Flooring

Have you thought about cork flooring Countrylife?
I've been researching non toxic flooring for a while and I keep coming back to cork. There's some beautiful design options too.

Everyone I know with UFH wishes they didn't have it!

Expensive to run, and not particularly efficient.

We are in the process of lifting the laminate that goes right through the ground floor and are replacing it with a wood effect heavy duty vinyl. It is textured, and really looks like wood.

Cork would have been good in the kitchen, but perhaps not in the hall and sitting room.

We have Kandean wood effect flooring through kitchen and shower room. Hard wearing and easy to keep clean.

I agree with jusnoneed. In our previous home we had Karndean in kitchen and bathroom. It was excellent and hard-wearing. We've friends with it too: they have a lively dog, but their wood-effect Karndean is still going strong after some years.

Another one for Karndean or Amtico we have it in hallway, study and bathroom and are considering it for lounge, although I think carpet is cosier. We have stone floor in kitchen but I wish we’d gone for Karndean it’s so easy to keep clean

I also replaced laminate flooring with Karndean and recommend it highly. Looks like wood, is warm underfoot and easy to clean.

When we put in our extension we took the opportunity to refloor the whole ground floor using bamboo flooring. It is brilliant, we have dogs and it still looks perfect after 7 years.

We had a similar problem recently trying to decide on our hall flooring when our pure wool carpeting needed replacing. We chose pale off-white square ceramic tiles laid in a diamond pattern with a border. It looked fantastic and we were thrilled.

Our house is built on floorboards and no matter how thick the underlay / wool carpeting, the floors are always cold. We decided to ask the tiler to replicate the hall in the sitting room and our dining room. Result is no longer cold floors and they’re incredibly easy to clean.

Earlier this year we had the wall taken out between kitchen and morning room. Needed a new kitchen so arranged that with same company who did it last time. Once more we needed to decide what to put on morning room floor. In the past we’ve had carpets; cork tiles and posh lino. We opted to have the same oblong porcelain tile laid in a staggered pattern in both kitchen and morning room. It looks fantastic.
Oh we have pets too: three cats!
Good luck with your building works

We have UFH (wet I.e. hot water in pipes) installed a year ago under porcelain tiles. The UFH is fantastic - just simply lovely and warm, with no need for wall space for radiators. Puss cat and pooch have found one or two areas that are a bit warmer than rest and loll around in luxury on them. The porcelain tiles look chic but the grout is already dirty, the builder didn’t get the grout off the tiles in time so it still feels gritty underfoot, and I’ve lost count of how many things we’ve smashed on this floor.

25 years ago we had cork (I think the brand of tile was called Cork-o-plast) and it was lovely - quiet, hint of softness, interesting surface, easy to clean etc. The only issue was the colour faded in the sun. If it was up to me, I’d go back to cork if it is compatible with the UFH.

We have had UFH in our last 2 properties. It’s amazing and very cheap to run. You don’t have radiators so all your wall space is free. Never had a minute’s problem.

Karndean is brilliant had for 20 plus years, coped with Children, Dogs now Grandchildren!!
Easy to keep clean, was quite expensive at the time but definitely worth it.

Previous floor was Amtico Spacia - to be avoided. It scratched so easily, within a year it looked a mess. The ‘grout’ was actually very thin strips of a similar material in a contrasting colour. This gave the floor so many microscopic ridges for dirt to collect in, I doubt it was hygienic either.

Amtico is in our kitchen, hall, study and utility room. It slimmer than Kardean so suited out low door thresholds better. Easy to clean and great for Tilly our Cockapoo.

I have underfloor heating and engineered wood floors in my kitchen/ living area. Easy to care for, and no radiators.

We have underfloor heating in the kitchen with ceramic tiles, absolutely perfect.
Think it’s been around 7 years or more now.

UFH fan here, we have it everywhere upstairs and downstairs and would never go back to having ugly radiators stuck on walls. Not expensive to run and very efficient also lovely to walk into bathroom and have warm tiled floor underfoot.

If you have a good thick layer of (as much as there's room for) insulation, engineered wood is good. Does not easily mark (I have dropped pans) stain, is warm, easy to clean (even by husbands). The lifting, if needed, is not impossible (take a kick board off in the kitchen, and skirting if that sort of room). So long as you are methodical you can just re slot it.

I am not a fan of underfloor heating. We had it at a holiday location and it was difficult to adjust the temperature as it took ages to heat then even longer to cool down when the weather turned. I struggle if i get overheated. Our plumber said floor has to come up if there is a problem with it too so we've replaced our rads with nicer ones instead. We are having flooring laid as I type. Stone tiles in the conservatory which will run through to kitchen and laundry later. Karndean being laid next weekend in sitting room/hall new stair carpet and cork in two bathrooms. I had cork before and it was so warm I regretted changing it. We have 2 large dogs. We are having light tiles in conservatory that have a darker colour smudge here and there with darker grout as we have to mop a lot of mud off and light grout will show the dirt

The amtico in our kitchen is coming up but lasted 20 years with dogs/children. Only going karndean this time as i liked the design and not much difference wear and tearwise

Another karndean fan here had it over 15 years, it’s still great

Karndean fan. Always found it warm, easy to clean and long lasting.

I have ceramic tiles , no UFH. Not cold, and I go to toilet at night in my bare feet quite comfortably.

Tiles are useful for cleaning up after incontinent dogs, and for discouraging fleas.

Vinyl sheet and tiles are useful but are environmentally bad.

We have underfloor heating in our bathroom under porcelain tiles. The bathroom is so cosy in the morning. \it is the electric mat type and heats up quickly. We have had it on for a couple of hours in the morning all through winter and haven't noticed any difference in our bills.

We have tiles in our bathroom and in our en suite. There is a type of mesh heating under the tiles in the en suite but we didn’t have it put in the bathroom. There is a big difference stepping on to them with bare feet. The en suite floor is not hot but not cold (we still have a towel radiator there and need it). The bathroom floor is really cold. We had tiles in our kitchen in our last house but never again. I lost so many dishes there! We have vinyl in this kitchen that looks like wood - really nice. I can use my steam mop to clean it, and I don’t smash so many things. ?