Is 'real wood' laminate less 'click-clacky' than the plastic lookalike stuff?

[faraday]

We're hoping to get in and change an old carpet in Bedroom 2 to laminate to make a hobby room/study. We've had laminate before where the wood effect is in fact a clever photograph of wood and though it was good, it DID make a lot of click-clacky noise as someone walked over it in shoes.

Is this an issue with all laminates? Or just the plastic ones?

We can't remove the carpet and sand the floorboards cos this is a 10 year old house and would have composite wood panels, not floorboards beneath!

Have you looked into engineered wooden floorboards? the top layer is around 6mm thick with nice wood like oak, and the rest of the board is cheap hardwood. It looks nicer than laminate and is cheaper than real wood floorboards. I paid £19per sq mt for mine a couple of years ago. It doesn't have that click-clacky noise and looks really nice.

What about bamboo flooring? It is my dream flooring if I can ever afford! It is not that expensive though, around 18-20/sq.m, perfectly durable, washable, warm and not click-clacky at all.

I had no idea that 'engineered wood floor' meant that!

I will look more closely at that!

Any other advice or experience happily received!

Our laminate isn't clicky-clacky at all. We went for a top end one and it doesn't look cheap and nasty as laminate can often do, imho.

Maybe- if it's not a really cheeky question- can you recall what 'top end' real laminate cost you?

Thanks

About £20/sq metre, iirc. Plus damp-proof membrane and underlay (it was laid on concrete floor). Think it cost about £2000 in all to do our sitting/dining room, but wouldn't swear to it. I'll try and find the receipt later.

Agree with Maybe.

Both our kitchen floor and the recently laid lounge laminate were top of the range with top of the range membrane beneath.
Both look fantastic and there is no creaking or clicking.
Kitchen floor has been down for 5 yrs and still looks great - no scratches etc. I hoover and mop once a week and that's it.

we have real wood laminate in our living room, where the top 6mm is oak and then thats on fibre board, it has aged in the same way as real wood would and is warmer than the laminate we have in the hall.

Wickes used to do unfinished pine tongue and grove flooring which needs a bit more experience to lay but looks good once down and then varnished.

flooringmania.co.uk
We have the Balterio and Richard Burbidge makes.
The guy we dealt with was really helpful and ensured we had the correct underlay and door strips etc
HTH

Thanks!