Hardwood, Laminate, Tile, or Carpet? What do you use in your low end rentals?I was thinking about using some 49cent SF laminate. vs almost $1 sf carpet.
Many of our houses have hardwood floors. Some have been carpeted over. If there's HW underneath, I'll pull the carpet and have the HW sanded and refinished. I only install carpet if it's over a slab or the HW is damaged beyond repair.
I have been replacing existing carpet with large size ceramic tile. You can get the tile for about 1.00 / sq ft. I have installed ceramic tile right over composition or stick on tile. The large sizes pay off in reduced installation time.As someone mentioned, if you install yourself, the cost is in line with other options. In my opinion, tile is the best way to go. It is easy to clean and the large sizes make a place look great. You will get years and years of use. In my low end experience, carpet rarely can be used for more than one tenant. I can only imagine how bad wood floors or laminate would look like after one of my tenants crashed and burned.Only downside besides the work of initial installation is that for multi story buildings, it is a bit noisy for the people below.
Does anybody paint basement concrete floors?I've seen it done and it seems to be a good change: quick and cheap.