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Laminate vs Vinyl Plank Flooring: The Two Cheap Floors Compared Honestly on Water, Feel, Sound, Scratches, Repair and What Each Costs Installed in Ontario
Flooring & Tile
Laminate or Vinyl Plank? Fifty Cents a Foot Apart, and the Difference Is What Happens the First Time the Dishwasher Lets Go
Laminate and vinyl plank are the two floors people buy when they want wood for less than wood. They cost nearly the same installed, $5.50 and $6.00 a square foot at mid grade, they both click together and float, and they both come in the same twenty shades of grey oak. The difference is what they are made of. Laminate is a photograph glued to compressed wood fibre. Vinyl plank is plastic through and through. Pour a bucket of water on each and leave it overnight, and you have the whole comparison.
Side by side
| Laminate | Vinyl plank (SPC) | |
|---|---|---|
| Material, mid grade | $2.50 plus $0.50 underlay | $3.25, pad attached |
| Labour, click and float | $2.50 | $2.75 |
| Installed, mid grade | $5.50 | $6.00 |
| Installed, builder / premium | $4.75 / $6.75 | $5.00 / $7.50 |
| Core | High-density fibreboard; wood dust and resin | Vinyl and limestone; no wood |
| Standing water | Swells at the edges within hours, does not go back down | Nothing happens to the plank. Something may happen under it. |
| Feel underfoot | Harder, more like wood, 8 to 12 mm thick | Thinner, 5 to 6.5 mm, a little plastic feel in bare feet |
| Sound | Hollow click without a good underlay; quieter with one | Quieter, denser, less echo |
| Scratches | Harder surface, AC4 shrugs off dog nails | Softer surface, 20 mil wear layer needed for a dog |
| Dents | Resists a dropped pot | A fridge foot or a chair leg can mark it |
| Fading | Good | Dark planks in a south window can fade and warp |
| Repair | Take the floor up to the damaged plank, or router out and glue a replacement | Same for a floating floor; glue-down planks can be lifted singly |
| Over a basement slab | Only with a perfect vapour retarder, and I would still not | Yes, with a moisture test and poly |
| Over radiant heat | Most products yes; sheet caps the surface at 27 C | Most products yes; same sheet cap, glue-down preferred |
Every “yes” in the last two rows has the manufacturer’s installation sheet behind it, and that sheet wins over anything on this page.
Water is the whole argument
Laminate’s core is fibreboard, which is sawdust pressed with glue. It drinks water the way a cereal box does. A spill wiped up in ten minutes does nothing; a dishwasher supply line that drips for a week swells every joint it reaches into a little ridge, and the ridges never go back down. I have pulled up a lot of laminate kitchens that were two years old and looked like a washboard around the sink. Some makers now sell “water-resistant” laminate with sealed edges and a tighter core, and it buys you a day instead of an hour. It is not a different material.
Vinyl plank does not care. You can leave it under water for a month and dry it off. That is why it has taken the basement and the bathroom away from laminate, and most of the kitchen. The catch, and it is a real one, is that the water that does not go into the plank goes under it, and a waterproof floor over a wet subfloor is a lid on a terrarium. What grows under a waterproof floor is its own page.
Where laminate still wins
Hardness. A good AC4 laminate has a surface of aluminum oxide and melamine that is harder than any vinyl wear layer, so it takes dog nails, grit and dragged chairs better. In a hallway or a family room on the second floor, where water is not the risk, laminate at $5.50 is the tougher floor and feels more like wood under a bare foot, because it is thicker and the core is stiff.
Feel and sound, with the right underlay. The $0.50 underlay in the price is a 2 mm foam; a $1.00 cork or rubber underlay turns a clicky laminate into a quiet one and is worth it in an upstairs bedroom over a living room. Vinyl plank with an attached pad is quiet without the extra.
Dents. A dropped cast-iron pan marks SPC; it bounces off laminate. A fridge rolled across a vinyl plank floor can leave two tracks that never come out. Laminate does not care.
What each costs in a real room
A 600 sq ft open main floor, plywood subfloor, old carpet out, straight lay. Laminate: material 660 sq ft at $2.50 is $1,650, underlay 600 at $0.50 is $300, labour 600 at $2.50 is $1,500. Vinyl: planks 660 at $3.25 is $2,145, labour 600 at $2.75 is $1,650. So $3,450 for the laminate and $3,795 for the vinyl, $345 apart before anything else.
The anything else is the same for both: carpet out 600 at $0.90 is $540, minor prep at $0.75 is $450, baseboard off and on, 160 linear feet at $2.50, is $400, four transitions at $35 is $140, delivery $150. That is $1,680 of common cost, which puts the laminate floor at $5,130 and the vinyl floor at $5,475 before HST. The difference is 6% of the job. Pick on the material, not the price.
The flooring cost calculator does this comparison for your rooms with one click between the two.
How I would decide
- Basement, bathroom, laundry, mudroom: vinyl plank, no discussion. Laminate on a slab is a bet against physics.
- Kitchen: vinyl plank, glued down if you can afford the dollar. One leaking fridge line pays for the difference.
- Upstairs bedrooms and halls, dogs: either; laminate if the dog is big and the budget is tight.
- Over a heated slab: whichever product’s sheet says radiant and gives a surface cap, usually 27 C, and read the radiant ranking first, because both of these are near the bottom of it for heat transfer.
- Resale in five years: neither adds value the way hardwood does. Vinyl plank is what buyers expect in a basement; laminate on a main floor reads as a flip.
Questions people ask
Is vinyl plank better than laminate?
Anywhere water can reach, yes. In a dry room with a big dog, laminate is harder and feels more like wood. The installed price is within $0.50 a square foot, so decide on the room, not the price.
Does laminate really swell?
Yes. The fibreboard core takes on water at the joints and the edges rise into ridges that do not flatten when it dries. Water-resistant laminate slows it down; nothing stops it except keeping it dry.
Which is quieter, laminate or vinyl?
Vinyl plank with an attached pad, as sold. Laminate with the standard foam is clicky; with a cork or rubber underlay at about $1.00 a foot it is as quiet as the vinyl.
Can you put laminate in a basement?
The manufacturers allow it over a taped vapour retarder on a dry slab. I do not, because one plugged floor drain or one damp spring and the whole floor is ridges. Vinyl plank, with a moisture test first. Basement flooring.
Which scratches less?
Laminate. The melamine surface is harder than vinyl. A 20 mil vinyl wear layer is good; AC4 laminate is better against grit and claws.
Price both and decide
The flooring cost calculator prices your rooms in laminate and in vinyl plank side by side, with the removal and trim that both need. If you have quotes for either, the $99 review checks that the grade, the underlay and the prep are actually in them.
Sources and further reading
- Torlys: Canadian maker of engineered, vinyl and laminate floors; the installation and radiant-heat instructions are a good example of what the sheet in the box says.
- Keeping the Heat In: Natural Resources Canada: basement floors, insulation under slabs and the moisture that comes through concrete.
- Addressing moisture and mould in your home: Health Canada: what mould under a floor means, when it can be cleaned and when the floor comes out.
