About Luxury Vinyl Flooring (LVF)

by Jeff Hosking – Hosking Hardwood Flooring
© 2004 - 2012, Copyright protected. All Rights Reserved

What is Luxury Vinyl Flooring?

This article refers to flexible Luxury Vinyl Flooring. You may also want to take a look at Rigid Core Vinyl Planks once you're done with this to see how it compares.  

Looking for an affordable floor covering for your kitchen, bathroom or laundry floor that is comfortable to stand on and durable enough to take the abuse of an active family? Luxury Vinyl Flooring is available in hundreds of colors and patterns and many sizes. LVF is resilient and water resistant and a perfect flooring option for your home that can be installed virtually anywhere.

Want to create that special look? LVF can also be mixed with other various colored vinyl tile to create stunning designs, boarders and patterns not found with other floor coverings.

When compared to real ceramic tile, Luxury Vinyl Flooring is a lot easier to stand on for extended periods of time. LVF is an easy do-it-yourself installation and very easy to maintain.

Superb wear resistance

The durable construction of Luxury Vinyl Flooring includes protective vinyl wear layers which resists scratches, scuffs, rips, tears and gouges. Generally, the thicker the vinyl is, the longer it's going to last. When compared to traditional sheet vinyl, Luxury Vinyl Flooring planks are easier to install and it's much easier to repair if one particular tile is damaged later.

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Hundreds of styles and colors

Luxury Vinyl Flooring styles range from the look of natural Ceramic tile, Stone and Marble tile (Luxury Vinyl Tile - LVT) to hardwood plank visuals (Luxury Vinyl Planks - LVP) featuring every and any wood species you can think of. One of the great benefits of Luxury Vinyl is that it allows you to take wood species that are pretty much unavailable in today's hardwood flooring selection -- Koa, Chestnut, Reclaimed Barnwood, etc. -- and put them down in virtually any room of your home. Same goes for super soft wood species, like Pine or American Walnut. You might love the coloring of these softer woods but feel uncomfortable putting them in high traffic areas of your home -- like a kitchen. Luxury Vinyl Planks allow you to create any aesthetic you'd like in your home.

Easy installation

Luxury Vinyl Flooring is incredibly easy to install and there are a couple different installation options, depending on the specific LVF product.

Glue Down 

Glue down LVF is also known as Full Spread. You simply pour out some ready mixed adhesive and trowel out a thin layer out onto a section of the subfloor where the tiles are set into the desired pattern. It’s advisable to lay out several rows before starting the actual installation with adhesive to ensure (especially with patterned floors) that the end result will be exactly what you had in mind. Before installation, make sure that your subfloor is clean, flat and smooth. Any imperfections will likely show after the vinyl is installed. With a wood subfloor, fill any nail holes or joints and then lightly sand the spot to make a smooth subfloor.

Click Lock Floating

Some Luxury Vinyl Floors these days offer a click lock technology for even easier and faster installation. Click locking vinyl planks are some of the easiest floors to install yourself. There is no glue necessary. You simply click the boards together over your subfloor. Take special care to read the specific product's installation instructions (usually found on the manufacturer's website or in every 4th carton or so). Some manufacturers have specific guidelines that must be followed with click locking vinyl floors in order to keep the warranty valid on that floor.?

Would you like a grout line with your LVT?

Although grouting Luxury Vinyl Tile is in no way necessary, some LVT manufacturers offer acrylic grout for their Luxury Vinyl Tile styles. Instead of butting the tiles edges tight, you leave a desired gap between the edges of the tile and fill it with a specially designed acrylic grout.Make sure to check with the specific manufacturer of the LVT to see if they allow their LVT to be grouted and use the specific grout that they recommend.

Our customers agree

Overall, Luxury Vinyl ?Flooring is a great value, considerably less expensive than their hardwood and stone/porcelain tile counterparts and can last a lifetime in your home because of its superior durability.

DO NOT CONFUSE Luxury Vinyl Flooring with that cheap peel and stick variety

The thin, cheap Peel and Stick Vinyl tile that are usually found in Home centers are not the same as Luxury Vinyl Tile and they are not very thick, durable or scratch resistant. The adhesive on these peel and stick vinyl tiles can fail over a short time creating loose tiles.

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