What makes some better than others?

Why all the different thicknesses?

I have a simple room to put this in. It currently has a single piece of very well adhered flat, even vinyl/linoleum type floor that I want to put LVP over. The room already has quarter round on the baseboard.

I’m literally heading to Depot and Lowes today to buy flooring. Following this thread with great interest!

Question to add to the above:

What is the minimum millimeters to purchase? I’ve seen H. Depot vary from 5mm all the way up to 22mm. Is 22 overkill? It’s about an extra $0.75 per square foot.

Our experience was:

- Don’t overthink it
- Buy 2 extra boxes (maybe one in your case)
- Live on it, don’t attempt to baby it
- It’ll be worth it in the long run to redo the shoe molding (quarter-round) over the edges of the flooring

After that my observations:
- rough textures literally eat socks
- most every make/model is pretty good these days, and will probably outlast you in the space - maybe not if you’re a commercial entity
- I can’t speak to dog influence on wear, but my neighbors have a rotty and some basic Lowe’s LVT and it looks brand new after about 4 years

I’d never installed vinyl planks before, and installed my entire main floor myself. Click-lock non-glue stuff from Mannington. My wife liked the color/style. About two years after I put it in, we decided to do another room and the basement stairwell in the stuff, but they no longer made it in the same “finish” so it would have looked weird next to the old stuff, even though it was the same color/pattern.

Thickness on your particular floor probably won’t matter. I got mine thicker because I was going over a few different types of old flooring.

Good luck! For one room though, I’d say just find a color you like and then live on it and enjoy it.


I’m 100% serious about the sock thing. Rough vinyl planks shred socks.

Take a sample home for testing. Put a deep scratch in it with a nail or screwdriver. Is the scratch white meaning the color is only on the surface, or does the scratch match the surface color.

Next, put the sample in a bin of water and leave it there for a day. Does it seem okay afterward or did it swell or fall apart?

When we were looking, 90% of the samples failed one of those tests.

I put down LVP in living room, dining room and hallway. I would recommend you spend about $20 at Home Depot or elsewhere and purchase an installation kit. The finished appearance looks professional rather than DIY. Also, pull your baseboard off prior to installing, that way the expansion gap will be covered when you put it back on.

following this thread

Thinking of the same.
Question: we already have laminate planks with a pad under it.
Would you use the same pad, new one or a plank with it already built it.
The pad was decent albeit 20 years old but the floor is not terribly flat in all areas.
Yes, could lay down some cement leveler but now we are adding a LOT more work and cost.
The pad kind of mitigates the problem.

I just bought LVP and all my research led to 3 important things.

1. Get the thickest wear layer you can afford.
2. The overall thickness: thicker is better.
3. The locking system. Check to make sure your product's tongues aren't prone to snapping.

And an honorable metion at 4: Patterns, how many per box are repeats.

Explanation:

1. Self explanatory
2. If your floor is uneven with high spots and low spots the thinner planks will start to gap and snap apart with use because of the movement that will occur. The thicker the plank the less likely it will do this.
3. Kind of pertains to number 2 in that the more movement because of highs and lows the more likely a weak tongue will snap off and introduce gaps.
4. Planks are pieces of vinyl with a pattern applied to the top. Some manufacturers put more effort into avoiding duplicate planks by turning the pattern 180 degrees or cutting the planks at different points to disperse the pattern over different planks.

I ended up going with Home Depot's Lifeproof. All the installers I saw talking about it online said it was a decent product. I went with the 20mil wear layer and total thickness of 6.5 mm if I remember right.

I haven't laid it yet. Will be a project for the end of March beginning of April. My install will be down in a concrete basement that was poured in the 50s so I'm going to put down an underlayment. My concrete probably didn't have a vapor barrier applied so to avoid condensation issues under my planks I'm installing a dimpled underlayment. A guy online suggested DMX 1-step.

I'm no expert, but this is where my research led me.

I just did two offices in my house with the LVP tile and went directly over concrete

not happy with the results - the tile is great, but the concrete floor was just uneven enough that it has started to separate at the seams and I have several gaps and seams which have come apart

I was going to do my living room with the same product and took back 65 boxes to HD and ended up buy 3/4" hickory hardwood

since I am renovating the entire house, I may end up ripping all of it out and putting in hardwood

I also second the recommendation in re-doing the base molding while you're at it - short dollars

If you are going over a very level floor or over plywood, you will likely be OK, but every single ripple will show up

A tragic story of sorts. Contractor but it in a new house for family. Pretty nice stuff. Made in the USA. Failed to cover it. They trampled all over it for months working on the house. Now near completion it is pretty much toast. Going to try to stripping and cleaning it to see if it will come back. Probably a 50/50 deal. We'll see. No idea why he did not cover it. Laziness is all I can think of. Anyway, it is a good product. Put it in our house a few years ago after a carpet fiasco. It has held up well to traffic and animals etc. If done correctly it will last years imho

Btw, used it over concrete on another small project. Has been great, no issues. It was a level floor though.

We moved into a house last year. The house had cheap vinyl plastic film throughout. We replaced it with the high traffic water proof planks from Home Depot.

Sundance Canyon Hickory 22 MIL x 7.1 in. W x 48 in. L Click Lock Waterproof Luxury Vinyl Plank Flooring

We’ve had visitors admire it. It’s easy to clean and doesn’t get scratched from the dogs’ feet when they scamper around.

We put down Karndean glue-down LVP two years ago. We went with the glue to avoid the gapping problem.
The glue is not a permanent type glue. You can remove and replace a plank if needed.

It's worn well so far; our 70 pound Pit has not scratched it even with her crazy playing.

We put in Mannington Adura Max LVP a couple years ago and it is holding up well so far (was have a 60 pound lab). I believe that has a 20 mil wear thickness. Very happy with it so far.


The local flooring shop let us take home several 2'x2' panels of different flooring to help determine which one we wanted.

The Karndean site has a feature where you can upload a photo of your room(s) and view it with any of their floors.
After the fact, I have to say our room looks exactly like their simulation showed.

quote:

Originally posted by Skull Leader:
I just bought LVP and all my research led to 3 important things.

1. Get the thickest wear layer you can afford.
2. The overall thickness: thicker is better.
3. The locking system. Check to make sure your product's tongues aren't prone to snapping.

And an honorable metion at 4: Patterns, how many per box are repeats.

Pretty much covers it IMO. The wear layer is the thin, clear, pure vinyl surface. 10 mil is considered moderate duty residential with 20 mil+ being for commercial use or very heavy residential. It'll cost more but if you want it to last, select a flooring that is rated and guaranteed for commercial use.

Overall gauge; generally thicker is better however I'd take a thiner gauge, high end, commercial rated product over one made heavier with more backing, filler, and thinner wear layer. Thin floating floor products tend to suffer from a weak interlocking joint.

Texture is a benefit and when it's registered with the visual pattern it adds realism to the look. A completely smooth floor would be hard to maintain and show scratches as well as traffic wear patterns prematurely.

That Karndean room visualizer is pretty cool!

quote:

When we were looking, 90% of the samples failed one of those tests.

Care to name those that passed? I'm also following this thread with great interest.
Thanks

The contractor that put it in our kitchen in 2022 said he only likes Lowe’s SMARTCORE Ultra and we went with that and it’s been pretty good so far.

I've been in the floor covering industry since 1976.
Karndean is one of the best products in this section on the industry.
Be careful on stated thickness- is it overall thickness or wear layer thickness.
We used Karndean Looselay for numerous property management
applications ( over $1 million ) in a calendar year.
Zero problems when installed properly.

quote:

Originally posted by WaterburyBob:
We put down Karndean glue-down LVP two years ago. We went with the glue to avoid the gapping problem.
The glue is not a permanent type glue. You can remove and replace a plank if needed.

Another happy Karndean LVP floor owner here. Ours is over 11 years old and still looks great in spite of 2 Labs playing on it every day.

We had to test the remove & replace feature of the planks after we had an antique iron fail and drip aluminum on them. Still under warranty and the installers came out and replaced all 12 planks for free. That was about 7 or 8 years ago and you still can't tell which ones were replaced.

There's good advice given above about buying an extra box or two to ensure you'll always have matching planks in case you need to replace a few.

The key to a good Karndean floor is the quality of the installers. Our installers meticulously leveled the floor prior to laying down the glue and ensured they didn't lay down any repeated patterns during install. My inlaws had the same floor installed in their house, but the installers weren't as careful with leveling the floor. Consequently the planks are slightly wavy in parts of the room. Most people don't even notice it, but we can because our floor was done right.