How cheap can parquet be?

Hello,

we bought a 20-year-old house, in which the laminate flooring originally installed at the time is still in the upper floor.

At first, we also wanted to lay laminate there again, but now we have rather come to prefer parquet. A friend who is a carpenter told us: Better cheap parquet than expensive laminate flooring.

We are not 100% decided yet, our requirements:
- We don’t have underfloor heating there and will definitely not retrofit it due to annoying experiences with underfloor heating.
- The laminate was laid as a floating floor back then.
- We have two small children who will still be quite small for the next 10 years, so the floor will definitely be exposed to some stress anyway.

The initial thought was: We’ll first put in relatively cheap laminate, about 15 euros per sqm, and then consider installing parquet in 10 years.

We no longer find that very sensible. Parquet clearly looks better and is certainly more pleasant to walk on in the visual comparison. And while we could sand a parquet floor again after a few years, that is not possible with laminate, and we would have the whole effort again of removing and installing the floor.

We initially thought parquet would not be available for under 80 euros per sqm. Then we also found offers for engineered parquet at about 45 euros in a local store. In various online shops, it's even cheaper.

It’s not about cheap at any cost for us. For the moment, our budget for the first renovation work is limited, so it's a trade-off. If we had spent 15-20 euros on laminate, it makes more sense to invest 40-50 euros in a parquet floor from which we get more in terms of living quality, appearance, value, and durability.

But if engineered parquet for 40-50 euros per sqm is complete rubbish, then it’s a naive calculation; however, we cannot currently budget 100 euros per sqm for parquet.

We are not fixed on any particular type of wood; plank floor or ship floor are still open, we find both visually nice. The product does not have to be bio deluxe, but we don’t want an extreme formaldehyde emitter in the children’s room. And: The floor should be thick enough in its wear layer to allow at least one sanding.

I had just posted a link here to a flooring that we, for example, would like. I was still considering whether private users are allowed to post links or not, but apparently not. Sorry about that, it has probably already been removed by the admin. Sorry again, no ill intent. The product was an oak parquet, ship floor, rustic sorting, 2.5 mm thickness. It is supposed to cost 27 euros per square meter. Do you think something like that is better than a good laminate despite the very low price?

And while we could sand a parquet floor again after a few years, that wouldn't be possible with laminate, and we would have to go through all the hassle of removing and reinstalling the floor again.

Sanding would be almost more effort for me than laying new laminate. Nevertheless, I would always prefer parquet to laminate.

There are solid floorboards, e.g. oak, for under 40€/m2. They are of course glued down, but then they are almost indestructible and can be sanded.

Sanding would be almost more effort for me than relaying laminate. Still, I would always prefer parquet to laminate.

We are complete novices when it comes to DIY and accordingly naive. But we thought that you could rent a machine for sanding at the hardware store, of course for a fee, and then sand an upper floor within 2 hours, and then vacuum once and clean once, and that would be it? Not?

There are solid floorboards, e.g. oak, for under €40/m2. They are of course glued down, but then they are virtually indestructible and can be sanded down.

You say "of course glued down." So that’s optional? That would be a problem for us, as we definitely don’t trust ourselves to do the gluing, and having a professional lay them would cost so much that it wouldn’t fit into the budget planned for the renovations. With these click systems, we thought that with a bit of help from more experienced craftsmen, we could manage. But gluing, no.