Alternative to T Transitions for floating laminate floor

Question

I have a floating floor on concrete slab that joins to tile in a number of common, high traffic walk ways in our home:

The standard way of joining a floating floor to a fixed one (or two floating floors) is a "T" transition:

These transitions suck for a number of reasons:

1. They get caught on shoes or anything sliding across floor which puts ripping force
2. Every one I can find is made from wood / particle board they break easily
3. Because the surface that is in contact with the floor is so narrow, they are easy to topple, and the glue rips. Carpentry nails help, but don't work for concrete subfloors.

In general, it means that there is nearly annual maintenance and replacement for something that should require very little thought. We'd like a better way.

• Caulk / Silicone grout: All official sources on the web seem to suggest this should not be done for floating floors (and especially relatively large surfaces like ours), though it's not entirely clear why. What is the worst case scenario here? Softness in the flooring?
• Is there a non-wood brand of t intersection that doesn't look awful, or looks like wood but is something sturdier?
• Is there a brand or type of T strip that has a larger footing that the laminate be slotted into? All that I've seen have at most 1/4" of cheap wood that gets glued down and don't last the day. Something Like this?

Answer 1

Schluter makes a number of transition metal pieces that work seamlessly and permanently but some need to be embedded under the last row of tile in the thinset.

Some examples:

• Schluter Reno-T is metal, can be glued to the tile side, and doesn't require tile to be lifted though works only for same height.
• Schluter Reno-V is adjustable to accommodate different heights on each side of the transition (in case your flooring isn't as level as depicted in your drawing), and secures underneath tile side. This is solid, has a smaller transitional space, but requires that you re-glue / grout your tile or be doing a fresh installation.