Home Office Flooring

Q: My home office is upstairs and next to my son’s bedroom. I would like to replace the carpets with a harder surface but I am concerned about noise. I was hoping that I could put my office chair (which has standard casters) directly on the hard wood flooring and not use one of those intervening hard plastic mats. What are my flooring options and what would you recommend? Thanks.
Sincerely,
Gary Oxfeld

A: I would suggest looking into Cork or Laminate here. In the case of Laminate, laminate is built to take abuse, so you should have little issue with the casters on your chair. To remove some of the noise you will get with a laminate, look into using 6mm cork as your underlayment of choice here. I suggest cork because its natural density will make it far more effective in an office as it will reduce a good amount of the spring you get from a floating floor.
You can also look into using a cork floor. Cork is a bit softer, which allows it to flex some under furniture and the casters on your chair should not harm it either. If you purchase a floating cork floor, use additional cork underlayment to get some sound reduction and keep the floor fairly solid.
Another tip to help prevent the casters from causing any damage to your floor would be to put a place mat at the door. This way you can remove dirt and grit from shoes so that this grit does not get caught in the casters. Typically damage from the casters of a chair comes from a a piece of grit or something else caught in the caster that gouges into the floor.