Recently purchased a home less then a mile from the beach in the northeast. House is a single story, forced hot air for heat and central air for cooling. I will need to install about 1000 sq ft in flooring. Was planning on using the vinyl planking, since I am looking for a low maintenance, durable floor. The sub floor is plywood and there is half inch particle board installed on top of that. While speaking with a contractor about the flooring, he stated that he would not recommend vinyl planking that due to the humidty and the expansion and contraction of the flooring, the "seams" will begin to split over time. He recommended a hard wood floor. From the research I have done on the vinyl planking, I have not seen this alleged issue addressed.

For any of you that have this type of flooring installed, what have your experiences been, especially if you are in a coastal environment?

Thanks

From WV, LVP installed in ‘17 in kitchen, & living room. No issues whatsoever. The bride or I just use a couple swifters and that’s it.

We had tile before. The floors are definitely warmer. To this date, no issues & we love it!

Life proof.

Little pricey, but worth it.

quote:

Originally posted by Bulldog:
While speaking with a contractor about the flooring, he stated that he would not recommend vinyl planking that due to the humidty and the expansion and contraction of the flooring, the "seams" will begin to split over time. He recommended a hard wood floor. From the research I have done on the vinyl planking, I have not seen this alleged issue addressed.

get a new contractor, this one is an idiot.

LVT is made of PVC. I have it in my bathroom and it goes wet every day. No issues after many years.

This is a stretch, but I gotta say it : Your Glock is made from polymer material similar to LVT. Does it expand and jam up when it gets wet?

I installed Life Proof brand in two bathrooms in Connecticut back in 2016. We sold the house in 2020 and there were no issues whatsoever. The bathrooms were used daily for showering, etc. Buy the pry bar that you whack with a hammer to seat them and have at it. I was very impressed with the results and each bathroom only took me one weekend to complete.

Can't speak to coastal environment but I put vinyl plank in a s. Indiana rental farmhouse that had floors that were not perfectly level. Held up to 5 years of hard use and still looked good when I sold the property. One area was flooded when a pipe burst and the floor came through fine.

Thanks everyone for the replies, I suspected that the contractor was just feeding me a line of bs to try and get more work, I should add, he was only being interviewed for part of the remodel. We are not going with him.

I plan to lay the floors myself.

Maybe he was trying to tell you the sub floor movement due to coastal humidity would cause the LVT planks to split. But LVT isn't glued down is it? Doesn't it just float like a laminate floor? No way would I put down wood floors in a high humidity environment on top of particle board. Just no.

-TVz

I would be way more concerned about particle board in a humid/wet environment.

This is good timing!

I was just talking to our contractor who will be doing our kitchen reno and was asking him about LVP and what he recommended, he told me he liked working with SmartCore by Lowes and had good results with it.

We are going tomorrow to some local flooring places and Lowes to check this stuff out.

The particle board over your subfloor is odd. Typically with LVP you would use luan and then fast patch the seams to create a smooth sub surface. Personally I recommend using a glue down LVP as it allows for much simpler plank replacement if using a pressure sensitive style of glue. The glue also will create that waterproof barrier that most people are looking for when using LVP.

The only time I’ve had issues with LVP installs is when using temp heat and having extreme temperature changes and just having it burn to hot by mistake. Currently the stuff is my preference and can’t stand the laminate flooring that was the hot button prior to LVP coming around.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
This is good timing!

I was just talking to our contractor who will be doing our kitchen reno and was asking him about LVP and what he recommended, he told me he liked working with SmartCore by Lowes and had good results with it.

We are going tomorrow to some local flooring places and Lowes to check this stuff out.

I've used the SmartCore on a couple of projects. Very happy with the results.

ETA: That contractor is an idiot.

I've been in the floorcovering industry since '76.
Hardwood is NOT want you want living near the beach in the northeast. Humidity is the biggest problem. The only issues that arise with LVP would be extreme temperature changes. Direct sunlight (sliding glass doors) would be the best example.

We installed vinyl planking over concrete - it was glue down - and the reason was that it could flood two inches over it but would survive. It is warmer to the touch than sopping wet indoor/outdoor and doesn't suck up sand grit etc.

Issues with wooden substrates in a high humidity environment are something else. I have seen a lot of planking installed, the cheaper ones begin to curl at the edges and lift up, causing high wear and it looks like crap in ten years. What I have also seen along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts within sight of the beach are the property owners using tile. That requires a much more substantial underlayment than particle board - having done that in a bathroom it became an unanticipated expense which delayed the completion as we worked thru our budgeting. Given the propensity of hurricanes to submerge homes near the coast it's best practice to avoid non masonry construction entirely. Not much of that on the market.

Vinyl planking has resilience and high water resistance, it's what it rests on that has to be properly chosen. It will not make up for substandard construction and by that I don't mean it wasn't code. For some things you have to go beyond code to make it work properly. If there is time, read up on Canadian tile floor code and note the major differences compared to American.

We installed LVP in our living room, dining room and hallway about four years ago. It's beautiful to look at and impervious to water. Make sure you go with quality stuff and each plank should have some type of cork backing. If it doesn't, it will clatter as you walk on it, trust me. It's not cheap, back then I think it ran around 5 dollars per foot.

Thanks everyone for the replies. The house originally had wall to wall carpet that was quickly removed once we closed on the property, that's why they had the particle board. In my research there was a suggestion to lay quarter inch plywood down over the particle board. Not sure I want to go that route, or the other option it to remove all the particle board and then put the plywood down.

Here is a link to the LVP that we are planning on using, it would not be the glue down version.


https://www.mannington.com/Res...lank/Dockside/MAX031

Thanks.

When you say “particle board”, do you mean oriented strand board (OSB) which is a kind of plywood actually. I find it hard to believe that someone would put particleboard on a floor.

PASig- nope, not OSB, it's legit particle board. From researching why it's there, the house was built in 1979, apparently there was a practice of putting particle board under carpet. The carpet also had the standard carpet pad under it.

If you do the LVT over the plywood I highly suggest you add a layer of the foam underlayment. My LVT did not require underlayment as pad was already attached. However I notice a huge difference in the one room where I did not have underlayment. It is much louder and has an echo feel.

quote:

Originally posted by gpbst3:
If you do the LVT over the plywood I highly suggest you add a layer of the foam underlayment. My LVT did not require underlayment as pad was already attached. However I notice a huge difference in the one room where I did not have underlayment. It is much louder and has an echo feel.

By this you mean you put down an underlayment in addition to the attached one on the plank?