In a high end home I’d go with the most high end floors you can afford. Do you have any samples of both types of floors?

I just spent $9K on over 1200 sq. ft. of luxury vinyl plank flooring, to get our moderately high-end house presentable to sell. That includes tile and carpet removal, leveling the concrete slab, and installing the new flooring and quarter-round molding.

Pros: It looks gorgeous and is waterproof, and it's quite resilient (I dropped a cup on the floor from about 3 ft. and it didn't break!). Cons: The surface is very delicate and scratches easily, as I discovered on the first day. Therefore, I will never buy this type of flooring again, even though this one supposedly has a thick wear layer. In the future, I'll stick with wood-look porcelain tile as a much more durable alternative — or buy carpet.

I considered Pergo Outlast, but was put off by the core that appears to be wood particles, so that makes it definitely not waterproof. I think I read a review that said the same thing. You can get some samples at Home Depot or elsewhere, and soak one end of the sample in a bowl of water. That would be the best test.

ONE flooring as much as possible. LVP or a pre finished engineered hardwood, or tile..........depending how wet and coastal the Florida locale.

The singular flooring and unity is as important as the selection.

I have both in my home a laminate from Germany that my 3 huge dogs have never been able to scratch in 12 yrs and vinyl plank in my walkout same dogs but with free access to dog run in all kinds of weather still looks good 12 yrs later. IMO if get good quality of either they will be equal but I have heard that vinyl plank does not ike direct sun. We have a huge overhang on our hose so even though we have a tone of windows there is really no direct sun on our vinyl bot lots on our main floor with the laminate with no issues . The company our laminate comes from is Kronotex maybe check them out.

Thank you for all your input. After more shopping today, I've decided against laminate. I'm now leaning towards engineered hardwood. In particular I'm looking at a new Coretec Wood product that has genuine hardwood veneers but is waterproof and petproof. Expensive but probably worth it. Still researching!

I would definitely agree with the engineered hardwood choice!

I’ll be curious to hear what you think about the new COREtec Wood line...

If you have a high end home, I wouldn't use either. IMO, neither would be a good choice. Whoever came up with the words LVP was a marketing wiz. I mean it's really just plastic. Go with engineered hardwood. The other stuff is just junk.

Did you look at the SMARTCORE Naturals? I've considered this but still researching.

depends on your budget. Laminate would be your cheapest option followed by vinyl then engineered hard wood and then full thickness hardwood. The new vinyl flooring that is out now usually has a form of waterproofing that the other options don't offer. Something to consider

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CoreTec wood line is a hybrid product. It has the water proof core (mineral core) that is very stable (doesn't move too much). This is a core that is NORMALLY paired with laminate (a paper photograph on top) or vinyl.

CoreTec has used the wood product on top to reach out to customers who will NOT have laminate or vinyl in their homes. They are trying to capture the 'wood market' without producing a wood floor.

My problem with this situation is: Wood expands and contracts in the presence of moisture. This is normal and to be expected. The CORE underneath the wood DOES NOT. Hmmmmm. That means the expensive TOP stuff (that you pay $$$ for) will do everything wood is supposed to do (expand/contract) while the stuff it is GLUED TO does not.

And that brings us to the next concern: the Glue. A layered floor (like CoreTec Wood) has a weak link = the glue that holds the layers together. The Wood can and will expand. That will STRESS the glue underneath. Eventually (and no one knows when 'eventually' will be...the product is so new that no one knows it's breaking point) that glue will let go.

The CoreTec core works well with laminate (the photograph) and vinyl because both are relatively stable when dealing with humidity and with spills. The WOOD is NOT stable.

My concern is the hype around the water proof CORE is going to be the selling feature when the WOOD on top (and the glue below) are NOT.

I would get a sample of this product and soak it in a fish tank for 24-48 hours. Then pull it out and see if the wood has been affected. At that point you can assess the legitimacy of the claims re: water proof wood flooring.

Please get back to us once your experiment has been conducted.

SJ McCarthy... You bring up a very good point. I thought this product has several layers of "sealer" on the wood veneer, but I may be wrong. I will try to get a sample to try your experiment! I assume that means you would not recommend any engineered wood flooring? Does anyone else have experience with engineered wood flooring? Any brands you would recommend? Thanks.

Actually I like engineered floors. I'm not sold on THIS variant. A traditional engineered wood floor is 100% WOOD. The top layer (the wear layer) is the expensive stuff that gives it a name (like European Oak, Red Oak, Maple, Acacia, etc). The layers underneath are multiple layers or 'plied' wood. Usually birch is used...but other types of wood are used as well.

in essence an TRADITIONAL engineered hardwood = expensive wear layer sitting on top of expensive plywood (plywood simply means many layers).

The trouble I have is the 'water proof' wood concept. The only wood that is water proof = cork. Yep. Cork. As in expensive glue down cork tiles made up of 100% cork. Everything else that says 'water proof wood' is suspect. Which means I am suspect of the CoreTec wood as 'Water proof'.

CoreTec (the traditional stuff) with the vinyl on top is AWESOME stuff. Vinyl planks, vinyl sheet, vinyl tiles are all water proof. Wood is not.

If you must have water proof, then it is better to work with KNOWN water proof products and not some wood glued to a water proof core. The wood is still the issue.

And to be clear, engineered hardwoods (traditional) do quite well in kitchens. No need to reinvent the wheel.

what engineered hardwoods do you recommend?

what make and colour is this vinyl? It’s beautiful!!!

Thank you! Eternity flooring, paladin collection, Merino Oak color. We love it. It’s SPC. No prints, no water marks, easy maintenance! Couldn’t be happier!

Thank you. Looks beautiful. Is it comfortable to walk on with he SPC?

Very comfortable. Warmer and softer than tile.