Start with the room, not the sample
Most flooring decisions get made backwards. Someone falls for a colour on a display board, then tries to make that product survive a room it was never built for. It usually works for a while. Then a dishwasher leaks, or a slab pushes moisture up through an adhesive, or a matte finish turns out to be the only thing that would have hidden the dog.
So we run it the other way round. What is the room, what happens in it, what is under it, and how long do you want it to last. Answer those four and the material list gets short fast. Colour is the last decision, not the first, and it is the one you will actually enjoy making.
There are five materials on this site: hardwood, luxury vinyl plank, laminate, tile and carpet. Each one is genuinely the correct answer somewhere, and genuinely the wrong answer somewhere else. Below is all five side by side, then the reasoning that turns the table into a decision.
All five materials, side by side
Read this by row, not by column. Find the two or three rows that matter in your room and ignore the rest, because no floor wins every line and a product that loses eight rows can still be the right call if it wins the two you care about.
| Property | Hardwood | Luxury vinyl plank | Laminate | Tile | Carpet |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Water tolerance | Low. Standing water lifts grain and swells seams | High. The plank itself is unaffected, though water can still reach the subfloor through seams | Low to moderate. The core is fibreboard, and water-resistant ratings are time limited, not permanent | Highest. The tile is inert; grout and the substrate are the variables | Low. Fibre, backing and pad all hold moisture |
| Scratch resistance | Moderate, set by the finish rather than the wood | Moderate. Set by wear layer thickness in mils | Highest of the plank materials, set by abrasion class | Very high on glazed porcelain | Not applicable. It mats and crushes instead of scratching |
| Dent resistance | Species dependent. Hickory and white oak resist well, pine and cherry do not | Low. A flexible core takes point loads from appliance feet and furniture | Moderate. The dense core resists denting but edges can chip | Very high, though impact can crack a tile over a void in the setting bed | Recovers from most furniture marks, permanently crushes under heavy static loads |
| Comfort and warmth underfoot | Moderate. Some give, and it never feels cold | Moderate. Resilient, and warmer than tile | Firm and cool. It reads harder than wood underfoot | Hardest and coldest surface here | Warmest and softest by a wide margin |
| Sound | Quiet when nailed or glued, brighter in a sparsely furnished room | Quiet with an attached pad, hollow if floated over a bare subfloor | Loudest plank material. Underlayment matters more here than anywhere else | Reflective. Rooms with tile carry sound | Quietest. Absorbs both footfall and airborne noise |
| Refinishable | Yes. Solid takes several sandings; engineered depends on wear layer | No | No | No, but grout can be renewed and individual tiles replaced | No. Cleaning only |
| Below grade | Solid, no. Engineered, yes with a passing moisture test and vapour barrier | Yes. This is where it is strongest | Only products rated for it, and only over a vapour barrier | Yes, over a sound and prepared slab | Possible with a rated pad, but a damp slab will eventually show |
| Radiant heat | Engineered where the manufacturer approves it. Solid, generally not | Usually yes, under a stated surface temperature limit | Often yes, under a stated surface temperature limit | Best in class. Conducts heat rather than blocking it | Works but insulates. Low pile and a thin pad are needed |
| What ends its life | Running the finish through to bare wood, or exhausting the wear layer | Scratching and dulling of the wear layer, and denting from point loads | A moisture event swelling the core at the edges | Substrate movement cracking tiles or grout, rarely the tile itself | Matting, crushed pile and soiling in traffic lanes, rarely holes |
| Best rooms | Living, dining, halls, bedrooms, offices, stairs | Kitchens, baths, laundries, basements, whole-home runs | Dry bedrooms, living rooms, hallways, rentals | Bathrooms, mudrooms, entries, laundries, kitchens | Bedrooms, stairs, media rooms, upper floors |
Water tolerance is about the plank, not the room. A waterproof vinyl floor over a wood subfloor still lets a running dishwasher soak the plywood underneath through the seams, and you will not see it until the smell arrives. Waterproof means the floor survives, not that the leak does not matter. Fix the leak.
If this is your situation, then this is your floor
The table gives you properties. Here is what to do with them, in the terms people actually describe their homes in.
- If the room floods, then buy for the flood. Laundry rooms, full bathrooms, basements below a sump line and anywhere with a water heater in it should get tile or luxury vinyl plank. Not because the others look worse, but because the repair cost of one bad night is what you are really buying insurance against.
- If you want it to outlive you, then it has to be refinishable. Only hardwood can be sanded back and started over. Every other floor here has a fixed surface, and when the surface is finished, so is the floor. If the plan is one purchase for the life of the house, solid hardwood in the dry rooms is the only material that supports that plan.
- If the subfloor is a slab, then moisture testing decides everything. Concrete releases vapour continuously, even when it feels bone dry and even years after it was poured. Tile and vinyl handle it. Engineered wood handles it with the right barrier and a reading inside tolerance. Solid hardwood does not go there without a built-up wood subfloor. Our subfloor preparation page covers how that test is run and what a failing number changes.
- If there is underfloor heating, then check the temperature limit before you fall in love. Tile is the best conductor and wastes the least heat. Vinyl and laminate are usually approved with a surface temperature cap. Solid hardwood and thick carpet fight the system, one by moving and one by insulating.
- If the house is loud, then the floor is part of the problem. Hard surfaces reflect sound and telegraph footfall to the room below. Carpet is the only material here that genuinely absorbs both. Where you want a hard surface anyway, the underlayment and the fastening method do more for noise than the plank does.
- If a dog lives there, then separate scratching from denting. Claws scratch, and a matte or wire-brushed surface hides scratching that a gloss finish would show off. Dropped objects dent, and that is a hardness question. A floor can be brilliant at one and poor at the other, so decide which failure would bother you.
- If you are selling within a couple of years, then continuity matters more than material. One surface flowing through the main living space reads better and photographs better than a more expensive floor chopped up by three transitions. See what that looks like finished on our projects page.
- If nobody in the house will mop promptly, then be honest about it. Hardwood kitchens hold up for decades in households that wipe spills. In households that do not, they mark within a year. This is not a materials question, it is a habits question, and it is the one people are least honest with themselves about.
What actually drives the difference in cost
We will not quote a number on a web page, because a number without a room attached to it is meaningless and every estimate we give is written after somebody has stood in the space. What we can do is tell you which levers move the figure, so nothing in your estimate reads as a surprise.
Material grade within the same material
The spread inside a single category is wider than the spread between categories. Two hardwood floors can look near identical on a display board and differ hugely in board width, grade, milling tolerance and finish quality. The same is true of vinyl, laminate and tile. Comparing "vinyl versus wood" tells you very little; comparing two specific products tells you everything.
Wear layer, which is the number that matters
Wear layer is the part of the floor you are allowed to wear out. On engineered hardwood it is quoted in millimetres and it decides how many refinishes you get. On vinyl it is quoted in mils and it decides how long the surface stays clear. On laminate it is expressed as an abrasion class. Two products at the same price can carry very different wear layers, and that difference is usually the reason for the price.
Subfloor condition
This is the biggest genuine variable and the one nobody can see in advance. A flat, dry, sound subfloor needs a clean and a check. One that is out of flat needs grinding or levelling compound. One that is damp needs a mitigation strategy before anything goes down. That work is invisible when it is finished and unavoidable when it is needed.
Room complexity and stairs
Square footage is the easy part. Cuts are the expensive part. Kitchen islands, angled walls, hearths, closets, floor vents and door casings all add cutting and fitting time to the same area of floor. Stairs are a category of their own: every tread and riser is a separate fitted piece with a nosing, and a straight flight of thirteen steps can carry more labour than a large open bedroom.
Every order includes an allowance above the measured area, because planks get cut at walls, patterns have to align, and a diagonal layout wastes more than a straight one. Ordering exactly the measured square footage is how a job stops two rows short with a discontinued dye lot. The allowance is real material doing real work.
How to compare samples properly
Showroom lighting is designed to sell flooring. It is bright, neutral and overhead, and your house is none of those things. Take samples home. Every supplier expects it, and the ones that make it difficult are telling you something.
Then compare them the way you will actually live with them:
- View them in the room's own light. A north-facing room pulls warm tones grey. A south-facing room pushes everything warmer through the afternoon. The same plank can look like two different products in two rooms of the same house.
- Look at the time of day you use the room. Judge a bedroom floor in the morning and an evening living room under the lamps you actually switch on. Warm bulbs shift wood tones noticeably, and a floor chosen at noon can read orange at nine at night.
- Hold it against the cabinets, the trim and the doors. Floors do not fail in isolation, they fail against the fixed things in the room. Two warm woods that are slightly different warm is the mistake to avoid; either match closely or contrast clearly, because nearly matching looks like an error.
- Put it on the floor and look from standing height. A sample held at chest height is being viewed from an angle you will never use again. On the floor, grain scale and colour variation read completely differently, and sheen reveals itself only when light comes across it rather than at it.
- Walk on it. Sound and feel are half of what you are buying, and they never come across in a photograph. Where you can, stand on an installed area of the product rather than a loose piece, because a plank on a showroom rack tells you nothing about how it will sound underfoot.
- Get a big enough piece. Small samples hide the repeat. Most plank flooring cycles through a limited number of printed or milled patterns, and a large lay-down is the only way to see whether that repeat is noticeable in a long hallway.
Leave the shortlist on the floor for a few days before deciding. Live with them, walk past them, see them at breakfast and at night. The one you stop noticing is usually the right one.
Where each material earns its place
Short version, before you go deeper on any single page.
Hardwood
The only floor here you can sand back and start over instead of tearing out. Belongs above grade in dry rooms, and rewards a household that looks after it.
Hardwood flooring →Luxury vinyl plank
A waterproof core that tolerates the rooms wood cannot. The default answer for kitchens, baths and basements, and the easiest floor to live with carelessly.
Luxury vinyl plank →Laminate
The hardest wear surface of the plank materials, at the strongest value in dry rooms. Its weakness is water at the edges, and that weakness is absolute.
Laminate flooring →Tile
Unaffected by water and unbothered by traffic. The right call in a full bath or a mudroom, and the best partner underfloor heating has.
Tile flooring →Carpet
Still the only material that delivers warmth and quiet at the same time. Bedrooms, stairs and any room where the floor below hears every footstep.
Carpet flooring →Not sure yet
Tell us the rooms, what is under them and how the house gets used. We will narrow five materials down to two before anybody talks about colour.
Talk it through →What happens after you choose
The material decision sets the install method, and the install method sets the prep. Nail-down, glue-down and floating floors each want a different subfloor condition, so the sequence runs material, then method, then prep, then schedule. Our services overview walks through the whole engagement from first contact to final walkthrough, and the flooring installation page covers what happens on site once material is on the ground.
If there is an existing floor coming out, that is a separate scope with its own timeline and its own mess, handled on the floor removal page. If you would rather see how we work before committing to any of it, the about page explains how we run jobs, and the estimate form is the fastest way to get a real answer for your rooms.
Common questions about choosing a floor
Which type of flooring is best?
There is no single best floor, only a best floor for a given room. Tile wins on water and heat conduction. Laminate wins on surface hardness. Luxury vinyl plank wins on tolerating a wet mistake. Carpet wins on warmth and quiet. Hardwood is the only one you can sand back and start over. Match the material to how the room gets used rather than to a general ranking, and expect a whole house to need two or three of them.
Can I use different flooring in different rooms?
Yes, and most homes should. The usual pattern is one continuous hard surface through the main living areas, tile or vinyl in the wet rooms, and carpet in bedrooms or on stairs. What matters is that every change of material lands at a doorway with a planned transition, rather than as an awkward join in the middle of an open space. Fewer, better-placed changes always look more expensive than more of them.
What is the most durable flooring for dogs and kids?
Durability is three separate properties and no floor leads on all three. Laminate has the hardest surface against scratching. Porcelain tile resists scratching and denting both. Luxury vinyl plank tolerates water and spills better than either, but dents under point loads. Hardwood scratches, then gets refinished, which is a repair route the others simply do not have. Decide which kind of damage would actually bother you.
Does the old floor have to come out first?
Sometimes, not always. Nail-down hardwood has to fasten into a proper wood subfloor, so whatever sits on top usually goes. Some floating products can be laid over sound, flat, well-bonded existing material. Height at doorways and appliance clearance often settles it before anything else does: a dishwasher trapped under a counter by a taller floor build-up is a genuinely expensive discovery to make late.
Which flooring works over a concrete slab?
Tile and luxury vinyl plank are the straightforward answers. Engineered hardwood works when a moisture test comes back within tolerance and the correct vapour barrier goes down. Solid hardwood needs a built-up wood subfloor first. Laminate needs a product specifically rated for it plus a vapour barrier, because the core is fibreboard and fibreboard and moisture do not co-exist.
What should I ask about wear layer?
Ask for a measurement, not a marketing grade name. Engineered hardwood wear layers are quoted in millimetres, vinyl wear layers in mils, and laminate surface hardness by abrasion class. Those numbers are the closest thing to a like for like comparison across products, and they are what decides how long the floor keeps looking new. A salesperson who cannot give you the number is selling you the picture on top of it.