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!!

@BigWoollyJumpers

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.

Yep. Same with solid wood. Patching it or adding to it is a piece of cake, especially if it is blocks and not tongue and groove. We had parquet, put in a conservatory so had to add to it where the new patio doors were. Laid the wood pieces in the new gap, in a few months the colour had matched and it looked exactly like the original floor from the 1960s.

Thanks everyone

We have hardwood (oak) in our kitchen, as we have through the rest of our house. It looks beautiful and it's very durable; I'm not sure how the wood was treated but it hasn't scratched at all. Our wood is the same as the rest of the ground floor; I'm not a fan of different flooring in different rooms, I think LVT or tile would look terrible.

We use the Method cleaner too! I think it's Sweet Almond or something like that - smalls lovely!

We have engineered wood flooring in hall, dining room and kitchen. It's been down for about eight years and it's fine.
We vaccum it and used Bona floor mop/spray. Although the spray bit on the Bona mop kept failing and I have abandoned it now (had two - both failed) now using the Vileda spay mop (where you fill the handle rather than attach a bottle) and it's fine.

You need bamboo not wood. Far far better from an environmental perspective, looks similar to wood (mine is herringbone parquet and looks like hand scraped oak), twice as hard as oak, much cheaper than oak, super resistant to water.

HasaDigaEebowai
Where did you get your bamboo flooring from, I would absolutely love this, but had been told you have to be very careful with water spillage??

www.bambooflooringcompany.com/

This company. I have the chestnut stained parquet. I literally left my samples sitting in buckets of water. They are bomb proof. Nothing happened at all.

HasaDigaEebowai
Thank you!

We have it and it’s fine. About 10 years old now and in good Nick. I love wooden floor and have them throughout.

That's where we got our bamboo floors too. I seem to remember they sent us loads of samples to choose from. I'd lay it again without even looking elsewhere.

I wouldn’t have wood. This company looks to have very good wood effect porcelain tiles.

www.porcelainsuperstore.co.uk/collections/wood-effect?gclid=CjwKCAjw95yJBhAgEiwAmRrutJQ_dsHblqPBpvrijgVyFMOEvDn7T3voUUbqH5NphNYD0g_kddmZoRoCaB8QAvD_BwE&page=1

The trouble with wood effect tiles is they’re very cold.

I'm actually waiting for bamboo flooring to arrive today from the company above and I can't tell you how relieved I am to finish reading the thread after abandoning in in horror after the first page

We have bamboo too, not in the kitchen though. It's pretty indestructible and looks good too.

@FoofOfTheWalkingDead

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

I use a Flash mop that the wipes attach to. Very easy to wipe clean in a few minutes.

We had it in the house we renovated, to replace tiles. Absolutely loved it (when through from kitchen to living areas). Had no issues at all with marking apart from we did scratch it once when moving the dishwasher which was a pain, but a bit of polish and it came up fine. Clean with a damp mop (or we use no water method wood cleaner) and it always looked great!

We have oiled engineered Wood flooring throughout the ground floor. Love it. Warm in winter, nothing dropped breaks. We mop it with oily soap - you just need to wring out the motor than usual. We don't have any of the marks described above from oil/water etc. It's been down for 5 years. If you want something that will look exactly the same then maybe not wood..little dents and scratches are part of its appeal. We've had puppy accidents and it's cleaned up fine. Just get a decent one.

I’ve had bamboo in hall, kitchen and dining room for 15 years. It has got some damp damage and is getting very scuffed now, plus there are some planks in the hallway that have recently developed vertical splits. Hoping I can get some of the damaged pieces replaced and the floor sanded and recoated. But I guess 15 years isn’t bad! It’s in our smallest room upstairs too, where it looks immaculate

You should be able to sand back your bamboo and it should look as good as new. Fingers crossed!

You don't need to use wipes ,you just can't use a sopping wet mop as it'll eventually warp the wood. I use a wrong out E mop which works perfectly. Spray mops are fine too.

@HasaDigaEebowai

You should be able to sand back your bamboo and it should look as good as new. Fingers crossed!

Thanks!

We have bamboo and got it from the bamboo flooring company. They 'cook' it which releases the sugars, apparently, so it's a lovely rich colour. Bits of grit do occasionally get trapped under the door (sweep a knife under to get them out) but the marks have polished out OK. I use a wrung-out mop. Have to clear up spills quickly as not supposed to get water in the joints. It's warm, makes the kitchen feel warm. I had lovely limestone tiles in my last house but if you dropped anything it didn't survive. I dropped a bowl on the bamboo and it bounced! Cheap, too, and yes sustainable as it's a grass, apparently.

We're looking at getting wood effect porcelain tiles. (I want wood and DH wants tiles so this felt like a compromise!) Whilst I will miss the warmth of wooden flooring the idea of having something that's easily cleanable and leak proof is more appealing.

The sustainability point was massive for me. Bamboo is a grass yes and grows extremely quickly, unlike oak and other hardwoods. We simply must stop chopping down the rainforests.