New house - Which flooring is suitable?

Hello everyone,

the planning is slowly taking shape. It will probably be a Weberhaus (provided the price fits). For the calculation, my consultant wants to roughly know which floors I am considering.

We want to build with underfloor heating, which is probably quite important for the floor. For me, laminate, parquet, or vinyl are options. Since I have a sofa set with relatively sharp 2*2cm legs, I need a floor that can withstand the couch, including visitors, without pressure marks.

Parquet fits well with the Weberhaus, of course. Wooden house with real wood flooring. But I have read that parquet is very maintenance-intensive and does not like water at all. Also, I'm not sure if I won’t get any pressure marks here.

Vinyl is a very interesting floor. It is supposed to be very low-maintenance, has no problem with water, similar to tiles, is not too expensive, and it is also supposed to feel nicely warm. However, it apparently has the disadvantage that vinyl is a rebranding of the very unpopular and carcinogenic floor PVC. Is vinyl hazardous to health?

Laminate is a kind of mixture of both.

I am very interested in your opinions and recommendations.

Best regards
laurooon

We have just dealt with the same or a similar question a few days ago. Take a look! It feels like we discuss parquet, laminate, and the like anew every week.

Sometimes related to vinyl. We discuss vinyl on HDF boards, vinyl on wood-burning stoves, problems with vinyl, impact sound insulation, and Venly. But I couldn’t find any general comparison that addressed my specific question.

A forum is never free of redundancy. The same questions are asked over and over again, and every builder probably has 80% of questions that have certainly been dealt with somewhere before. No question about that. Still, I don’t think you can expect everyone to read through the entire forum and cobble together their own answers.

We have decided on vinyl throughout the entire house (basement, ground floor, upper floor) except for the bathrooms. We have underfloor heating everywhere. It does not run in summer and we do not wear shoes in the house. For this reason, we chose vinyl. Parquet is too maintenance-intensive and one has to be more careful. Tiles are too cold in summer and laminate is, in my opinion, out of the question. So far, the basement is finished and the flooring installer is currently gluing the planks on the ground and upper floors. We will move in at the end of the month and then I can report. Regarding concerns about health: If you don’t buy cheap vinyl from China, the exposure should be below the prescribed limit. From my point of view (and that of many people who know about this), the stuff can be used without concern nowadays.

I advised you to take a look at the posts below yours in this subforum. If it's too much effort for you....

Best regards in brief

We decided on vinyl throughout the entire house (basement, ground floor, upper floor) except for the bathrooms. We have underfloor heating everywhere. It is off in the summer and we don’t wear shoes inside the house. For this reason, we chose vinyl. Parquet is too high-maintenance and requires more care. Tiles are too cold in summer and in my opinion, laminate is out of the question.

So far, the basement is finished and the floor installer is currently gluing the planks on the ground and upper floors. We will move in at the end of the month and then I can report back.

Regarding health concerns: If you don’t buy cheap vinyl from China, the emissions should be below the required limit. From my point of view (and that of many experts), this stuff can be used without concern nowadays.

Thank you very much for your assessment, I would be very happy if you could report more after moving in. Did you additionally use impact sound insulation? Have you already walked around in the basement and are you satisfied? In the hallway, it is questionable whether vinyl is hard enough to withstand the small stones under shoes.

My builder (Weberhaus) would probably install tiles in the bathroom, hallway, and kitchen; I am considering whether I would rather take vinyl there. I have some concerns that it might swell in very damp rooms. In the utility room, where the washing machine is, tiles might also be better... I imagine that in a wooden house, a leaking washing machine with the wrong flooring would not be good at all...