Has anyone had experience with this laminate flooring? We are considering using St james 12mm laminate flooring in our basement that is in the process of being finished now. The price is incredibly low for 12mm compared with Bruce and Armstrong. Which, of course, makes me wonder why...

Well, just like most other things you get what you pay for, i.e. the more expensive flooring is of higher quality material. However, I find the cheaper laminate flooring is still quite durable. The decision depends upon two things, how much you are willing to spend, and the function of the room. (high traffic, low traffic, livingroom, gameroom, etc.)

We put the Bond street Teak through out our new house and we really like it. (It was not too hard to put in and we've never done it before.) The only thing that I don't like about it is it shows really fine little scratches when you roll things with plastic wheels over it... like a baby walker. I would however recommend it to anyone with that one warning.

I have been in the home improvement retail end and in flooring for about 4 years and there are a lot of different laminates out there. There is your basic kind which is like a piece of partical board covered with a couple of layers of film. One for the look and the other to somewhat protect it. Then there are ones that have the padding or carboard on the back of them, so you do not have to buy the underlayment. You always must have a underlayment to protect against moisture and it gives you a little cushioning too. The two I just explained about does not have moisture protection between the seems, so for that you would have to buy a sealent which acts like a glue but more flexable. The next step up in laminate is Pergo, that has a better pertection on top , has a pad attached under it and has the sealer on it already. But one thing I didn't like was pergo didn't have any tile selection so I ended up going with armstrong laminate flooring. Armstrong does require you to buy the padding and its up to you if you want to seal it. I always recommended it in areas of moisture. I put mine in a dinning room and did not use glue and my puppy has peed on it and it did not under the layers of the laminate thank goodness! Some of the other cheaper kinds do. I have seen water go into the laminate and exspand and the laminate part lift from the board part. The board like I said is like partical board and when partical board gets wet it tends to swell up. Hope this helps... let us know what you decided to go with?

I installed St. James 12mm in my living room and dining room about 11 months ago and have not had any good experiences with it. If you spill water or ice cream that does not get cleaned up immediately the boards WILL warp and with small children stuff is always getting spilled. I will guess about 20% of our floor boards are ruined and Lumber Liquidators and the installers take no responsibility. So you better be really careful with the flooring.

Looks good but do not get the dark cherry it is impossible to keep clean and I have no kids and only pet is a cat.

Liquid spills are with any laminate, once it gets into the masonite between the cracks it's done.
Although I'm a firm believer of making any laminate nice if installed correctly.

Would never put laminate in a basement. It is the first place that water backs up, everything drips down, humidity is always higher and laminate, regardless of brand, swells under these conditions

Some laminates are below grade rated. Always check the warranty 1st.