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!!

Having just posted that we're looking into porcelain tiles I'm now ordering bamboo samples having read the positive comments on here!

We original oak wood flooring in our kitchen, its been there for over 100 years (Edwardian industrial building). It doesn’t take a lot of care, we have a eufy who vacuums it daily, I give it a wet wash once a week and I oil it once a year.

I wanted engineered wood but our builder said it was an absolute no for kitchens. I can see now it would prob have been OK. We went for a quality LVT from Wickes instead which is fine but obviously not wood.

We have real oak (oiled) throughout downstairs except in kitchen where we have amtico that looks very similar (same width/colour etc) and cloakroom where we have tiles. It is all practical. Amtico cleans and lasts very well- I didn’t want it in the living rooms though as I do love real wood- it is warmer than tiles. There are of course also wood effect tiles as another alternative.

@HasaDigaEebowai do you have bamboo in your kitchen? How do you reckon it would fare with a large and messy family, including toddlers knocking cups of water over daily..?

It’s not gone down yet in the kitchen but yes we will do. I’m satisfied from my sample testing that it will be fine. Obviously you wouldn’t let large amounts of water sit on it for hours without wiping it up.

We’ve had spills on the other areas of the house and it’s been fine. Including puppy pee..

We have the parquet and it’s glued down so it would be difficult for water to seep under anyway

Thanks, @Hasa. Did you lay the parquet yourselves? What kind of subfloor do you have underneath? Sorry, so many questions!

We hope to lay it in a new extension which will have a newly poured concrete slab, but then I'd also like to put down cork sheet insulation before the bamboo goes on top. Looks like it's tongue and groove rather than click-fit, so I'm not sure if it's DIY-able, but we're on a really tight budget so if we could lay it ourselves that'd be a bonus.

We didn’t no, its glued directly onto the concrete slab. Our builders did it. I think with some of the styles it can float on underlay but not with the parquet.

It was for us once we had a baby - the floor was very hard to clean during the weaning stage and always looked dirty

We have tongue and groove bamboo, laid on a concrete slab. It has a layer of foam underlay underneath it, so I guess it's not glued to that (but the boards are glued to each other I think). We didn't lay it ourselves, but the process looked the same as the laminate floor we laid in a previous house.

One thing to bear in mind, it's VERY hard - much more than oak. Which poses challenges with cutting - I think you'd need a pretty hard-core blade.

We have it, it's been fine for last 15 years. Survived three cats and three kids so far. Needs oiling once a year, we've oiled it about three times ever

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

We use a mop, no difference between a damp cloth and a damp mop. Just make sure it’s not dripping. Actually we use a steam mop which isn’t very wet at all.

We have solid oak and love it. Can be mopped and vaccummed. Yes it can scratch but it can also be restained and oiled and comes up like new. We love it

Thanks @SheWoreYellow, we could use a mop but it doesn't get into the crevices.

I'm just fed up of our wood floor always looking dirty 🤷🏼‍♀️

We have a large kitchen/diner/family room and had engineered oak installed 8 years ago. I love it. No stains, easy to clean, warm underfoot. I would definitely have it again.

2011 and still looks good. No issues at all.

We have strand woven bamboo. The retailers reckoned it was okay for use in any room, including bathrooms, so we're optimistic it'll be fine in the kitchen and there've been no problems so far.

It's "engineered" in the sense that it's a composite of resin and bamboo strips, but rather than veneer over ply it's a solid plank 18mm thick, so plenty of scope to sand and re-finish.

We had engineered wood floor in our previous house, looked really bad with scratches and dents, anything dropped wil immediately cause a mark, alos dirt collects in between the boards and can't use water to clean had to use some speiclanwood floor spray and wipe, now we have tiles in our new house, so easy to clean and not worried about scratching, but feels so cold underfeet as there is no underfloor heating

I have a bog standard floorboard floor in my kitchen. It is awful, and I live for the day when I get it covered in something more practical, I don't much care what.