Is wood flooring in the kitchen a bad idea? Help!

[morningporridge]

Does anyone have engineered wood flooring in the kitchen? Does it survive or do you regret it? How much special care does it need?

Would live engineered wood throughout the kitchen, living, hallway and dining but just not sure if it will be ok in the kitchen. Any advice much appreciated!!

We have it and hate it (it came with the house)

We've had a couple of leaks and luckily ours was fitted well but I find any water spots leave marks, I dropped a pot of cream on the floor and there is still a greasy mark which I can't get rid of. I don't know the answer but I wouldn't get wood.

Friend has it…it’s worn at the thresholds, stained and not in a good way. It’s been in probably 15 years though.

Ours is fine, had over three years throughout downstairs, looks great, no marks. Only problem is we were advised not to mop it so we use wipes and its time intensive, so don't clean it as much as we should. Just recently decided to sponge mop lightly but that also seems an effort! Looks great though and wouldn't change it.

I considered it..l.then got wood effect LVT ....which I’m very happy with

@Walkley18 thanks for your reply. We definitely wouldn't have time or energy to use wipes on it. I assume it can be vacuumed? Or would it scratch from the vacuum? I realise it would need some sort of mopping too but just wanted to check there's no reason not to vacuum it

We have karndean - fitted about 11 years ago (DD first crawled on the latex underlay!) on underfloor heating and it has been brilliant. It looks good as new, has not moved an inch and we would recommend it to anyone. It is mopped every week (and swept more often), we have 2 cats and still really looks good as new.

@morningporridge Yes you can vacuum floor, or we can with ours, no scratches.

We have varnished oak floorboards (not engineered though) throughout the downstairs, fitted about 14 years ago. I DETEST having wood floors in the kitchen. They're scratched and pitted. The joins between planks are grotty and don't come clean. We had a major water leak from the upstairs sink and the floor joins are all skewed. And don't get me started on the corner where the litter tray lives and foofcat regularly overshoots🤢. We're getting a new kitchen this year and I'm getting tile or vinyl. I cannot wait.

Oh yes, and no mopping so I have to get on my bastarding knees with wipes to clean it.

We were advised against wood so went for something that the kitchen company said was the same as Karndean but was just another make. It has been down around 10 years but has worn really badly where the kitchen chairs are
We are now wondering what to replace it with

We’re looking at engineered wood for our new kitchen and have been told a damp mop is fine. Is that not the case?

@NoTeaForMe I think you're right. Our floor fitter actually said water, which I took to mean mopping, but looking at the floors constantly in lockdown prompted me to dig deeper and it seems damp mop is fine. But like I said trying to get a damp mop, not wet mop, is also hard work! Lovely floors though. And I was v careful not to choose one with gaps between boards like the modern ones seemed to be designed with, as I could just see the difficulty with bits of food/ craft getting in etc

We have engineered wood throughout the ground floor including the kitchen. Just make sure you go for the lacquered finish rather than oiled and you will be fine. Floor can be mopped - we use a Flash powermop and it cleans really easily.

I can only imagine that some of the problems others have experienced are down to inappropriate floor finishes, poor fitting, or just poor quality flooring. LVT is also decent, but to be honest you can always tell it isn’t a proper wood floor.

We have Karndean flooring too. I’m not generating a fan of imitation things but it’s so easy to clean. I know wooden worktops need a bit of care but a floor takes much more wear and tear and risk of leaks and spills.

You wouldn’t put carpet in a kitchen, I wouldn’t put a decorative wood floor in either.

In between selling and buying, we rented a house with engineered wood floor in the kitchen.

It was a nightmare. The bar stools scratched the floor (landlord hadn't put any protectors on, so we did that as soon as we noticed). The biggest issue was our cleaner spilling cleaning fluid next to the oven. Badly staining a number of floorboards. The cleaning company ended up paying to repair the floor. I didn't see the repair, as it happened just as we were moving out, but it was such a stress.

We're choosing limestone effect porcelain for our new kitchen. I don't want to worry about damaging a wood floor. Also tile works better with underfloor heating.

We have Kahrs throughout the downstairs, kitchen and conservatory. Been down 15 years now. No joins or edges. No water damage. We mop with damp mop and wood cleaner. Children and cats have not done any damage. I love it because it is warm underfoot and dropping things bounce but don't break.

We do have one or two dings from dropped pots and pans, but that actually makes it look "real". I personally don't like the false wood because it does actually look plastic.

Other benefit. We changed a toilet downstairs, and just took up a couple of planks and refitted new ones, and you can't even see the difference.

A damp mop is absolutely fine - just be sure it's properly wrung out.

We love our engineered floor.

I'm rather over wood worktop and floor I must admit (dark bamboo). Both still look fine 10 years on but if you look closely the bit under the main food prep area has a bit of dark stains and dimpling. Not scratched much and we only hoover and mop. It's not awful by any means.

We have had engineered wood flooring for 6 years throughout the whole downstairs including kitchen living areas etc even the garage/utility room and because of a major water leak we are having to replace it so we were also wondering if it's a good idea again! It has pitted and has been scratched with the Henry hoover but not the Dyson style. We have to use wipes too and I'm not sure if it's because of the leak but the flooring seems to be coming apart and food stuck in the gaps other than that it looked good as matched the rest of the house but now we might go for something else...

We put down solid wood in our last house, the rest of the house was already parquet (we resurrected it from under the carpets). The trick is to buy it untreated, or sad it right back if it has been varnished, then oil it with good quality oil, then scratches are easy- you just wipe a bit of oil in. Had it for maybe 20 years before we moved out, it was fine.
If you have pets/kids and want to mop a lot, it may not be for you.

We had engineered wood in our conservatory, because we had underfloor heating and solid wood is unsuitable for that. I always felt it was a bit less tough, and the surface couldn't be oiled, but scratches didn't show (we had oak) . The odd dent here and there did show if you were paranoid about inspecting it, and unlike solid wood, you can't sand out a deep dent, but I admit we did woodwork and DIY in there, though! In normal use, I'd say it seemed pretty hardwearing.

In this house we will be putting down solid wood again in the new kitchen, anyway!

We have engineered wood in our kitchen (and had solid oak in our previous house) and the suppliers have always recommended the Bona spray mops which have cartridges of floor cleaner suitable for wooden floors. I think you can buy them from Lakeland/Amazon etc and you can get a big refill bottle for the cartridges as well. I also have an aircraft power glide electric floor cleaner which I use either with plain water or with the Bona cleaner. It's pricy but if you have a lot of hard flooring it's worth it.

We have Karndean, which is amazingly easy to clean, hoover and mop, and has lasted perfectly. My mum has Amtico - also in really good condition after a couple of decades. I'd have loved oak, but our architect advised very strongly against it, for all the reasons above.

Our Karndean has lasted 20 years and is still in very good condition, just slight fading near the south facing patio doors. We're replacing it now only because of a kitchen refit and restyle, we're going for Amtico this time.

We have a wood floor (bamboo). It's been down 11 years and is as good as new. No marks or stains. Lovely under foot. No maintenance or special care at all. We just sweep/hoover and then clean with Method floor cleaner (for the amazing smell as much as anything else). I wouldn't have anything else now.