Has anyone used laminate wood flooring in their cabins that experience wide temperature ranges?
Our neighbors a quarter mile away in the mtns have a Pergo look-alike. It's been down since about 2006 IIRC. No issues I know about.
Since they are designed as 'floating floors' (one piece after all clicked together with a gap between the walls, hidden by base moulding) and sitting on an underlayment, they are free to expand and contract with temperature swings. You aren't supposed to use it in bathrooms because of the moisture, and setting a toilet on it keeps it from moving. We did both, 13 years ago, in our downstairs bathroom. Still looks new. It's inexpensive and easy to keep clean
We experience very wide swings of zero to 110 in a year and never had any issues with ours, very durable and not bad looking either. It was also pretty easy to install.
A friend of mine has laminate in his seasonal house, as long as you leave the required spacing at the walls I don't think you will have any issues. My friends has been fine for last 6 years. I will probably put laminate in my cabin when its built. ::)
With the new technology and most being of engineered material I doubt that there will be any issues. It does not behave like solid wood. That is unless you have it in an area that is prone to water (bathroom) by continued spilling. I added an addition on to my house and it was slab construction. I found a company in Italy that made laminate and it is waterproof. That was a plus in the hot tub room.
About 5 years ago we put down laminate flooring on the main floor. This went over aging vinyl which was on top of the subfloor.
It has done very well so far. It is easy to clean and very scratch resistant (much better than the real wood that was photographed to make this product). One of the main problems it can have is with prolonged moisture. Soon after installing it we got a small leak in the water line to the refrigerator's ice maker. It wasn't noticed for several days and the laminate "puffed up" at the edges. Rather than pull up that section and redo that part we waited.... About 80% of the expansion has gone back down as it dried out. In the right light you can still notice the difference if you are looking for it.
The only other thing is a few tiny divots around the kitchen sink where a knife was dropped and the point gouged out a small part of the upper surface. That could happen to even stone floors. All in all I think it is a good choice for a durable moderate cost floor with low upkeep needs.
Thanks again to everyone for your input...it is very much appreciated. I began building our cabin 2 years ago and we are finally coming down the home stretch. We have been using a camper for the last 5 years and we are now within 3 months of being able to move into our new cabin. I have followed many of the threads on here and have learned quite a lot along the way. It is amazing the talent many on here posses as handymen/ladies.