Laminate or vinyl: point by point, not by feel

Both floors imitate wood, both cost roughly the same, and both sit on neighbouring racks in the same shop. Yet the difference between them is fundamental — it lies in the material, not the finish.

What they are made of

Laminate is a pressed HDF wood-fibre board with a decorative paper printed with a wood pattern glued on top and a protective melamine-resin film above that. The core is wood.

Vinyl flooring is a polymer, polyvinyl chloride. There is no wood in it at all.

Almost everything else follows from that difference.

1. Water — the key difference

The test is simple: spill water on the floor and fail to notice for a full day.

Laminate. Water gets into the click joint and reaches the edge of the HDF board. The wood core absorbs the moisture and swells — irreversibly. Within a few hours the edge lifts; within a day the joint peaks up like a little roof. The board never settles back: swollen HDF stays swollen. The only repair is replacing planks, dismantling the floor all the way back to the wall.

Water-resistant laminate postpones that moment but does not remove it: the treatment protects the edge, not the core itself.

Vinyl. Nothing happens. PVC does not absorb water at all. The floor can be flooded, dried and put straight back into service.

Practical conclusion: in a kitchen, a bathroom, an entrance hall or any room with a water cooler or a dishwasher, laminate is a deferred problem. Not "if", but "when".

2. Wear

Laminate is graded by AC classes AC1–AC6 (abrasion of the melamine layer). AC4 is the usual choice for homes, AC5 for commercial use. Its weak point is not the face but the edge: it chips from impacts and from office-chair castors, and a chip cannot be repaired.

Vinyl is graded to EN ISO 10874 (use classes 21–34) and by wear layer thickness. There is no edge as such — the material is homogeneous right to the border. Scratches in the polyurethane finish can often be polished out.

Service life at comparable quality: AC4 laminate in a flat, 8–12 years; class 32 vinyl with a 0.3 mm wear layer, 15–20 years.

3. Sound

Here laminate genuinely wins — or rather, the way it is laid does.

Floating laminate over an underlay feels softer underfoot. But it is also what produces that hollow, drumming footstep sound: there is an air gap under the floor and the board works as a membrane. The neighbours below hear people walking very clearly.

Glue-down vinyl is bonded across its whole area — there is no air gap, and the footstep sound is dull and quiet. Impact noise reaching the neighbours is lower. The floor itself, though, is harder: you feel the subfloor exactly as it is.

Bottom line: laminate is pleasanter underfoot, glue-down vinyl is quieter for everyone else.

4. Build-up height

For a refurbishment over an existing floor this is the decisive parameter. Ten millimetres means trimming every internal door, dealing with the threshold at the entrance and fitting transition profiles. Two millimetres means none of the above.

5. Underfloor heating

Laminate is permitted over underfloor heating but performs poorly: the wood board plus the underlay give high thermal resistance. Warm-up is slow, losses are higher, the heating bill is bigger. On top of that, heat-and-cool cycles gradually work the click joints loose.

Glue-down vinyl transfers heat far more efficiently: no air gap, no underlay. The limit is 27 °C at the surface.

6. Repair

One plank in the middle of the room is damaged.

Laminate: unclick the boards from the wall to the damaged spot, swap the plank, reassemble. Some of the joints break during dismantling. Half a day's work and, almost certainly, a visible result — the new plank differs in shade from its sun-faded neighbours.

Glue-down vinyl: warm it, lift the plank, clean the subfloor, bond a new one. Half an hour, with the neighbouring planks untouched.

7. Appearance

Laminate still wins on texture: register embossing, bevels, deep relief. Expensive laminate is hard to tell from real wood by eye.

Vinyl is catching up, but in the mass segment the difference shows — especially on plain, light decors. Wood-look planks with deep embossing look convincing; cheap vinyl with a flat surface does not.

In exchange, vinyl offers something laminate cannot do at all: it bends. Radiused junctions, coving up the wall, awkward geometry — all of it is available.

8. Environment and smell

Laminate is a wood board bonded with resin. Check the formaldehyde emission class: E1 or E0.

Vinyl is PVC. The usual objection is the obvious one: it is plastic. In practice what matters is the same E1 emission rating and the absence of phthalate plasticisers. Quality flooring rated E1 is used in schools and hospitals — which says it all.

Neither material is "natural". If natural is non-negotiable, that means solid timber, engineered board or marmoleum, and an entirely different budget.

Summary table

Cost of ownership: a 90 m² flat over 15 years

The figures are indicative: material at our prices, labour at average market rates in Valencia. We do not carry out installation ourselves, but we can pass the enquiry on to partner installers.

Vinyl costs about 20 % more up front and is almost half the price over the service horizon.

What to choose room by room

The short answer

Laminate — if the floor stays dry, if texture and softness underfoot matter, and if the budget rules here and now.

Vinyl — in every other case. Especially where there is water, underfloor heating, children or pets, or where the work is going over an existing floor and height is critical.

How glue-down vinyl differs from click SPC is covered in a separate comparison. We supply glue-down flooring only: over a 15-year-plus horizon it beats floating systems on every parameter except how easy it is to lay yourself.

FAQ

Which is cheaper, laminate or vinyl? Laminate is cheaper to buy, by roughly 15–20 %. Vinyl is cheaper per year of service, because it lasts one and a half to two times longer.

Can laminate be used in a kitchen? Technically yes, in practice it is not worth it. The first serious leak means replacing a section and dismantling the floor to get there.

Which is better for underfloor heating? Vinyl, by a clear margin: it transfers heat more efficiently and there is no insulating underlay. The limit is 27 °C at the surface.

Does vinyl look cheaper than laminate? Mass-market vinyl, yes. Flooring with deep embossing and a good decor is hard to tell from laminate by eye.

Which is quieter for the neighbours below? Glue-down vinyl: it is bonded across the whole area, so there is no air gap. Floating laminate transmits impact noise noticeably more.

Which is easier to lay yourself? Floating floors — laminate and click vinyl. Glue-down vinyl needs a properly prepared subfloor, the right adhesive and a pressure roller: that is a job for an installer. We supply the material and can pass the enquiry on to partner installers in Valencia.

Looking for office flooring? Here we compare carpet, laminate and vinyl over 10 years of use: flooring for offices.