Vinyl Plank Flooring?

[dthor68]

I know this does not fit the subject of General Garage Discussion, but someone could install this stuff in a garage. Anyway, I am wanting to lay vinyl plank flooring throughout my entire house. At first I had planned on Pergo laminate flooring but it does not do well in bathrooms and possibly kitchens.

So my dilemma is do I use a transition from room to room. It would look so much cleaner if there were no transitions. However, that means tearing out the existing flooring throughout the house, And, having to buy 2000 sq.' of flooring at one time. It seems like a much bigger job than doing it room to room, especially while living in the house.

I am still leaning no transitions despite the difficulties it will create.

Thanks

 

[The Cobbler]

I would buy all of the flooring to do the job incase it gets discontinued ( which happens) also it's all in the same dye lot.
you can do it sections at a time, by doing some planning etc. without transitions .

 

[budget76]

I would buy all of the flooring to do the job incase it gets discontinued ( which happens) also it's all in the same dye lot.
you can do it sections at a time, by doing some planning etc. without transitions .

I'd echo this. Hasn't hit me firsthand, but i've seen people posting online hunting for just 1 more box of ** flooring because they can't finish their room. Definitely would not want to be in that boat

not transition would be nicer, but check the install instructions. Suspect the LVP is pretty stable, but some flooring require expansion space

 

[Sawdust_]

I did our place with no transitions and its very very difficult to get right. there are a couple of problems if you are even slightly off going across a room your joints will look strange at the doorways.
You also need to leave space for expansion and contraction and going continuous from room to room you end up exceeding the maximum square footage before you need expansion joints. I ignored that advice and I get some seams that open up in the winter and close up in the summer.
My vinyl tile is click lock, maybe the glue down stuff is better?

 

[rlitman]

I just re-did my basement (last weekend) with almost 1000 square feet of LVP (Coretec Pro). I am SO much happier that I was able to remove transitions at several key locations were I had them before.

Yes, transition-less means getting everything level and undercutting all the door frames. But so long as you're not exceeding the maximum area (where you might need to sneak in a transition), it's well worth the extra effort.

I went with a hickory pattern that was pretty dramatic, with lots of light to dark variation and knots. One word of caution here is that many parts of the pattern can look bad when repeats are adjacent. I accidentally had placed three almost identical planks next to each other in a hallway. It was easy to correct since I hadn't gone far, but deep in the middle of a room, going back *****! In my case, the pattern does not repeat exactly either. The image Coretec is working from is longer than the planks, so certain distinctive knots could be in the middle of one plank and near the end of another, and also with some facing one way and some the other (since the edges are directional too).

I HIGHLY recommend getting a good guillotine style flooring cutter. It is a HUGE time, mess and noise saver.

Cobbler is totally right. Buy it all in one lot. FYI, I had the 1070sq-ft delivered, and the guy showed up in a large van. I had the impression that it was sitting pretty squat on its tires and the rear springs were shot. Well it rose up something like 4 or 5 inches after we carried the 32 boxes out, ONE AT A TIME. Good vinyl is HEAVY. Oh, and look for something with a 20 mil wear layer.

 

[rok_hunter]

We put LVT in our house except for bathrooms (tile) and bedrooms (carpet). Love the stuff.

No transitions between rooms, only when going to another flooring type. Floating (no glue) style, no underlayment, installed directly on the concrete slab. I'd recommend levelling compound to fill in any low spots, we have a couple low areas where we can feel the material flex. I think ours was somewhere around $2600 for material & installation on around 1,000-ish square feet.

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[nadogail]

I am seriously considering replacing the ground floor carpet in some of my rentals with Vinyl Plank as the carpet wears out.

My reasons are Customer Appeal, tenants seem to be very fond of a wood floor look. The service life of good quality planks may exceed that of carpet.

 

[rlitman]

We put LVT in our house except for bathrooms (tile) and bedrooms (carpet). Love the stuff.

No transitions between rooms, only when going to another flooring type. Floating (no glue) style, no underlayment, installed directly on the concrete slab. I'd recommend levelling compound to fill in any low spots, we have a couple low areas where we can feel the material flex. I think ours was somewhere around $2600 for material & installation on around 1,000-ish square feet.

Vinyl will sag into some low spots, but good planks are fairly stiff, so yes, you do want to level where possible.

Definitely no underlayment. Anything soft can lead to failure at the locking joints. My floor instructions allow for underlayment only if code required for sound transmission purposes.

You should have a vapor barrier over a slab.

 

[b-boy]

I have vinyl in my kitchen. If you're removing old flooring, make sure you get every single nail and bump taken care of. It took about 1 year, but there are several spots where the installers missed nails and they've pushed up into the vinyl enough that it's created a noticeable bump.

 

[Clirry]

Bought a house last year with full carpets.. So,I installed LVL planks all over in my house except for kitchen, bathrooms, stairs and basement. Definitely no regrets.


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[LX-Markham]

Another vote for vinyl plank wood flooring. We installed it in our basement a couple of years ago. Still extremely pleased with it.

 

[roc_on_the_rocks]

Another vote for vinyl plank wood flooring. We installed it in our basement a couple of years ago. Still extremely pleased with it.

It looks really nice!

 

[yeldogt]

I used it on one of my rentals ... also a better grade in my walk out office on a slab. Still needed some area rugs as it is noisy .. like tile. I can tell it's fake .. I'm surprised how many can't.

I'm with others on the lots --- if you want to match buy enough to do the job and some extra for potential fixes

 

[Bolson32]

I did our place with no transitions and its very very difficult to get right. there are a couple of problems if you are even slightly off going across a room your joints will look strange at the doorways.
You also need to leave space for expansion and contraction and going continuous from room to room you end up exceeding the maximum square footage before you need expansion joints. I ignored that advice and I get some seams that open up in the winter and close up in the summer.
My vinyl tile is click lock, maybe the glue down stuff is better?

Nope, we have glue down and it's popped up in a couple of places.

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[CTyankee]

Was at HD the other day checking their different brands out. Intend on using it in my van. Grabbed one the peg hooks to do an in store scratch test. Biggest surprise for me was the difference in scratch resistance between the more expensive stuff and the cheap stuff...and it wasn't what I expected.

 

[Denwood]

You don't need transitions. Used the Lifeproof Harrison Dark multiwidth from HD. Has a built in underlay, 100% waterproof blah blah. Used it in our basement over tile. Make sure your floor is flat and free of ridges etc. Highly recommend the flooring.

 

[Bretny]

Was at HD the other day checking their different brands out. Intend on using it in my van. Grabbed one the peg hooks to do an in store scratch test. Biggest surprise for me was the difference in scratch resistance between the more expensive stuff and the cheap stuff...and it wasn't what I expected.

I have done this scratch test many times with my car keys. After scratching every sample in HD I walked out. I found that the $1.10sqft stuff at Ollie's (a store like big lots) had the best scratch resistant stuff. I put that $1.10sqft stuff in a rental with a dog 8yrs ago, still looks fine today!

Sorry but I'm not paying $3+sqft for a plastic floor. At that price I would do oak hardwood (no concrete floors) and use a tong oil...and that's what I did 7yrs ago with 2 big dogs.

 

[lolaetype]

I am still leaning no transitions despite the difficulties it will create.

Thanks

When we redid the flooring we did the upstairs, three bedrooms, three four closets, a linen closet, and two hallways totally connecting, no transitions. Downstairs we did the master bedroom, 1 closet a small hall and the living room with no transitions. Total both floors about 1,800 sqft. of bamboo flooring. . We just laid 500 sqft. of the vinyl you are considering in the kitchen, breakfast area, 1 hall, two pantries and the utility room and it's closet with no transitions. It's a bit more work, but you'll be glad you did it when you see the result.

 

[Renegade1LI]

After using it in a few of our rentals (cheap stuff) it has proven itself to be maintenance free and still looks good after years of use. We bought 1800 sq ft to do our lake house , with water and sand there really aren’t many options if you don’t go with ceramic. The nice thing is you can change out a room if you want a different color with ease and you can always mill a custom threshold between rooms.

 

[75gmck25]

When shopping for LV flooring I discovered that if you look closely at the specs you can usually find out how thick the color layer is for different brands and models.

In general, what they sell for high traffic areas has a thicker color layer so that if it does scratch you will not see a different color unless the scratch is very deep. The cheaper choices that are listed as only for bedrooms usually have the thinner color layer.

 

[ZRX61]

By the time this stuff wears out & needs replacing we'll be using real wood again.

 

[nadogail]

I am still happy with my decision to continue using LVP in our rentals.

 

[nolimits76]

My 2 cents is you have two different issues.

1. Regardless how you install, buy all the flooring in a single purchase. Also order some extra for waste and potential future replacements. Key thing is you will have ample supply and don’t have to worry about color/dye variation between different lots.

2. With flooring purchased you can decide to use transitions or not. Previous owner installed on entire main level without them and I like it. Haven’t noticed any oddities with misaligned planks or unevenness or anything like that. Our only complaint is we wish it was a little more slip resistant, mainly for our dogs.

 

[laser3kw]

just did my small house. My tips:
Go to you tube and watch all the help videos, well worth it. Search for "sothat'showyoudothat" (also has a .com web site by same name)- the guys name is Joe Letendre and does a great job explaining the whys and why nots. He also does some evaluations and testing of material to give you some insight.
buy around 6mm or thicker plank and 12mil or 20mil wear layer.
Make sure the floor is flat! dips and rises will eff you up.
go the extra mile and pull all the trim work and lay floor to the walls (with small gap as directed). It looks way better and if you go with no transitions, it makes it easier to work through them.
Use the Eco Cork Foam underlayment from Home Depot. Awesome stuff, easy to lay and provides several benefits at once.
In my case, 1 pallet (32 boxes) of plank did just over 500 sq feet. So if you plan on buying all at once (you should), have a dry space to store it.
Take your time to start and layout / measure/plan before laying the first piece.
Be willing to back up a few times and scrap some planks to get it right.
Don't settle for "good enough" - you will have to live with it for a long while.

 

[mike93lx]

After doing a kitchen floor at a different height from the surrounding rooms in my last house and hating it every time I walked through, I would go to great lengths to eliminate any elevation differences. When I did the master bath, I even tore out the subfloor in order to have the tile match the hardwood in the bedroom. It was a lot of work, but 100% worth it

 

[bluedog225]

“Luxury”. Nice marketing. And they got consumers to start saying it. Win for them.

 

[drmarkr]

There's a member here that DID put it in his garage (I think he's in Hawaii?) and has posted updates from at least 5 yrs out. He's totally happy with it, and says it's very durable.

 

[CraigStu]

I don't know about a garage. My concern would be the small steel wheels on my floor jacks. 1500# (one side of a 3000# car) jacked up puts (a wild guess here) maybe 1000-1200# on the two wheels at the end of the jack under the car. I have not tried it but just doesn't seem to me
that will work well on LVL. It is a dang high PSI. But in our 3 yr old house we have it in kitchen/dining, 3 bathrooms and laundry room. We absolutely love it. We have had in other houses 3/4 inch tongue and groove oak, ceramic tile, cork, linoleum and of course carpet. For us, in the areas listed above, it is by far the best. We just spent the holiday at a relative's very high end 2 year old home. The ceramic tile in the bath looks great until you go in there in bare feet and then we hop from one small rug to the next. Daughter's LVL in 6 yr old house w/ 60-70# dog still looks the same it did when they moved in.

 

[alinc100]

We have Lifeproof flooring from Home Depot on 1200 sq ft of our main floor. Family room(addition) is a slightly different elevation and had hardwood so it stayed. But the dining room,kitchen,hallways,main living room are vinyl.Have held up well with big dog,cats,etc. Our bath is ceramic tile, but if I were putting a new floor in I would not hesitate to put vinyl plank there as well. We put a cheaper vinyl tile floor in the basement but used an underlayment with a barrier and weep ability underneath. It looks good ,but I much preferred working with the Lifeproof product,it was easier,more durable on the install. Price was a factor in the basement decision. Since the basement is secondary and can potentially flood we went with a $2sqft product and not a $5sqft product. I did spend a few bucks on magic sliders,soft pads,etc as I worked alone which allowed me to move furniture easily without harm to the new floor. I even slid my gunsafe in and out of the closet to slide the planks under.

 

[lolaetype]

I don't know about a garage. My concern would be the small steel wheels on my floor jacks. 1500# (one side of a 3000# car) jacked up puts (a wild guess here) maybe 1000-1200# on the two wheels at the end of the jack under the car.

Back in the day manufacturers used to test flooring to withstand the pressure of a woman walking in stiletto high heels. Those can exert a pressure of more than 1,500 PSI. If your flooring can withstand that it can probably stand a floor jack. That said, just to play it safe I'd still use a piece of laminate flooring under the jack.