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For reasons too boring to go into, I’m looking into alternatives to tiles for a kitchen / utility / hall relatively higher domestic traffic area.
Obvs Karndean is an option, but I’m also considering LVT stuff.
Any experience / advice / specs / brands / suppliers to use or avoid.
TIA
There's been a couple of recent threads on this. The more I read, the more I'm considering Karndean again, as we had in our last house.
Obvs Karndean is an option, but I’m also considering LVT stuff.
Karndean is just a brand of LVT, it’s not a different product.
When we changed the kitchen we went from Amtico to Polyflor Camaro after ready the reviews and getting a few samples. Saved about £10-15 per square metre and it shows.
It’s a bit thinner, shows any imperfection in the adhesive underneath and we’ve chipped it and badly scratched it already - the Amtico had nothing but a few scratches after ten years…
Thanks so far. Just had a look in a floor warehouse place.
Any thoughts on click lock vs glue down?
I'm a LVT convert after laying some in the bathroom, and then ended up doing all of downstairs too.
Easy to cut, fit, hard-wearing, cleans well, and looks better than laminate.
Ours has stood up very well in high traffic areas with plenty of abuse from pets and kids.
Floor has to be absolutely flat so freshly levelled floor or whack some ply down first.
Any thoughts on click lock vs glue down?
There's a recent thread but his also…... glue.
Spent a fair bit of time looking into this, glue if your floor is great, click if not, YMMV.
Amtico and Karndean options available as supply only online for decent prices (£30 a metre). Just need to convince my tiler that he’ll be able to fit it. 🤔
Floor will be prepped with 9mm ply so should be good to glue.
Edit - my googling is struggling. Can anyone post the recent other threads?
OP don’t get to hung up on brand Amtico and Karndean are the names you have heard of because they market to the domestic market heavily.
What you need to consider is the thickness of the tile and the thickness of the wear layer.
Most domestic glue down will be 2mm thick and 0.3mm wear layer. This imo is not robust enough for a busy household with kids, pets etc.
Look for something 2.5mm thick with 0.55mm wear layer, this will be classed as commercial grade product but will be much more durable.
In terms of click vs glue down I will always recommend glue down. As you are fitting new ply make sure the joints and screw heads are covered with feather finish and you are good to go.
Also don’t be under the illusion that if you go for click the subfloor doesn’t need to be in good condition, sure you can go over tile joints but you still need to be careful, I’ve seen click systems fail badly due to poor floor prep.
£30 sqm is crazy expensive, go to a flooring distributor and you will get 0.55mm wear layer product from Tarkett or Gerflor for around £16 sqm. This will be made in Europe and not China so tends to be better quality.
You can also get digitally printed LVT now which means the pattern repeat is 12 sqm rather than the 3 sqm that is standard. This is great if you are using wood plank designs and don’t want the same knots showing up every 12 planks!
Happy to point you in the direction of a supplier of you let me know where you are based.
I haven’t heard of it I’m afraid Scotroutes but if you go with a 2.5mm thick with 0.55mm wear layer then should be ok.
Thanks @blindmelon and @scotroutes for the links.
I guess thickness of the wear layer is a useful parameter to consider, but I suppose the quality of the wear and backing layers can also vary.
@blindmelon I’m in Perth, but happy to use online suppliers and would welcome any recommendations.
Also don’t be under the illusion that if you go for click the subfloor doesn’t need to be in good condition,
I've just replaced the floor I'm doing, but its floorboards, in an old house, I really canny be arsed sheeting it too, but its defo good enough for click.
OP I’ll drop you a PM tomorrow.
Nobeer I’m sure it will be fine. Just make sure to check the installation instructions as they are often stricter that you would imagine. Something like a 3mm deviation in level over 2m would be common. In the worst case scenario your short end of a click board is above a joint in your subfloor and it moves the you could potentially break the click joint and problems can mount from there.
I’ve also had issues where handymen thought fitting over carpet, no joke, would be fine 🤦♂️