The days when your flooring options were limited to tiles, wood or linoleum are far behind us. Today, there are so many flooring choices that it can be more than a little overwhelming. One relatively new entrant to the kitchen and bathroom floor market is Luxury Vinyl Tiling, or LVT. The glamorous sibling of laminate flooring, LVT comes in a range of striking finishes and is suitable for most uses. In this series, we give you a brief introduction to LVT, and how to measure and fit it.
Types of LVT
There are two types of Luxury Vinyl Tiling: gluedown LVT and click LVT. While gluedown is cheaper, click LVT tends to be much easier to install - as the name suggests, the tiles just click into place with no gluing needed. Click LVT is also thicker than gluedown LVT, so you will not normally need underlay. If you fall in love with a pattern that is only available on gluedown LVT, it is best to get a professional floor fitter to lay your floor for you.
Step 1 – Measure up
It sounds like a no-brainer, but failing to measure up properly can leave you short of flooring, in which case you will have to wait for new tiles to arrive (and hope that the batch number is still available). To find out how much LVT you’ll need, you need to know the area of your room in square feet or metres. If your room is a regular shape, this will be easy; just measure two adjacent walls and multiply the two numbers together. If you have an irregular shaped room, divide it up into squares or rectangles and work out the area of each. Add them together to find the total area. It can be wise to err on the side of caution and add an extra square metre (or foot) or two; this will give you leeway if you have measured slightly inaccurately, and will give you spares if you mis-cut a piece.
Step 2 – Prepare your subfloor
Depending on the brand and quality of your LVT, you may or may not need to use underlay. Some LVTs come with sponge backing, ready to lay directly on top of your old floor. Regardless of whether you need underlay or not, it is wise to prepare your subfloor. Whether you are laying LVT on wood, old tiles or concrete, make sure that your floor is level, clean, smooth and dry. Irregularities, lumps, bumps and cracks can damage your LVT and cause complications in the longer term.
Once your subfloor is cleaned and any levelling or repairs have been undertaken, you are ready to go! Check out the next blog in the series to find out how to lay a floating floor.
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