Hey OzB,
I've just bought a new house which has terrible 70s carpet. Looking to rip it up and put down some hybrid floors (I'm not sure what's under the carpet - house hasn't settled yet)
I'm struggling to find any objective reviews/advice on specific brands of hybrid floors online.
Does anyone have any experience with this?
Thanks in advance!
ADDIT
This is the type of flooring I was looking at
https://www.godfreyhirst.com/au/products/apollo
But not that brand (reviews weren't great)
Thanks for the tip, have read some good things about the HN boards, but not about their specific brands.
I'm definitely not skilled enough to lay them myself!
Are you on stumps or a slab?
On a slab
We bought American oak hybrid flooring a few years ago installed “properly” on our slab (eg, glued down to hardwood underlay). It’s the kind that looks fancy with a decent amount of knots and dark filler for visual detail.
Fast forward 5 years; the business has disappeared and all of the knots and filler areas are disintegrating particularly in the spots that get direct sun and reasonable traffic.
I’ll never do hybrid flooring again - we were sold the idea that it would last as long as solid hardwood timber, but it’s just not true.
Would you show us a pic? What do you mean by disintegrating knots?
Ah bugger - my apologies. Apparently ours aren’t what they call “hybrid” - it must be known by a different type in the industry. I don’t have a pic on me.
They’re a 2-4mm layer of real American oak wood with plywood making up the rest of the board. It’s the thinness of that real wood layer that makes it so susceptible to damage.
“Hybrid” looks to refer to a printed vinyl type (?), rather than a layer of real wood over the top.
This is the type of flooring I was looking at
https://www.godfreyhirst.com/au/products/apollo
But not that brand (reviews weren't great)
They're not real wood
@Pineapples: Yeah that looks like a more hardy surface than what we have.
My advice though - don’t expect them to last longer than 10 years. That means you should install them floating (rather than glued down) and up to the edge of cabinets and skirting board (rather than underneath them). That makes them easier to replace when the time comes.
Sorry I have no specific advice about hybrid floor brands 😂
I’d recommend luxury vinyl plank - at least 4.5mm thick. Fully waterproof and doesn’t have expansion issues like hybrid. We got Interface brand on special in Brisbane for $25sqm from a flooring warehouse and cost us $20sqm to have professionally installed.
I did have these in my old place and I liked them. Something to think about.
luxury and vinyl is surely an oxymoron
Don’t knock it until you try it
Try Aquastop - they are waterproof and can sustain water spills up to 48 hours.
Just be aware of how the slab is, if it not level then you're gonna have very annoying dips in the flooring as hybrid clicks together and not bonded to the slab. Unfortunately for us, 90% of our flooring is great but our entrance has annoying "dips" in the flooring which you can feel. A hallway floor rug might levitate some of my annoyance with it but ye something to consider.
In terms of brands just pick the colour and length you like. We went with Fowles Flooring and they had an awesome range and price was decent back in 2020 and big slabs of it to help me visualise how it would look in our space Though they do not provide an installation service but they do have a little list of installers but they are not employed by Fowles. I think it was about $50ish per metre not installed.
Also when installing, it is cheaper to do a scotia mold between the expansion joints but I find them pretty ugly. There is alternative process that doesn't require these trim but i forgot the name of it.
Please share the horrible 70s carpet, i'm not even kidding I love old decor and old carpet is my jam.
We had tiles that we were going to replace with hybrid, however in the end we chose against it as it just didn't seem like a product that would last especially in high traffic areas.
Every room has different coloured carpet. It's amazingly bad. The photos on the listing don't do it justice in terms of how terrible it is
If your finances can support it, go for a thicker plank around 8 - 8.5mm, and if you have 2 levels get sound dampening underlay. We got dunlop branded 5.8mm hybrid planks and have had an OK experience. The office chair wheels have stripped the plank around the edges, there are some deep gouges that appeared near our heavy sofa sits, and stair nosing cracked all within 2 years. I think this could've been avoided if we had gone with a higher quality product.
I got mine from Harvey Norman and they have been really good quality. Cant really fault them. Had them for 3 years now. Not sure about brand name. I installed them all by myself. A good skill to acquire which saves you heaps of money.
Another great option would be the ones at Costco, although the choice is limited.