Hi guys,

I have a son with bad asthma and a wife with sinus problems, so have decided to get rid of our carpets.

Laminate flooring seems the obvious choice (looks good and reasonably priced), but I'm concerned about toxic off gassing (eg formaldehyde). The guy I spoke to in the shop tells me that the Egger brand - http://www.egger.com/UK_en/laminate-flooring.htm - is a good option and the European certification (E0 or E1 I believe) means the off gassing levels are very low. Their website also mentions:

BLUE ANGEL – FOR HEALTH PROTECTION
Blue Angel
Commitment to our environment. EGGER products have also earned the oldest and most well-known ecological seal of approval in the world. The Blue Angel confirms our commitment to an intact environment.

Any thoughts anyone? I know natural cork would be much better, but very pricey! TIA

I'm not a fan of laminate flooring. It looks plasticky, and sounds hollow. To mitigate the noise you end up putting underlay down so you'll need to look at VOCs from that too as well as the laminate MDF core.
What's wrong with plain wood either solid or engineered. with engineered admittedly you have the core material, mostly ply, with possible VOCs, but overall may be a better bet.
I've ditched carpets from all the ground floor except the bedroom and I don't regret it. We have nice rugs which can be taken outside and cleaned. As for mopping, we don't do that too often just vac the tiles and wood floors. Dirt from foot traffic is lessened in the house by building sunken matwells into the floor at all entrances.

I've put a load of bamboo down - tougher than wood and cheaper. My wife does dust it every day but she's something of a perfectionist. I just vacuum it once a week when she's not there.

How much dust there is depends on how airtight your house is. If the windows are open most of the time there will be a lot of dust. If the house is airtight with mechanical ventilation then most of the dust is filtered out. Carpets are the biggest source of dust in our house - the bits of fibre that come off the carpets are what fill the vacuum every week.

Egger is a good brand for the products they do. The board that my kitchen cabinets are made from is made by Egger.

I'm a fan of laminate flooring and selected for quality and abrasion proof it provides a very attractive floor. Most laminates will lift an existing floor level by about 8 mm but for engineered wood you'll be looking at a minimum of a 14 mm uplift. That usually means all the doors have to come off to reduce the bottom edge.

Engineered wood is prone to scratching and if I look at the difference between flats where I've installed laminate and a neighbours engineered wooden floor the scuffing after ten years is really noticeable on the wooden floor. You should go for at least AC4 but it gets more expensive as you go up the scale.

As for dust, I agree with djh. We have 70 m2 odd of uncovered floor and a carpet in the lounge. The Dyson never fills on the laminate but I have to do the carpet seperately as it fills by itself. Our windows are open permanently.

If you go for laminate you must put it in your house for at least a couple of months to aclimatise otherwise the end joints will rise as it expands due to humidity.

How about a distressed timber floor, real wood. Can be gotten cheap or for free, and stained & varnished, so easy to maintain.

gg