Room guide 1 min read

Best Flooring for Bathrooms

Bathrooms are the one room where the wrong floor fails quickly. What copes with standing water and steam, and what to do if you want the look of wood.

Best choice

LVT or tiles

Wood

Not recommended

Fitting

Glue down preferred

Underfloor heating

LVT suitable

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Why bathrooms are different

Every other room gets the occasional spill. A bathroom gets water on the floor as part of normal use, every day, plus steam that raises the humidity of the whole room for an hour at a time.

Timber responds to that humidity by taking up moisture and swelling. In a room where that happens daily, the movement never settles into the calm seasonal rhythm a wood floor lives by elsewhere in the house.

Good to know: It is rarely the puddle that damages a bathroom floor. It is the water that runs into a joint and stays there.

What works

Two clear answers and one honest compromise.

LVT

Handles water, warm underfoot, quiet, and available in convincing wood and stone finishes. Suitable for underfloor heating.

Tiles

The most water resistant option. Cold underfoot without underfloor heating, and unforgiving of a dropped glass.

Engineered wood

Possible in a well ventilated cloakroom with no bath or shower. Not a good idea in a family bathroom.

Solid wood and laminate

Avoid. Both move badly with moisture, and laminate swells at the edges once water reaches the core.

Fitting matters more here

The material is only half the answer. In a bathroom the detail around it decides whether it lasts.

Prefer glue down

A bonded floor has no cavity under it for water to sit in and no gap between planks working loose over time.

Seal the perimeter

The edges around the bath, the shower tray and the WC are where water gets underneath. Silicone them properly.

Get the subfloor level first

Water finds the low point. A hollow under a bathroom floor collects it and holds it.

Plan for ventilation

An extractor that actually runs does more for a bathroom floor than any coating.

Important: Fitting any floor over a subfloor that failed a moisture test is a mistake everywhere. In a bathroom it is a fast one.

Keeping it right

Simple, and mostly about not letting water stand.

Wipe rather than wait

Standing water is the whole problem. A towel by the bath solves most of it.

Run the extractor longer

Well past the end of the shower. The humidity is what lingers.

Check the seals yearly

Silicone shrinks and cracks. That is how water gets under a floor that was fitted correctly.

Bath mats, not rugs

Something you can lift and dry, rather than something that holds damp against the floor.

Questions about bathroom floors

Can I put wood flooring in a bathroom?

We do not recommend it. Standing water and daily steam cause timber to take up moisture and swell, and the joints are where it gets in. For the look of wood, a wood effect rigid vinyl listed as waterproof gives the warmth without the movement; the edges are sealed to the fitting instructions.

Is LVT or tile better for a bathroom?

Both work. Porcelain is the more permanent floor and the one that lasts the life of the bathroom; rigid vinyl is warmer, quieter, kinder to a first floor on joists that flexes, and can be lifted when the bathroom is refitted. The wall panels avoid grout on the walls either way.

What matters more, the floor or the sealing?

The sealing. Water gets under a bathroom floor at the edges: the bath, the shower tray and the door threshold. A floor listed as waterproof does not make the room waterproof; the edges sealed to the fitting instructions do.

Can I have underfloor heating in a bathroom?

Yes, and it suits a tiled floor well. EN 1264 allows a slightly higher surface temperature in bathrooms, 33 °C, than in living areas, 29 °C. Every porcelain tile and every rigid vinyl plank in our range is listed for underfloor heating.

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