A new floor is one of the renovations with the biggest effect on how a home feels, and one of the few in which virtually every square metre remains visible. Yet when a floor disappoints, it is rarely about the colour or pattern; it is about gaps that open up, boards that creak or lift, a poured floor in which the cracks of the screed show through, or a PVC floor that reveals every little unevenness in the subfloor. Those problems have one common cause: the subfloor and the conditions were not right when the floor was laid. This article first helps you choose the type of floor and then pays just as much attention to what is underneath and what the floor fitter needs from you.
The main types of floor and where they fit
PVC has become the most commonly laid floor in Dutch homes in recent years. It is water-resistant, quiet, warm underfoot and in a wood or stone look hardly distinguishable from the real thing. There are two main types. Click PVC (also called rigid core, SPC or WPC) has a stiff core and is laid floating with a click system; it forgives small unevenness and is suitable for DIYers. Dryback PVC is fully glued down and thinner; it lies tight, is very suitable for underfloor heating and for large areas, but demands a virtually perfectly flat and even subfloor, making it work for a professional. With both, pay attention to the thickness of the top layer (the wear layer) and the use class; for a living room with children and dogs you choose a thicker wear layer than for a bedroom. Common values are 0.3 mm for bedrooms (class 23/31), 0.55 mm for living rooms and intensive use (33/42) and 0.7 mm for heavy use (34/43).
Laminate consists of an HDF core with a printed decor layer and a hard top layer. It is the cheapest wood-look floor, scratch-resistant and easy to lay floating, but it is sensitive to moisture in the core, sounds harder than PVC and cannot be repaired. You can read the quality from the use class: classes 21, 22 and 23 are intended for homes with light, normal and intensive use, classes 31, 32 and 33 for commercial use and therefore more than sufficient for any home. You will also see AC classes, which indicate the wear resistance of the top layer; AC3 is the minimum for a living room and AC4 or AC5 is sensible for intensive use. Waterproof laminate with a sealed core and treated click joints exists, but remains more sensitive to moisture than PVC.
Parquet is real wood and therefore the only type of floor that you can sand and refinish after years. Solid parquet consists entirely of one type of wood, moves considerably with moisture and temperature and is usually glued or nailed; on underfloor heating it is only responsible with a limited thickness, a stable wood species such as oak, fully glued and with a surface temperature that does not exceed around 27 °C; the decisive factor is the thermal resistance of the whole build-up (see below). Engineered parquet or two-layer board has a top layer of real wood on a carrier of plywood or HDF; it is more stable, can be laid floating or glued and is the usual choice on underfloor heating, provided it is glued. The thicker the top layer, the more often you can sand; a top layer of a few millimetres usually allows several sanding rounds. An oil finish gives a natural look and can be repaired locally; lacquer is more resistant to stains but if damaged requires sanding the whole floor. How sanding and refinishing works is explained in sanding, lacquering or oiling a wooden floor.
A poured floor is a seamless synthetic floor a few millimetres thick that is poured on site. Polyurethane (PU) is slightly resilient, feels warmer and more comfortable and is the standard in homes; epoxy is harder, more chemically resistant and therefore common in garages and workshops, but cold and less comfortable. Both are in principle susceptible to discolouration from UV light, unless a UV-resistant (aliphatic) top coat is applied; ask about this explicitly if you have large south-facing windows. A poured floor is only as good as the screed underneath: cracks and joints show through unless they have been repaired and bridged in advance, and a poured floor is only applied to a sufficiently dry, sanded and primed subfloor. After pouring, the floor must not be walked on for a few days and may only be fully loaded after about a week.
Briefly about the rest. Tiles and natural stone are indestructible, water-resistant and ideal above underfloor heating because they pass on heat with virtually no resistance, but they are hard, cold without heating and require a tiler; laying large formats is specialist work. Carpet is warm, quiet and the best choice for impact noise, but holds dust and is less suited to a wet or busy room. Linoleum (for example Marmoleum) is a natural product made of linseed oil, resin, wood flour and jute, hard-wearing, antistatic and available in many colours, but likewise sensitive to an uneven subfloor and almost always glued down by a professional. More about tiled floors, large formats and the subfloor is explained in having floor tiles laid.
Underlay, levelling and residual moisture
Every floor finish places demands on the screed underneath, and the thinner the finish, the stricter the requirement. A screed must be flat, sufficiently strong, clean, free of cracks and dry. Flatness is measured as the deviation under a straightedge of a certain length; for glued PVC and poured floors, manufacturers demand the strictest classes (NEN 2747, the Dutch flatness standard, has seven flatness classes, class 1 being the strictest), while for click PVC and laminate on an underlay a less strict class is sufficient. In practice an existing screed is almost always levelled: after removing adhesive residues and applying a primer, a layer of levelling compound is poured that removes unevenness and gives a smooth, absorbent surface. With a timber upper floor or a floor with a lot of movement, an underlayment board of, for example, hardboard or plywood may be needed instead of levelling.
The most underestimated point is residual moisture. A new cement screed dries at roughly one week per centimetre of thickness, depending on the conditions, and an anhydrite (calcium sulphate) screed usually needs at least as much time. If a dense floor is laid on top, the moisture stays trapped under the floor, resulting in adhesive problems, blistering, mould or moving wood. The floor fitter therefore measures the moisture content, preferably with the CM method (calcium carbide method), in which a sample from the screed is measured in a pressure bottle. The usual limit values are at most around 2 CM per cent for a cement screed and at most around 0.5 CM per cent for an anhydrite screed, with stricter values when the screed contains underfloor heating. An electronic moisture meter only gives an indication and is not meant to be relied on as the deciding measurement. Always ask for the measured value on paper; it is the evidence for both parties if something goes wrong later. Anhydrite screeds also have a so-called surface skin (laitance) that must be sanded off before priming or levelling.
Underfloor heating: thermal resistance and heating-up protocol
More and more homes have underfloor heating, whether or not combined with a heat pump. The floor finish then sits between the heat source and the room, and the more heat it holds back, the higher the flow temperature must be and the less efficiently the system works. The measure for this is the thermal resistance (Rc value) of the floor finish plus any underlay combined. As a rule of thumb, the total should not exceed 0.15 m²·K/W (the limit used by Milieu Centraal, the Dutch independent information centre on energy and the environment, among others, and by most manufacturers), and with low-temperature heating with a heat pump or with floor cooling preferably no more than 0.10 m²·K/W. Tiles and poured floors score best here, glued PVC and glued engineered parquet follow, floating laminate or parquet on a thick underlay scores worst, and thick solid parquet and carpet with a heavy underlay are often unsuitable. With a floating floor, always choose an underlay specifically intended for underfloor heating and add up the Rc values of floor and underlay. Which system suits your home and heat source is explained in Underfloor heating or radiators.
A new screed with underfloor heating requires a heating-up protocol: before the floor is laid, the heating is raised step by step to the maximum temperature, held for a few days and then reduced step by step. That drives out the last construction moisture and lets the screed absorb the stresses that would otherwise develop under the new floor. A cement screed may only start this after about four weeks, an anhydrite screed after about a week; the temperature is raised in steps of around 5 °C per day. Always follow the protocol of the screed supplier. Ask the installer or contractor for a completed and signed protocol; many parquet and PVC suppliers make their warranty dependent on it.
Noise in flats and the VvE
In a flat, your floor is the ceiling of the neighbour below, and a hard floor without measures turns every step into impact noise. Virtually every splitsingsreglement (division regulations of the owners' association) therefore contains a provision on hard floor coverings. The model regulations (2006, Article 26; 2017, Article 28) only allow parquet, laminate, stone or tiles subject to standards set in the house rules or by the general meeting; as a safety net, the 2017 model regulations specify an improvement in impact sound insulation (Ico) of more than 10 dB. In house rules this requirement is nowadays usually stated as a ΔLlin of at least 10 dB, measured in an acoustic laboratory in accordance with NEN-EN-ISO 10140 (equal to three stars under NTA 5098). You will not achieve that value with just any underlay; the supplier must be able to show a report from an acoustic laboratory in which the combination of underlay and floor finish has been measured. Some VvEs require prior permission or written notification, sometimes a higher value and often a ban on hard floors in bedrooms above other people's living rooms. Read the regulations and the house rules before you order and submit the chosen combination with its report to the board; having to remove a floor afterwards is the most expensive lesson a flat owner can learn. More about the rules is explained in Renovating a flat in a VvE.
In a single-family home noise is also a consideration: a floating floor sounds hollower than a glued one, and an underlay with good impact sound damping makes an upper floor noticeably quieter for the storey below. Gluing down is the quietest solution for footstep noise in the room itself.
Floating or glued, expansion gaps and acclimatising
Laying floating means the floor lies loose on an underlay and is only connected to itself via the click system or the glued joints. It is quicker, cheaper and can be removed again later, and suits click PVC, laminate and engineered parquet. Laying glued bonds the floor to the screed: tighter, quieter, without springiness and better for underfloor heating, but dependent on a flat, dry subfloor and labour-intensive to remove. Dryback PVC, poured floors, Marmoleum and solid parquet are always glued; engineered parquet preferably so, certainly above underfloor heating.
A floating floor moves: it expands with heat and moisture and shrinks in winter. That is why the fitter leaves an expansion gap all round, also at door frames, pipes and columns, and large or L-shaped rooms and doorways between rooms are separated with a transition profile. If you seal that gap or clamp the floor down under a heavy kitchen, you get bulging boards or open joints. Glued floors hardly need expansion gaps but follow the movement joints in the screed; these are carried through into the finish.
Acclimatising means letting the material get used to the temperature and humidity of the room where it will be laid. For laminate and PVC, one or two days in the packaging in the room concerned is usually enough; for parquet a longer period is customary and the home must already be at normal living temperature and humidity, so not an unheated building site. A wooden floor laid in a damp new-build home visibly shrinks in the first winter; a floor laid in the middle of winter with dry central-heating air expands in summer. Wait to lay the floor until plasterwork and screed are dry and the heating is working normally.
Skirting boards, transitions, doors and the kitchen
After laying come the details that determine the final look. Skirting boards cover the expansion gap and are fixed to the wall, never to a floating floor; with a poured floor you choose between a skirting board or an upturned edge. Transition profiles or thresholds connect rooms and absorb height differences with a tiled floor in the bathroom or hall; a seamless transition without a profile is possible with glued floors but requires equal heights. Because a new floor with underlay and levelling often ends up higher than the old one, doors have to be shortened; ask whether the floor fitter does that or whether you need to schedule a carpenter. With the kitchen the order matters: a glued floor or poured floor can run under the kitchen, but a floating floor is in principle not laid under the cabinets because the weight pins the floor down; in that case the kitchen is placed on the screed and the floor is laid around it with a skirting board or a finished edge under the plinth. The same applies to heavy built-in wardrobes and a fireplace.
DIY or a floor fitter?
Click PVC and laminate can be laid well by a handy DIYer with a flat subfloor, patience and a good saw or cutter, especially in rectangular rooms. Dryback PVC, poured floors, Marmoleum, glued parquet and any floor on a subfloor that needs levelling or assessing for moisture are work for a professional: levelling and measuring residual moisture require tools and experience, and with glued floors there is no second chance. A floor above underfloor heating or in a flat with noise requirements is also better laid by someone who knows the warranty conditions. A floor fitter also works faster: an average living room in click PVC or laminate is laid in a day, glued floors take a day of levelling, a day of drying and one or two days of laying, and a poured floor, with preparation, pouring and curing, easily takes a week before you can walk on it again. What you can and cannot do yourself in a renovation is explained in What you can do yourself in a renovation, and how long the various jobs take in How long does a renovation take.
What the floor fitter needs from you
- An empty room. Furniture, curtains hanging down to the floor, loose items and preferably also the doors must be removed. Agree whether the fitter moves furniture and how much time that costs.
- Clarity about the old floor. Does it need to come out, and if so, by whom? Removing old adhesive residues, glued carpet or an old parquet floor is heavy work and partly determines whether levelling is necessary. Vinyl sheet flooring with a felt-like backing and vinyl tiles from the period up to around 1985, and black bitumen adhesive in homes built before 1994, may contain asbestos; if in doubt, have them tested by a laboratory first. Glued sheet flooring and sheet flooring with an asbestos-containing backing may only be removed by a certified asbestos removal company; as a private individual you may only remove loose-laid asbestos-containing floor covering or floor tiles up to 35 m² yourself, after submitting a sloopmelding (demolition notification) to the municipality via the Omgevingsloket (the government's online environment and planning portal).
- An assessed subfloor. Have the fitter measure the flatness and residual moisture in advance, with a CM measurement for a new screed, and make sure the heating-up protocol has been completed.
- Wet trades finished. Plasterwork, screed and ceiling paintwork are finished and dry; the heating works and the room is at living temperature.
- The material in the house. If you buy the floor yourself, it must be in the room a few days in advance to acclimatise; on delivery, check for damage and colour differences between batches.
- Agreements on the details. Laying direction (usually along the direction of the incoming light or the length of the room), laying pattern, skirting boards, transition profiles, shortening doors, finishing at the kitchen and the stairs.
- A realistic schedule. Allow time for levelling and drying, for acclimatising and for the adhesive or poured floor to cure before the furniture comes back.
Checklist for the quote
- The net number of square metres, the percentage of cutting waste charged (higher for diagonal and herringbone laying) and what happens to the leftovers.
- The brand, collection, thickness, top layer and use class of the floor, and for parquet the wood species, grade, top layer thickness and finish.
- Floating or glued, the type of adhesive and the underlay with its Rc value and, in a flat, the acoustic report with the measured ΔLlin.
- Removal and disposal of the old floor, including adhesive residues and tipping costs, as a separate item.
- Preparation: sanding, primer, crack repair, levelling with the expected layer thickness and the moisture measurement.
- Skirting boards and transition profiles: material, colour, fitting and removal of old skirting boards.
- Shortening doors, finishing at the kitchen, stairs and meter cupboard.
- Lead time, number of days on site, drying times and when you can use the room again.
- Warranty on the product and on the laying work, and the maintenance instructions to which that warranty is tied.
What determines the price, besides the type and quality of floor, is above all the condition of the subfloor (levelling and moisture problems are the big variables), the laying pattern, the number of corners and doorways, the demolition and disposal work, and the finishing with skirting boards and profiles. How to compare quotes is explained in Comparing quotes.
Maintenance and lifespan
PVC and laminate need little: vacuuming or sweeping and mopping with a slightly damp mop and a suitable cleaning product; laminate never wet. Poured floors are periodically treated with a maintenance product that protects the top layer against scratches. Oiled parquet needs regular re-oiling and can be touched up locally; lacquered parquet is sanded and re-lacquered after years. Put felt pads under chairs and tables, a mat by the front door and keep the humidity up in winter for wooden floors. In terms of lifespan, quality laminate usually lasts ten to twenty years, PVC similar or longer depending on the wear layer, a poured floor several decades and parquet with maintenance and sanding rounds longer than anything else.
In short: choose the type of floor based on looks, use and whether there is underfloor heating, but pay at least as much attention to what is underneath. Have the residual moisture measured, have levelling done where needed, take noise requirements in a flat into account and give the floor time to acclimatise and cure. On VerbouwPro you post your flooring job free of charge and floor fitters and tilers from your region respond.