Recycled plastic lumber or hardwood

[Hardwood]

Which one would you recommend for easy installation and durability?

 

[C.J.]

We talkin bout floors? I’m a hardwood guy all day long in my own house. Haven’t even heard of recycled plastic lumber unless your talkin bout LVP.

Now if you’re talkin bout decking like Trex or something then that’s different.

 

[Hardwood]

Sorry for the dumb question, yes it is about floors. I just considered recycled plastic planks as recycled plastic lumber due to lack of experience. I stumbled upon this article that led me to ask that question: Recycled Plastic Planks: The Future of Wood Flooring | Orlandi

Cheers!

 

[C.J.]

Interesting, never heard of that stuff till now. I’m still gonna say go with real hardwood. You ever met a person that was super excited to discover they had recycled plastic floors underneath their carpet? Ok maybe I’m just having fun with that. Wood is natural, plastic ain’t. Think about living in an enclosed space with who knows what leaching out into your environment. What about refinishing the plastic in 20 or 50 years. Recycled plastic suffers from thermal fatigue. That’s why good LVP uses virgin PVC. Every time plastic goes through a heat forming process it becomes less dimensionally stable. This is why the earlier, and cheaper, LVP’s were dimensionally unstable. Do you use plastic putty to fill gaps in the plastic planks.

I could be wrong on recycled plastic flooring because I’ve never heard of it before but you can’t go wrong with hardwood. Plastic flooring is a trend, hardwood is timeless.

 

[Hardwood]

Thanks for your expert opinion. As a matter of fact I agree with you about wood being natural and timeless.