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May 5, 2022
Want to give your laundry room an upgrade and looking for the best laundry room flooring? You’re in the right place!
Laundry rooms see things that few other rooms in the home ever do—namely, a lot of water and a lot of weight. You’ve probably already realized that you need to choose your laundry room flooring wisely—and that’s why you’re here!
So: what’s the best flooring for a laundry room? Below, we’ll guide you through our 8 favorite laundry room flooring options so that you can choose the one that will best serve your space! We’ll also talk about the 3 laundry room floors that you should avoid at all costs.
Ready to learn the dirty secrets of laundry room flooring? Don’t worry; they’ll all come out in the wash!
Table of Contents
It can be difficult to decide what types of flooring should go in each room of your home, and laundry room flooring is no different. Each room has specific needs, so something that works great as bedroom flooring won’t necessarily be the best flooring for bathrooms or the best floor for a basement.
That being said, the best laundry room floor will probably be similar to the best kitchen floor or the best mudroom floor. It’s a surface that’s going to be exposed to a lot of water and one that iht have heavy appliances on top.
You hope that most of the water stays inside your washing machine, but unfortunately, that isn’t always the case. Often, wet clothes drip when you move them to the dryer, and sometimes your washing machine springs a leak.
Since you know that water will be the most significant hazard in your laundry room, ensure that your floor can withstand the wetness. Thankfully there are many water-resistant and waterproof flooring options to choose from. However, accepting that you can’t avoid getting wet is your first step toward a long-lasting floor.
You may not feel like a mad scientist when you’re doing your laundry, but you do work with chemicals like one! Laundry detergents, fabric softeners, and good ol’ bleach are all capable of splashing.
So, if some contaminants do get onto your floor, it’s important to know that your laundry room flooring will retain its natural color. Bleaching wooden floors is a lovely style trend, but this isn’t the way to do it!
The best laundry room flooring will be very similar to the best flooring for dogs in this way. Dogs are super rough on your floors and make frequent messes, sort of like laundry. So when you clean them up, it’s crucial you aren’t doing more damage than the original mess!
Laundry rooms aren’t typically quiet places where people do their tasks calmly and gently. Aside from the super heavy machinery that takes up space on the floor, people tend to stomp in and out while carrying heavy laundry baskets. Then, they slam those heavy loads down on the ground because, well, they’re super heavy!
The best laundry room floor will be durable enough to withstand the flow of stomping feet without getting dinged or dented. In addition, it’s advisable to consider scratch-resistant flooring; it will look better and be easier to clean.
Speaking of easy cleaning, nobody wants to spend much time cleaning their laundry room flooring. The best flooring for this purpose can handle a swift mopping so you can get on with your day. Doing laundry is enough of a chore!
A beautiful laundry room makes doing your chores more pleasing, and that all starts with the best laundry room flooring. Seriously, who wants to spend time on a floor that doesn’t feel good or look attractive? You don’t need any more reasons to procrastinate washing your unmentionables!
Let’s dive right into our top choices, which are excellent in form and function. Each of these will suit different needs, based on where your laundry room is and how you use it.
Vinyl flooring is a crowd-pleaser because it’s affordable, attractive, and some of the most durable flooring around. You can get vinyl floors in many different looks, even styles that mimic more expensive flooring choices. Who doesn’t love a bargain?
The only significant mark against vinyl is that it isn’t very environmentally friendly flooring. Plastic isn’t a sustainable material and is prone to emitting chemicals in its off-gassing process. However, many of the best vinyl plank flooring brands offer low-VOC vinyl flooring. That’s an excellent step forward!
It’s true! All vinyl flooring is waterproof vinyl flooring. That’s because vinyl flooring is made from PVC, a plastic polymer. Hence, waterproof!
But, as PeeWee Herman wisely said, “Everybody’s got a big but,” and here’s vinyl’s big but… it’s only waterproof if it’s laid properly! Any leak in the seams can drip through and ruin your subfloor, and then you have a massive headache.
Because of this, we’d recommend chatting with your flooring professional about whether glue-down vinyl plank flooring or loose-lay vinyl flooring is right for your specific laundry room. Picking the right installation style is very important!
You may have already noticed, but vinyl flooring comes with many letters to distinguish different varieties. So, here’s a quick rundown of some essential vinyl letters.
Vinyl comes as either a flexible or rigid product. Rigid-core luxury vinyl flooring is generally the more durable, long-lasting choice.
We can further break down rigid core into three varieties: pure vinyl (also called vinyl foam), SPC, and WPC. Pure vinyl is fine, but WPC and SPC are much better.
SPC stands for “stone polymer composite”, meaning that its base layer incorporates stone powder for added strength. WPC flooring, on the other hand, is wood polymer composite. Can you guess what’s in its base layer? We sure hope you said wood powder!
The main difference between each of these is how they feel. Stone is very solid and durable, while wood has a bit more “give” to it, making it easier on your joints. And yes: both SPC and WPC are fully waterproof!
Luxury vinyl plank and luxury vinyl tile are the same, only with different appearances. LVP mimics wood-look planks, while LVT very closely resembles tiles.
If you’re wondering which one is the best vinyl flooring, there’s no contest between these two flooring types. They are constructed the same, so LVT shares all the same advantages and disadvantages of vinyl plank flooring. And the cost to install vinyl plank flooring and vinyl tile is exactly the same as well.
Porcelain tile is a classic choice—it’s still one of the best laundry room flooring options, and it’s no wonder why. It covers nearly all your laundry room needs; it’s ultra waterproof, super durable, and simple to clean. In addition, there are unlimited types of floor tiles, so you can easily find pretty styles to spice up your laundry room.
We aren’t saying that tile is impossible to install yourself, but it is not easy to get it right. It’s safest to hire a professional to deal with this challenge. There is the option of snap-together tile flooring, but it may not give you that tight seal that you need for waterproof laundry room flooring. Bonus: you can find wood-look tile from a number of manufacturers for the best of both worlds!
If you’re looking for the easiest flooring to install yourself, laminate is a good option.
Waterproof laminate flooring is an excellent laundry room floor because even the best laminate flooring is relatively inexpensive and a snap to clean. It doesn’t dent or scratch easily, either. So in these respects, tile is very similar to laminate. But that’s where the similarities end. Because while tile is waterproof, laminate is not.
With that in mind: if you install laminate in your laundry room, must be the waterproof type. Regular laminate is not water-friendly. Fortunately, there are many excellent waterproof laminates, like the ones sold by Newton and Mohawk’s RevWood.
Fun fact: Newton’s laminate products all qualify as non-toxic laminate flooring, as they’re GreenGuard Gold and/or FloorScore-certified for extra peace of mind.
Yes, you can have hardwood laundry room flooring! It makes for a very elegant laundry room, but water-resistant wood flooring isn’t a widespread offering. Waterproof hardwood works so well because each plank is protected all the way through from water damage. This means that exposure to water won’t cause your planks to swell or gap as long as it’s cleaned up in a reasonable amount of time.
The best hardwood floors are very stable, and the waterproof ones are easier to care for than traditional hardwood. However, if you compare waterproof laminate vs. hardwoods, you will find that hardwood is the more costly option.
That said, waterproof hardwood looks just like any other prefinished hardwood floor, so you can have your pick from all the hardwood species and types of wood flooring around. #options!
Yes and no. All waterproof hardwood is engineered, but not all engineered wood is waterproof.
To put it another way, waterproof hardwood flooring is a type of engineered wood. This just means that the wood is composed of multiple layers. That’s not a bad thing though—engineered wood is more dimensionally stable than solid wood, and the cost to install engineered hardwood floors is lower, too.
When you opt for sheet vinyl as your laundry room flooring, you get many of the benefits of vinyl, but with extra reliable waterproofing.
One of the problems with luxury vinyl tile is that if the seams aren’t perfectly tight, water can leak through them and cause damage to your subfloor. (And what’s a subfloor? Just the base layer under the floor you walk on.)
Unlike LVT and LVP, though, which are almost always sold as click-together flooring planks, sheet vinyl is exactly what it sounds like: one big roll of soft vinyl that’s glued down. This dramatically reduces the seams that water can seep through.
This makes sheet vinyl a go-to for kitchens and bathrooms everywhere (like just every kitchen from the 1980s or 90s), but it also makes it super difficult to install. Additionally, sheet vinyl isn’t the world’s best flooring when it comes to style choices.
One final word of wisdom here: don’t resort to peel-and-stick vinyl planks because they’re easier to install—those are not meant for hard-wearing applications like laundry room flooring!
You may already have concrete floors in your laundry room; why not go with what you already have? You already know you’ll get terrific performance from it; it’s rock-hard durable, and wholly waterproof (as long as there are no significant cracks). In addition, it’s easy enough to clean, so what’s not to love about a concrete floor?
Oh, right. It’s cold and unforgiving to walk on. Throw down a washable area rug for insulation and comfort! And sure, concrete isn’t pretty, but it doesn’t have to remain unattractive. You can paint or stain it before adding your attractive rug. Or, you can really spruce up your laundry room flooring with concrete flooring that looks like wood.
Fun fact: some brands like Proximity Mills make machine-washable carpet tiles that use velcro rather than adhesive, so you can actually wash and reuse them if they get wet (essentially peel-and-stick carpet tiles 2.0). Pretty neat!
Natural stone tile is similar to porcelain in many ways, but it’s an arguably more elegant flooring solution. Like porcelain, it can last you a lifetime and can’t be damaged by water, dents, or stains. On the downside, it’s also cold and hard, and given the price, it can be a bit of a risk using it as laundry room flooring.
The upkeep for this style of flooring may be more effort than most other flooring. For example, if your stone is textured instead of smooth, dirt can hide in the grooves when sweeping and mopping. And cleaning the grout is a whole other chore.
We briefly touched on engineered hardwood earlier, but you may still be asking: what is engineered hardwood? Quite simply, it’s a plank formed from a solid wood veneer over a high-performance plywood base.
One of the qualities that make engineered wood suitable for laundry room flooring is that it’s the most durable wood flooring around—much more so than solid wood. That’s an essential consideration if you want the best laundry room flooring. It’s also more dimensionally stable than solid wood, so it won’t warp with changes in temperature and humidity.
Still, there are some engineered wood disadvantages when it comes to using it as laundry room flooring. It may be less expensive than solid hardwood, but compared to fake wood flooring, it’s still rather costly. Depending on the finish, it will stain—so beware of splashes of laundry detergent. And finally, it will be ruined if your laundry room floods or if leaks and spills aren’t wiped up quickly. Even the best engineered wood floors can only do so much!
Not all flooring ideas will be winners in your search for the best laundry room flooring. We’ve covered the top 8 choices; now here are our picks for the 3 worst options for your laundry room.
Oh, carpet, where to begin? We love the feel of cozy soft fibers under our toes, but when those fibers get wet, yuck! Of course, wet carpet feels nasty, but it’s also potentially dangerous. Not all types of carpet can develop mold and mildew easily, but when they do, they don’t just smell bad. Mold can destroy your subfloor.
And even the best carpet brands and products will pick up all the dust and lint from your dryer, trapping them in the carpet fibers. So, yeah, carpet isn’t the most sanitary choice for your laundry room floor.
One notable exception here that we mentioned above: machine-washable carpet tiles from Proximity Mills. But even with those, you’re running the risk of water getting into your subfloor if there’s a leak.
Laminate is some of the easiest flooring to install and it’s tremendously affordable—but it isn’t worth it one bit if it isn’t waterproof laminate flooring. If non-waterproof laminate is exposed to water, the moisture will eat away at the particleboard base and cause it to disintegrate. You’ll only be left with the veneer layer, which isn’t thick at all.
When you’re weighing laminate flooring pros and cons for your laundry room, its inability to handle moisture is the most considerable disadvantage.
Buying solid hardwood floors for your laundry room is equivalent to throwing away a large amount of money. We definitely get the appeal of this beautiful flooring option, but you can easily get the same look with waterproof hardwood or engineered wood instead.
There are multiple reasons that solid hardwood isn’t the best laundry room flooring. Water, traffic, detergent stains, and heavy machines are all enemies to this lovely flooring. Save it for a more deserving room!
We’ve thrown many options at you, and hopefully, one of them is already speaking to you. It’s nice not to feel limited, and with these great laundry room flooring options, there’s something for every budget, style, taste, and need.
Once you’re ready to take that next step toward purchasing and installing your best laundry room floor, have your local flooring store help you get started! Happy Laundry Day!
And for more info, check out:
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