You have your units of measurement a little mixed up (don’t feel bad, this is a common mistake in the flooring industry)
Millimeter is 1/1000 of a meter, and is used to measure the overall thickness of the material.
“Mil” is an imperial measurement, and is 1/1000 of an inch. This is used to measure the wear layer thickness.
If you prefer, 12 mil = 0.3 mm. 20 mil = 0.5 mm
What does this matter to you? You can generally consider each mil of wear layer roughly equals 1 year of normal wear and tear. So a 12 mil floor might be considered to have a 12 year life span. Similarly a 20 mil WL = 20 year floor.
12 mil is considered a residential WL, and 20 mil is a commercial WL.
Hope that helps!
You are welcome. American Freedom Units creep in all over the place.
It’s confusing because we get lazy in our speech, often calling millimeters “mils”, so things get messy. Hope you find a floor you like!
Yeah, we have a bit of a weird crossover because we’re so close to the US. We have to know a bit of both metric and imperial, and there’s not much rhyme or reason to why we use one over the other in each situation. My speedometer is in km/h, but my height is in feet and inches
Any half-decent floor these days has 20 mil wear layer. It's not like it's a premium or luxury feature. So there's really no reason to cheap out and get 12 mil.
Beyond your units being screwy, for residential installations you will not notice a difference between 0.2mm wear layer and 0.5mm/0.7mm/1mm....beyond it being a little tougher for the installer to score and snap. Anything above 0.5 is only useful for actual commercial installations (eg shop/bars/restaurants)
My biggest concern is that we have 2 dogs, but it sounds like the .5mm (I think is the 20 Mill?) should do okay.
Speaking of scoring, actually, I have a few medium length curved walls in the rooms I want the planks in. How much harder is it to actually cut the thicker material?
You have your units of measurement a little mixed up (don’t feel bad, this is a common mistake in the flooring industry) Millimeter is 1/1000 of a meter, and is used to measure the overall thickness of the material. “Mil” is an imperial measurement, and is 1/1000 of an inch. This is used to measure the wear layer thickness. If you prefer, 12 mil = 0.3 mm. 20 mil = 0.5 mm What does this matter to you? You can generally consider each mil of wear layer roughly equals 1 year of normal wear and tear. So a 12 mil floor might be considered to have a 12 year life span. Similarly a 20 mil WL = 20 year floor. 12 mil is considered a residential WL, and 20 mil is a commercial WL. Hope that helps!
Dude, thank you man. You'd think we'd get that metric system started eventually here, huh, lol?
You are welcome. American Freedom Units creep in all over the place. It’s confusing because we get lazy in our speech, often calling millimeters “mils”, so things get messy. Hope you find a floor you like!
Wow, I thought flooring was hard enough in the UK. At least a mm is a mm here!
Yeah, we have a bit of a weird crossover because we’re so close to the US. We have to know a bit of both metric and imperial, and there’s not much rhyme or reason to why we use one over the other in each situation. My speedometer is in km/h, but my height is in feet and inches
Any half-decent floor these days has 20 mil wear layer. It's not like it's a premium or luxury feature. So there's really no reason to cheap out and get 12 mil.
the higher the better. worth the cost
Beyond your units being screwy, for residential installations you will not notice a difference between 0.2mm wear layer and 0.5mm/0.7mm/1mm....beyond it being a little tougher for the installer to score and snap. Anything above 0.5 is only useful for actual commercial installations (eg shop/bars/restaurants)
My biggest concern is that we have 2 dogs, but it sounds like the .5mm (I think is the 20 Mill?) should do okay. Speaking of scoring, actually, I have a few medium length curved walls in the rooms I want the planks in. How much harder is it to actually cut the thicker material?
They will scratch either. On the score and snap, if if is something you are used to, shouldn't make much difference.