Laminate Flooring in Glasgow

Council, housing association and private lets

35.0% of households rent from the council or a housing association, the highest share of the 151 towns and well above Scotland's 22.5%. Another 16.9% rent privately (Scotland: 12.9%). For rented homes the rentals guide treats laminate as the budget answer, and a reasonable one, in the dry rooms: bedrooms, landings and a living room.

The limit is water. When water reaches a laminate joint and sits there, the core of the board swells and does not go back. In a let, the leak under a sink or around a bath tends to be discovered late, after the joint has lifted. Kitchens and bathrooms in a rented flat are therefore the rooms to leave to other floors.

Dogs make the same point from another side. In the modelled estimate (2015), 12 of Glasgow's postcode districts have a median of 0.21 dogs per household, which ranks the city 129th of 150 towns; across 2,737 postcode districts in Great Britain the median is 0.41. Where a dog does live in the flat, laminate goes in the rooms it does not use, because water carried in on paws finds the joints.

One AC rating rarely suits every room

Laminate is sold with an AC rating, a class for abrasion resistance. The sensible way to use it is room by room. Spare rooms are scarce in Glasgow: 16.1% of households have at least two bedrooms more than they need, against 32.2% for Scotland, ranking 150th of 150 towns. Whatever the size of the home, a bedroom sees socks rather than outdoor shoes, and it can take a lower class than the entrance.

Large homes are rarer still. 8.1% of households have four or more bedrooms (Scotland: 17.2%), again 150th of 150. In those houses, buying one rating for the whole property means paying for abrasion resistance upstairs that nobody uses and falling short in the hall, which takes the wear.

Semis, terraces and tenement layouts: where grit lands

Only 13.9% of Glasgow households live in a semi-detached house and 12.3% in a terrace, against 23.3% and 18.2% for Scotland. Where you do live in one, the house type decides where abrasion concentrates: a semi usually has a hall that catches the grit, while a terrace whose front door opens onto the street carries it straight into the first room. The rating follows that pattern.

Tenements are not uniform either. Pre-1919 tenement flats differ a great deal from one another in size, in layout and in how exposed they are, according to the Scottish House Condition Survey. What lies between the street and your own front door, and how far the dirt travels inside, differs from one flat to the next, so judge the entrance of your flat rather than tenements in general.