Rental House Flooring

[Brad T.]

Hello Fellow Landlords,
I am sure this post has been talked about a lot, but what are your flooring preferences when it comes to rental houses? I know that we are all looking for the best bang for the buck. I like the durability of laminated wood flooring (fake wood), but if you use this in the whole house it will have an echo which will drive people crazy. My house that I live in has this problem anyway. I am not a big fan of carpet as it wears and stains fairly quick. Is laminate in kitchens and halls with carpet in bedrooms a good compromise? I would love to hear everyone's thoughts.

Thanks!
Brad

[Ryan B.]

Originally posted by Mike Franco:

Originally posted by Ryan B.:

My preference would be bare concrete.

I use the cheap $0.69 sq/ft laminate and put it in everything except kitchen and bathrooms. So far has worked like a charm. There is actually a trick so that you can replace just a single board, even right in the middle of the room, that takes 5 minutes and does not require taking up any boards besides the one being replaced.

what's the trick?

Take a circular saw and set it where the blade will only cut about 1/8 inch deep, just enough to make it through the thickness of the board. Now make 2 diagonal cuts corner to corner the whole length of the board (so you just cut a big X). Now your board should be in 4 triangle pieces after making the X cut. Wiggle the pieces around and pull them all out.

Now you will notice that when you put the flooring down it "snaps" together using a sort of lip and channel connection. Since you can't "snap" the new piece in, take out your razor knife and shave off the lip of the new board. Now test it out and you should be able to slip the board right in because the lip is now gone. You will probably have to shave the lip on both the long side and short side of the board.

Now put a thin line of wood glue where the groove and lip (now trimmed down with razor knife) will meet. Slide the new board in place, wipe any excess glue up that squeezed out of the seam and set something heavy on it.

No pulling up half the floor to replace one board and only takes about 5 minutes.