Evergreen Flooring in Mississauga and Barrie

With laminate, the number on the box that changes how the floor lives is the thickness, and Evergreen is unusual in giving you three to choose from. Here is what the millimetres actually buy.

• 10mm. The lightest of the three and the leanest on budget. It still gives a proper laminate floor with a solid click, and it suits a bedroom, a rental, or a room where the subfloor underneath is already flat and sound. On a good subfloor, 10mm does the job without paying for board you will not feel.
• 12mm. The middle build and the one most people land on. It is thick enough to sound and feel solid underfoot rather than hollow, and to bridge the minor rises and dips in the subfloors we see in older Toronto and Mississauga homes. For a main living space, this is usually the sensible balance of feel and cost.
• 14mm. The thickest, most substantial board Evergreen makes. This is the one that feels closest to an engineered wood floor underfoot, with the most mass to quiet the step and the most tolerance for a subfloor that is not perfectly flat. For a busy main floor, a hallway that takes real traffic, or a room where you want the floor to feel premium, 14mm is the upgrade you can feel through your feet.

The AC rating, which tells you how much traffic each board is built to take, and the exact warranty are on the current product, and we read them to you against how hard your room will use the floor. There is no point pairing a light-traffic board with a busy hallway, and the thickness and the AC rating together are what we match to the room.

Decision: a flat, sound subfloor and a tighter budget, 10mm. A main living space where you want a solid, quiet floor, 12mm. A busy floor, an older uneven subfloor, or a room you want to feel premium, 14mm. Stand on all three in the showroom, the difference is immediate underfoot. See the wider water resistant laminate category to compare.

This is the point to be precise on, because the word does real work. Evergreen's laminate is water resistant, which is a genuine step up from a standard laminate: the board and its joints are built to shrug off a spill that sits for a while, the traffic of a kitchen, the wet boots of a front entry, without the swelling that ruins an ordinary fibreboard laminate at the first splash. That makes it a far safer choice than regular laminate for the busier, damp prone rooms of a real household.

Water resistant is not the same as waterproof, and we will not blur the two. A water resistant laminate handles surface water and time; it is not built to sit under standing water in a flooded basement or a full wet room the way a rigid Evolution vinyl is. For most kitchens, entries and living spaces that is exactly the right amount of protection. For a basement below grade or a full bathroom, we will point you to a waterproof vinyl instead, which is the honest answer and the one that avoids a callback.

Decision: living rooms, bedrooms, hallways, kitchens and entries, the Evergreen water resistant laminate is a strong, forgiving floor. A below grade basement or a full bathroom, step to a waterproof rigid vinyl plank instead.

• Living rooms and dining rooms. A solid, quiet wood look floor at a laminate cost, in the thickness that suits the subfloor.
• Bedrooms and hallways. Warm and hard wearing underfoot; 14mm for a busy hallway, 10mm or 12mm for a quieter bedroom.
• Kitchens and entries. The water resistance earns its place where spills and wet boots are routine.
• Whole main floors. One laminate across the level, with the thickness chosen for the traffic and the subfloor.

Where we point you elsewhere: a below grade basement or a full bathroom wants a waterproof vinyl, not a water resistant laminate. And for real wood you can refinish across decades, that is solid hardwood, a different floor for a different budget. Laminate is a wear surface: when the top layer goes, you replace the floor rather than refinish it.

Evergreen makes more than the laminate we stock. If a room calls for something the laminate cannot do, the same maker builds rigid-core vinyl vinyl, in both a double click and a drop lock joint, which is genuinely waterproof for basements and full wet rooms, and engineered hardwood, including hickory and specialty species, for a real wood floor. Ask us about bringing these in when the project needs them.

Decision: the laminate is the Evergreen floor for a dry to damp prone living space. A genuinely wet room, the Evergreen Evolution vinyl. Real wood, the engineered line. Tell us the room and we will point you to the right one, including when it is not an Evergreen product at all.

Laminate looks simple to lay, which is exactly why so much of it is laid badly. It is a floating floor, so it lives or dies on three things: an expansion gap around the entire perimeter, so it can move with the seasons instead of buckling in July; a subfloor flattened first, so the boards do not flex and wear the joints open; and the right underlay beneath, for both sound and moisture. Miss any one and the floor fails, and none of it is the board's fault.

Squarefoot Flooring installs Evergreen with our own crews, full time employees, residential and commercial. Before the first board clicks in, they flatten and prep the subfloor, set the expansion gap the product needs, and lay the correct underlay underneath. On a thicker 14mm board over an older subfloor, that prep is what lets the extra mass do its job instead of rocking on a high spot. We are not booking a subcontractor and hoping the details come out right.

We install and service Evergreen from our Mississauga showroom across Toronto, Mississauga, Etobicoke, Brampton, Port Credit, Erin Mills, Streetsville, Meadowvale and Cooksville, and from our Barrie showroom across Barrie, Innisfil, Angus, Orillia, Collingwood, Midland and Simcoe County. Lead time in the Greater Toronto Area runs about two weeks. Barrie and cottage country jobs from May through September book eight to twelve weeks ahead.

See how a laminate installation runs with us, and look at the flooring underlayments the floor needs underneath. Both are handled in house.

Evergreen's