Engineered wood v wood effect tile for new kitchen with UF heating

[EastCoastDamsel]

That's just it really. Family of 4 with a dog

Very large space 11x5.5m. would ideally love a large plank herring bone pattern (other floors in house original Victorian pine floor boards).

Think I know what the right answer is really (tile) but nervous that it is going to look crap.

Does anyone have any experience of this at all?

Following

We have the “engineered wood” and underfloor heating and it’s warm and looks good, it does very easily scratch and mark. my friend has similar with a dog and she allows DC to tap dance and roller skate on it IMO hers still looks nice, but much more “lived in” with lots of scratches and marks, but my DH (precious about home furnishings!) thinks hers looks “scruffy”.

I don’t like wood look tiles and would prefer tile-looking tiles!

I have had engineered wood put down in a large kitchen. It looks great, but gets easily marked - particularly by the cookers, sink etc. if I had known this before, I would have explored to possibility of having tiling around these areas and wood in the rest of the kitchen.

Just to add that in a really large kitchen, you would need to pick the style of tiles really carefully. I had thought about this and was then reminded of the large kitchen areas that you see in schools or hospitals.

@reasonstobelieve the large space is what is making me a little nervous especially as it is adjacent to the rest of the semi-open plan house with original floor boards. (As yet unrestored and currently covered in grotty 25yo carpet)

Costs aren't nominal either given the size of the floor space

We have beautiful oak floors in our open plan living and dining areas but the kitchen bit is tile (non slip stone) so much easier

You could get a herringbone floor from amtico or karndean.

We have engineered wood flooring throughout the downstairs of our flat, and then a similar-ish looking wood effect tile (with underfloor) heating in our kitchen - and we love it! Easy to keep clean, no marks, and feels so nice with bare feet with the heating on. I would 100% have it again in another kitchen.

This is not a good picture as it was just a quick snap taken shortly after it was laid, but this is it...

miniscotchegg that looks great - can you remember the manufacturer/brand etc?

Does it show up smeary marks or is it quite matte?

@miniscotchegg love that!
Are the labels to prevent 2 identical boards being laid beside each other?

I'm pretty sure the brand is Cisa Ceramiche, and I think the colour is Castagno (we didn't get it from here but here's a listing for it: https://www.dantotsu.co.uk/wall-tiles-c26/xilema-tiles-c89/cisa-ceramiche-xilema-castagno-20cm-x-80cm-wall-floor-tile-p374)

It took us months of getting samples to find one we were happy with, as so many of them just looked really 'fake' - I know that's probably a daft comment as it is fake wood haha, but we wanted something that looked as natural as possible. We also wanted longish planks, which was tricky to find at the time.

It's a pretty matte finish, and the boards have a grained texture. Here's a close up pic I've just taken that might show it better than I can describe!

@WhereDoesThisToiletGo

Yes pretty much! We laid the floor ourselves and haven't ever done it before, so we had a dry run and drew on the cuts we needed to make and labelled all the planks accordingly - because all the planks looked a bit different too we decided to go about it like we did with laying the engineered wood floor, trying to get a good mixture of colours and knots etc so it didn't look too uniform or two planks that were too similar being next to each other. We were probably ridiculously anal but we just wanted it to look as natural as poss. We didn't brave butting the planks up completely flush to one another though, as we thought being complete novices that it would be a bit risky as you'd have to get it spot on, but you can lay them without grout between. They have a very slightly rounded edge like engineered planks do too which we liked.

I have just heard from my builder that he wouldn't be comfortable laying so may tiles on such a large suspended timber subfloor. (We are not extending, bit converting one part of the house to the new kitchen)

So would have to lay a new concrete floor if we were going to go for tiles. He's going to price both options up but it sounds expensive!

Is your whole floor suspended?
I went for Engineered wood, but I'm not sure I would again.

1. If you get oil or hot fat on the floor (by the hob/oven) - it marks. I've not found any way to get those stains out (although it could theoretically be sanded and re-finished). Pretty much every other mark comes out easily.
2. Ours is laid over a mixture of suspended and concrete, but it does squeak in places - even on the sections of timber floor only. It's the EWF it's-self that's squeaking, not the floor underneath. Most people would probably never notice this, but if you know where and how to tread in certain spots, you can hear it ;)

Yup, whole floor is suspended. (Late Victorian Chapel conversion)

@miniscotchegg your floor looks fab.

We had engineered wood in the kitchen and it was ruined when the washing machine flooded. I’d never have wood in the kitchen again as a result.

I replaced with tile, but as the wood was the same throughout the entire flat - thanks developers - it does look a bit odd (open plan). Better odd than a total state though, I guess.