardwood?

I would definitely go for it if you can - super smart.

Oooh, mmm hadn't thought about that? I felt very cheeky asking about having the floor re-sanded instead of lino-ing it as it was. I was sure they were going to shout 'fraud' down the phone and have me arrested! As my dad kept talking about them analysing your voice on the phone to weed out fraudulent claims - which made me really self-conscious!

I've never claimed on the insurance before, so I don't really know how it works, but they're sending their contractors out. I guess I can ask them about replacing it?

Problem is we're thinking if we're going to have the kitchen done then maybe to get the hallway done at the same time (just to add to the dust/dirt/trauma!) and I'd imagine having it all ripped up and replaced would be much, much more expensive.

Although I've no idea how the cost of it compares... i.e.

• cost of patch repairing parquet and new (expensive) lino
• cost of repairing/re-sanding/sealing parquet
• cost of pulling up parquet and replacing with new parquet

Argh, now I have 3 choices! :)

My brother had an insurance claim recently. Flooded walls and floor. The insurers sent someone out to assess the damage then gave DB an amount to spend. It had to be spent on the house but it was his to spend.

Good parquet (not skimpy cheap stuff) is lovely and goes with so many 'looks'. You can get reclaimed stuff but that tends to be quite expensive, although if the insurers are paying...

Oooh, that sounds very easy. Think my insurers must work differently, as they've said they'll send people to do the work. :(

We had our parquet sanded and varnished recently. For the hall and dining room in a bog standard 1930s semi, it was £300. I don't think that is very expensive. It took the guy 2 days to do it with a big sander, but our parquet was in very poor condition with lots of deep marks and staining, so yours might be quicker (and cheaper).

New parquet is very expensive, but would look lovely.

The varnish on ours is water resistant, but not waterproof IYSWIM. If DD spills water on it in a big puddle, we have to mop it up reasonably quickly (say within 20 mins or so) otherwise it will seep in. It does dry eventually but takes a long time.

But having said all that, our parquet doesn't appear to be pine. We're not sure what it is tbh but it is rock fecking hard and produces sawdust that is just a very fine orange dust... So doesn't appear to be pine. Are you sure yours is pine? We thought ours was until DH started sanding the living room (whole other thread...)

Lol Emsyj - would love to know what your DH did with sanding it and how he found out it wasn't pine! sounds ominous! :) Wouldn't pine make orange dust? (just old pine can be orange-ish?)

£300 does sound like a bargain. We had a quote for our through living/dining room 2ish years ago and it was £800 and £200/£250 for hall. I'm pretty sure they said it was pine... although having said that just because it was pine in there doesn't mean its necessarily pine in the kitchen I guess...

Do you find the grit in the hallway damages it at all? I'm swaying between thinking parquet would look lovely and worrying about the maintenance issues! :(

No, not really. It is pretty hardwearing IMO. After all, our house is 80 years old and after a good sand and varnish it looks like new. I'm not sure how many times you could re-sand it, but there were a couple of loose blocks in our floor and when we pulled them out they were quite thick, so I imagine you could have a good few goes at it.

The varnish the guy used is clear, so the colour is pretty light (which we like) and he gave us a 1 year guarantee on the finish.

We live near the prom (about 50 yards from it!) and so we get sand in the hall all the time, plus I wheel the buggy in all the time and it is fine. I just use the hoover on it, although you can mop it lightly if it's really dirty. The only thing that would damage it is metal-tipped stillettos. I would say it is pretty tough as far as floors go.

Thanks for the info. Sadly we're nowhere near the beach, but on the plus side I don't own stilettos, so hopefully the floor will be safe! :)

I'm still shell shocked after the building contractors visit today! What I thought would be a patch repair, followed by sanding/staining, turned out to be... taking out all the appliances and cupboards, ripping up the entire floor and letting the base 'breathe'. Then putting all new flooring in. So it looks like I'll get hardwood after all - but it'll be about a 2 week job with around 3 days where we have no access to the kitchen - eeek!