On 2 Jan 2004 03:56:05 -0800, (George Bray)
wrote:

I've just bought 6.6 sq metres of bargain-priced laminate flooring
(Floormaster) from B&Q in their sale. It cost only £27 to do the whole
kitchen! It looks brilliant, and they promise it's for 'Heavy Domestic
Use' (AC3). I really can't see how I could justify paying any more for
so-called 'superior' types at around £10, £15 or £20 per metre. Mine
cost only £3.96 per square meter, including VAT. Get down there before
they sell out! I'm not limited to spending £27, plus a bit of
underlay, but what on earth would be the point of paying more? It's
guaranteed for 10 years and I'm confident it will last a lot longer
than that.

At the risk of boring people to tears, as I believe I have already
mentioned this once, I did a similar thing to you but with dirt cheap
laminate from Homebase. It worked out at around £4 a square metre I
seem to recall. Anyway, this is the glued variety, also in the
kitchen, but more towards the "eating " area, therefore not as exposed
to water as maybe yours is. This stuff has been down since May. I have
been walking to and fro over it to the back door to the garden as I
continued with the rest of the house refurb (yeah, I suppose the right
thing to do would have been to leave the floor till last!). The other
day I cleaned it up and it looks as if it was put down yesterday. I
really do not see why some laminate is so expensive. I've seen some
brand names for 25 quid a square metre!

By the way, I feel comfortable with the glued type. You can clamp the
planks together really tightly. It takes longer than the click sort,
but you can get a very smooth finish with the glued stuff. There were
one or two hairline gaps between planks, and I forced wax from one of
those coloured sticks you can buy into them.

MM