How to Choose Flooring: A Toronto Buyer’s Guide

• The six main materials
• Compare at a glance
• Let the room decide
• Check the subfloor
• What it costs
• Frequently asked questions

Almost every floor we supply and install falls into one of six families. Read what each one is good at before you fall for a colour.

Laminate. A dense fibreboard core with a printed wood or stone layer under a clear wear layer. It handles scratches and scuffs well, which is why it lasts in hallways and family rooms. It cannot be sanded or refinished, so when the wear layer goes, the floor gets replaced. Water resistance varies a lot between products, so read the spec sheet before you put it near a sink. We stock about 681 laminate floors.

Vinyl and SPC. Modern vinyl plank and tile is a printed layer over a plastic or rigid mineral core. SPC, the stone plastic composite core, is the stiffest of them and hides small dips in the subfloor better. Vinyl is the most water-resistant of the wood-look floors, easy to clean and quiet underfoot. It can dent under a heavy point load, and it cannot be refinished. This is our largest range at about 2,700 vinyl floors.

Engineered hardwood. A real wood veneer over a plywood or fibreboard core. The cross-layered core moves less with humidity than a solid board, which makes it the sensible way to put real wood over a concrete slab or in a condo. Depending on the veneer thickness, it can often be sanded once or twice. About 1,585 engineered hardwood floors in stock.

Solid hardwood. One solid piece of wood, usually nailed to a wood subfloor. It is the only floor here you can sand and refinish several times, so it can be made to look new again twenty years in. It reacts to humidity, it is not for below-grade rooms, and it needs the most care. About 101 solid hardwood floors.

Tile. Ceramic or porcelain, set in mortar with grout joints. Nothing else takes standing water, salt and grit the way tile does, so it belongs in entries, bathrooms and laundry rooms. It is cold and hard underfoot and the grout needs cleaning. See our tile range and tile installation.

Carpet. The warmest and quietest option, and the kindest underfoot on stairs, so it suits bedrooms, basements and media rooms. It holds dust, it stains, and it wears faster than a hard surface in a busy hallway. About 130 options in carpet and rugs.

The rates above are labour. The floor is priced separately.

The same house often needs two or three different floors. Here is how the rooms usually sort themselves out.

• Basement on concrete. Solid hardwood does not belong below grade. A slab gives off moisture for years, so this is where rigid core vinyl or SPC earns its place, with tile or carpet as the other sensible answers. Floating floors here need the underlay and vapour barrier the manufacturer asks for.
• Kitchen. Spills sit on a kitchen floor until somebody notices them, so tile handles it best, then vinyl. If the kitchen has to match wood floors elsewhere, vinyl with a wood look is the practical compromise.
• Condo with sound rules. Most buildings set a minimum sound rating for anything you put over concrete, and want it in writing before work starts. Ask property management for the rule in your declaration and we match an acoustic underlay to it. Floating floors are normal in condos, since nothing gets nailed into the slab.
• Bedrooms. Low traffic, no water, bare feet in the morning. Carpet or hardwood both make sense here, and this is the room where you can spend on comfort instead of toughness.
• Stairs. Stairs take the hardest wear in the house and have their own rules about nosing and grip. Laminate, vinyl, hardwood and carpet all work, but stairs are labour rather than square footage, so they are quoted separately. See staircase remodelling.

The subfloor decides as much as the room does, and it is the thing homeowners forget when they compare quotes.

Over concrete, nailing is out, so you are choosing between a floating floor and a glued floor, and the slab has to be dry and flat first. Over plywood on joists, everything is possible, including nailed solid hardwood. Dips and humps get levelled before anything goes down, because a floating floor over a wavy subfloor will flex at the joints no matter how good the product is. None of that shows in a per square foot price, which is why we measure before quoting.

Budget in three parts:

• The floor. Priced per square foot, separate from labour, and this is where the range is widest.
• The installation. Laminate from $3.20, click vinyl plank or tile from $3.20, engineered hardwood that only clicks and floats from $3.20, solid hardwood from $4.50, engineered hardwood from $4.90 including glue and nails, glue-down vinyl including dryback, LVT and loose lay from $5.50 including glue. Tile is priced once we have seen the job.
• The extras. Removing and disposing of the old floor, levelling the subfloor, underlay, transitions, baseboard or quarter round, and stairs.

For a fuller breakdown, read how much a flooring renovation costs, or see how we handle vinyl flooring installation, laminate flooring installation and hardwood installation in Toronto. The in-home measure is free across Toronto and the GTA.

For the two comparisons people ask us about most, see laminate vs vinyl plank and engineered vs solid hardwood.

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