Choosing your home’s flooring is more than an aesthetic choice. The right material makes a difference between a floor that lasts for years without dedicating a work day to cleaning it, and a floor that gets stained just by walking on it and causes you headaches. Whether building or remodeling, one key tip is to consult professionals to nail your flooring material selection.
The first-hand knowledge of local construction companies will ensure you get the best flooring for humid climates, such as those in the Treasure Coast’s cities, and meet your needs and wants. Likewise, they can guide you through the essential things to consider when choosing a new floor, such as the room’s conditions, the material, and your budget.
If it’s time to renew your flooring, consider these five things when selecting the material.
5 key tips to choose the best flooring for humid climates
1. The space
First, you need to consider which rooms the flooring will be in. Room size and shape play important roles in flooring material selection, in terms of type, color, and size.
For example, large and open rooms can be easily covered with large planks of wood or vinyl, needing just a few cuts and adjustments for corners, affecting your final shopping and installation costs. Meanwhile, smaller rooms with more divisions, such as kitchens, can have a more effortless and cheaper installation with trim tile flooring options rather than large planks.
Likewise, small rooms can benefit from light-colored flooring, which reflects more light and makes them feel more spacious, while large rooms can find darker accents that are more beneficial in increasing warmth and coziness.
Hence, getting some flooring samples and laying them in the rooms you plan to upgrade is always a good idea. Seeing them in the actual space will help you understand how they blend with your spaces, current furniture, and look at different hours, which will help you nail the flooring material selection.
2. Practicality
Another essential part of choosing the right floor is considering which and how much activity the floor will endure. Will the room see a lot of foot traffic, like the kitchen or the hallway? Or will you only use it occasionally, such as in the playroom or the attic?
Areas with high foot traffic are more likely to get dirty and greasy with time, so you’ll need flooring resistant to dirt and impact and easy to clean. Tile flooring options can be an exceptional choice in these cases since they’re highly durable and require low maintenance.
On the other hand, if you’re on a flooring material selection quest for less-used rooms such as sun rooms, you can choose more stylish options like carpeted or hardwood flooring.
Lastly, climate conditions also play an essential role in floor practicality. If your rooms are prone to humid and hot spaces, as with homes near the coast like Stuart or Jensen Beach, you will benefit from using moisture-resistant flooring that absorbs less humidity, such as vinyl or laminated flooring.
3. Style
Style is a primarily personal factor when choosing the best flooring for humid climates, but you should still keep in mind that your new floor needs to fit with your existing spaces and items. Although it’s easy to get carried away in a showroom when shopping for new flooring, if the style doesn’t go well with your current spaces, you may also need to upgrade your furniture.
4. Budget
Knowing and sticking to your budget during the flooring material selection process is crucial to ensuring you get the floor you need and want and maintain your peace of mind.
As with everything nowadays, you can get flooring as affordable as $1,50 per square foot, such as laminated or vinyl flooring, or eye-watering floors, whose price goes up to $20 per square foot of material, like solid hardwood or tile flooring options. Hence, it’s wise to know your budget and narrow your choices to what you can afford to avoid stressing over money or destabilizing your household finances.
5. Maintenance
Maintenance is often overlooked in flooring material selection. However, considering the amount of work your new floor will require it’s crucial to avoid later stress and frustrations due to failed durability expectations.
Materials such as vinyl, linoleum, laminated, or tile flooring require little maintenance. They can occasionally be cleaned with mops, brooms, or vacuums and look as good as new.
Meanwhile, hardwood floors require more effort to keep them in their best condition. You may need special mops or be extra careful when cleaning to avoid scratches. Likewise, waxing them helps them maintain their appearance.
This way, the amount of work and time you are willing to dedicate to your new floor becomes vital to making the proper flooring material selection.
Keeping these five things in mind and discussing them with your chosen contractor reduces the chances of disappointment because you didn’t like how the new floor looked when installed, and frustration during the installation because the floor requires more foundation preparation than expected.
If you’re looking for a high-quality flooring installation, from material selection to final cleaning, choose Garcia & Sons Construction.
Tile vs. Hardwood vs. Laminated Flooring: Which is the best for humid climates?
There are multiple flooring options to choose from. A quick search online or a shopping stroll will show you stone, wood, vinyl, bamboo, and more materials with their unique pros and cons. However, regarding flooring material selection for humid climates like South Florida, most contractors recommend three winning options: porcelain tile, engineered hardwood, and laminated flooring.
Which is the best flooring for humid climates? That will depend on your needs and personal choices. But let’s explore each one more.
| Material | Pros | Cons | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tile | Highly water resistant due to its non-porous surface.
Durable and scratch-resistant. Low-maintenance. |
Some varieties can become slippery when wet.
Can feel cold under the feet. It requires specialized installation. |
– Kitchens – Bathrooms – Hallways |
| Hardwood | Beautiful appearance.
Durable for years. Can be refinished to revitalize appearance. |
It may get moisture damage.
It can get scratches. It can be expensive. |
– Living rooms – Dining rooms – Dormitories |
| Laminated flooring | Affordable
Durable. Wide range of styles (wood, stone, tile, etc.) |
Not all options are water-resistant.
Limited lifespan compared to hardwood and tile flooring options. May delaminate with the years. |
– Kitchens – Break or spare rooms. – Hallways |
Put the Garcia & Sons’ experience to your advantage during flooring material selection
Serving the Treasure Coast and Palm Beach since 1995, we focus on providing exceptional quality and customer service for all our customers. When you choose to work with us, you don’t get a crew of random people showing up to build, install, or remodel things; you get a caring team accompanying you from start to finish to ensure you get what you’re paying for.
Whether you’re looking for the best flooring for humid climates or are looking for experienced contractors to install the floor you just bought, we’re here to help our fellow Floridians in all Saint Lucie County, including Port Saint Lucie, Saint Lucie West, and Tradition; Martin County, from Stuart, Palm City, Jensen Beach to Hutchinson Island and the rest of the Treasure Coast.
Call us at (561) 631-2025 to schedule your free consultation today!
