How to Choose Flooring for Your Home Renovation
Flooring is one of the most impactful design decisions in a renovation project — and one of the most confusing to navigate, given the enormous range of products available at every price point. Here's a practical guide to the main options, what they cost, and what works where.
Key Considerations Before You Choose
Before selecting any flooring product, establish: Is there underfloor heating? (Some products are more compatible with UFH than others — in particular, engineered wood, LVT, and porcelain tile work well; solid wood and thick carpet can be problematic.) Is the subfloor concrete or timber? (Affects what can be laid directly.) Is the space wet or exposed to moisture? (Bathrooms, utility rooms, and ground-floor spaces near doors need a product that can tolerate moisture.) What level of foot traffic and wear is expected? What's your budget?
Porcelain and Ceramic Tile
The most durable and versatile hard flooring option. Porcelain tile is dense, water-resistant, highly scratch-resistant, and available in virtually every aesthetic from stone imitation to large-format contemporary. It's the natural choice for kitchens, bathrooms, utility rooms, and any ground-floor space that connects directly to the garden.
Large-format tiles (600x600mm and above) look excellent in extensions and create a sense of space but require a very flat, stable subfloor and skilled installation. Poor installation of large-format tiles (lippage — where adjacent tile edges are at different heights) looks and feels terrible, so choose your tile layer carefully.
Typical cost: £30–£120/m² for tiles; £30–£60/m² for installation.
Engineered Wood
Engineered wood consists of a hardwood wear layer bonded to a plywood or HDF core. It's dimensionally more stable than solid wood (less prone to expansion and contraction with moisture and temperature change), compatible with underfloor heating, and available in a wide range of species and finishes. It looks and feels like solid wood but is more practical for UK residential use.
Typical cost: £30–£90/m² for boards; £15–£25/m² for installation.
Luxury Vinyl Tile (LVT)
LVT has become one of the most popular flooring choices for full-house renovations in London. It's resilient, warm underfoot, quiet, waterproof, and available in convincing wood and stone effect finishes. It's compatible with underfloor heating, easy to cut and install, and competitive on price. The main trade-off versus engineered wood or real tile is authenticity — it doesn't feel quite like the real thing — but for many households the practical advantages outweigh this.
Typical cost: £20–£60/m² for quality LVT; £10–£20/m² for installation.
Carpet
Note that RCB does not install carpet as part of our standard service. Carpet installation should be arranged separately through a specialist flooring company and typically happens at the end of the project, after all other works are complete.
Carpet remains an excellent choice for bedrooms — it's warm, quiet, comfortable underfoot, and available at a wide range of price points. For living rooms and stairs in families with young children, it's also a practical and comfortable option.
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