where to begin?

[BroncoBilli]

I'm the manager of an apt building, and unit 205 needs flooring. After a brief search, I decided on MSI Prescott Sandino. it's got a 20mil coating, a commercial 'warranty' and seems as good as anything out there (read: Passably okay).... that's the background...

The unit is a studio. somebody recommended I cover the kitchen floor, the entrance way, the bathroom, and the hot water closet, all in the same stuff, one continuous go. This is a middle unit in the building, and is fairly well insulated against outside weather. I've been told I shouldn't put the LVP under the cabinets, which will themselves be under fairly heavy 2cm quartz countertops. The subfloor is concrete. Let's say I listen to the warning chirpers online and don't put the cabinets on top of LVP. First off - if only 1 side of the kitchen has the quartz countertops, and on the other side of the kitchen is just the stove and the fridge, can THEY sit on top of floating LVP? If so, why? They're heavy. If not, then what am I supposed to do about buckling? I just don't understand this floating floor thing. makes sense if almost nothing heavy is on top of it, but a loaded fridge and a stove seem pretty heavy. How come they get to be on top of floating LVP if a cabinet can't be? If they ARE allowed on top of LVP, and allow for expansion, then why can't I put the OTHER side of the LVP underneath some cabinets that have heavy 2cm quartz on top? Can't the LVP simply expand in the direction of the fridge and stove?

The LVP has the foam on the bottom of it. I'm assuming I don't have to glue it down, and shouldn't glue it down?

WWWWWWWWWW ENTRY DOOR WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
W W STOVE-30 CABINET-24 FRIDGE-30 W <- 24" cabinet
W flooring W W
W KITCHEN (flooring) W
W W W W
W W W DW-24 SINK-30 CABINET-30 W <- quartz countertop goes on this side...
W W WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
W W flooring... W
WWWWWWWWWW living room W

Okay, onto more even weirder questions: If I put the flooring in the kitchen and extend out into the hallway, then wrap around the open south wall (pictured above and 'west', how does this all work for expansion? I'm assuming if it only expands about 1/8" on either side of the LVP floor, then "who cares". Is this basically true?

Thanks!

 

[BroncoBilli]

another question: the subfloor is concrete. The LVP panels have foam on the bottom. Do I need to put a vapor barrier between the concrete and the LVP?

 

[Incognito]

Hi Billi.

Chances are you could get away with not following the manufacturer's instructions and the standard installation procedures. We'd really have to know very specifically what's special about "MSI Prescott Sandino" that would make you want to bend the rules.

Cost-benefit analysis comes into play here and we don't know all the risk factors and potential costs of a FAILURE as opposed to exactly what you might save by cutting corners and doing the job the easy way as opposed to the correct way. As an experienced installer I cut corners when I know it's not going to fail OR if my customer is aware of the cost and benefits of the risks involved and "signs off" on the substandard procedures.

BTW I think floating floors are a pretty damn scabby and stupid system in the first place. Seems absurd that you'd want to get even scabbier and stupider by violating whatever basic install instructions/specification the manufacturer would offer for their warranty.

 

[BroncoBilli]

wow. that reply was utterly useless. devoid of any actual useful information and simply full of dire vague warnings and 'i know better than you'. manufacturers put in CYA clauses for good reason: because people are idiots. but i gave pretty clear specifics and wanted to know specific reasons not to. generally stating floating floors are crap is so not useful i cant begin to explain. i have 3 floating floors in my house for the last 10 years. nothing scary about them. installed right. theyre just fine. give specific advice if youre going to bother replying otherwise save us the bandwidth.

 

[highup]

The cheap ones aren't worthwhile and I really hate the thin ones. They have very tiny locking mechanisms.
Cortec and Provenza are two high quality products. I'm betting that Pergo is good too, I just haven't installed any.
Installed under the counter is not recommended, but depending on the layout it might work. You would definitely want to have the room heated well for at least a week so the concrete wasn't cold.
I installed carpeting at home that had a large lvp installation. I found out later it was installed before the heat was on. I turned on the heat to living condition temperature and when I came back the next day it had a huge buckle in it with the installer had butted it to a tile doorway. Customer insisted it be better to the tile with no trim. It was a large area, living room dining room and kitchen. it may have been installed before the cabinets went in. I wasn't there so I don't know. Nothing else was buckled, just want it butted to the tile at the end of a 7-ft hallway.
It might work fine as long as you leave the gap like they always tell you to do.
it's just one of those things where you have to decide for yourself which way you want to do it.
There are no guarantees and if something goes wrong the manufacturer is not going to warranty your work. So depending on the layout it might work fine but I'm not going to recommend whether you do that or not.
The higher end materials are extremely durable and don't dent and scratch like solid wood.
A local market a few miles away from me has Cortec on the floor. It's a small/tiny market with a gas pump. It has hundreds and hundreds of customers for day walking in and out. It's been in for two and a half or 3 years and still looks great. As long as it's got a good wear layer on it and isn't a $1.99 per square foot item they should last for a long time.

 

[BroncoBilli]

ah, good reply. informative.

this apt bldg has 26 units, and this one is in the middle. no temp shifts, no big humidity changes. traffic is pretty light. retail on the LVP is high end. $6/ft. it has a 15 year commerical warranty but lets face it - its only about $1000 worth of LVP. the labor is way more than the materials.

thanks for the info.

 

[BroncoBilli]

ANOTHER question: How to get up 22 year old vinyl tile (2mm?) that is STUCK to the concrete floor like it is covalent-bonded? The tile is so brittle when I try and peel it up, it just shatters.

 

[BroncoBilli]

Sandino Luxury Vinyl Plank Flooring | LVP Flooring | Prescott LVP (msisurfaces.com)
anybody heard of this stuff? I looked up the coretec stuff, it seems it's exactly on par with the Sandino, same specs. (same price too!)
COREtec Pro Plus 7" Rigid Core Vinyl Planks | Waterproof Planks (flooringinc.com)

 

[highup]

ANOTHER question: How to get up 22 year old vinyl tile (2mm?) that is STUCK to the concrete floor like it is covalent-bonded? The tile is so brittle when I try and peel it up, it just shatters.

Before you'd want to take that up you need to find out if it contains asbestos. If you're sure of the date, it's probably a composition vinyl. If it was stuck that good they wouldn't want to take it up in the first place.

 

[C.J.]

The beauty of floating floors is you can install them over top of other floors (like your brittle tiles). Nobody needs to be breathing asbestos so either have the tiles and accompanying adhesive tested for asbestos before you demo them or simply install your new floor right over the top.

Yes to vapor barrier. It’s cheap insurance against moisture problems down the road but you also wouldn’t be the first person to disregard that advice and not use one either. Your call.

As far as your cabinets go, they are considered a built in permanent part of the apartment. Why would you install a floating floor underneath of something permanent. You’re creating more work for yourself down the road unless you plan on changing the cabinets every time you change the floors. Secondly, your cabinets won’t be as solid as they would be if they were installed directly on solid ground. LVP with padding will compress and sink slightly over time under the weight of the cabinets and countertops. Now you’re possibly jeopardizing the countertops by allowing movement in the cabinets. Sure you’ll screw the cabinets to the walls but we all know they will settle. I know what I’ve done on countertops in apartments when I was younger, you can only imagine that similar things will happen on your countertops as well. So do yourself a favor and make sure they are solidly mounted on and to permanent surfaces.

After saying all that you can still run your floor underneath your cabinets and maybe nothing will ever come from it but that’s not what those of us that do this for a living would recommend.

 

[Commercial Floor Rep]

All floating floors expand and contract and so does the building over the course of an annual weather cycle. However, they move at different rates and so must be allowed to move independently of one another. The expansion space between the floating floor an any permanent vertical obstruction such as a wall or a cabinet allows for the floor to move independently of the structure.

The specific difference between the cabinets and the heavy appliances is that the cabinets are attached to either the wall or the subfloor. This means they will move with the building not with the flooring as Chris (@C.J. ) stated. The appliances, while heavy, are not permanently attached to the structure and will move with the floor when it moves. I've had people set pianos on floating floors and as long as the weight is properly supported with the correct furniture pads (the little rubber discs that help disperse the weight over a wider area) they have no issues.

I would also encourage the use of a plastic prior to installing the floor over a concrete substrate. Depending on the age of the building it would be cheap insurance against any vapor emission problem causing odor. Keep in mind it moisture could still emit from the slab, but it would essentially stay below the plastic and keep any odors or other nasties (mold, mildew, etc.) from coming in contact with the flooring.

MSI has been around for many years. They were mainly a stone import company (mainly countertops) and expanded into porcelain and more recently, like so many other companies who have lost market share to LVT, they have begun handling a line of LVT.

Coretec (now owned by Shaw) were really the innovators who introduced this second generation of more rigid, waterproof, click-lock LVT products to the industry. They have a good track record of service and their products, while found in nearly every convenience store and flea market in North America (joking), are well made and well supported.

No manufacturer in the market is perfect. The better ones are always looking for ways to improve the product and installation systems and that's where the difference between being a decent manufacturer and a "me too" comes into play. That being said, I think either product would be acceptable for your application.

Just some perspective...

Incog and I both come from the commercial flooring world where these types of floors are extremely problematic when mis-specified and over sold. These floating, rigid, water-proof products have so many "benefits" that many mainstreet flooring retail salespeople see them as a panacea and miss key limitations such as their limitations with rolling traffic and sell them to customers for inappropriate applications and then come pointing fingers at everyone else for their mistake. So, it's easy to become frustrated with them because in our world they just simply don't live up to the demands of the environments we work in.

To complicate matters even further, the whole product category has simply gotten ridiculously flooded with private label imports who overstate the qualities of their products and it's made it difficult to discern fact from fiction even for professionals. The category is inundated with hundreds and probably more in the thousands of "manufacturers" who are simply contracting with an Asian based manufacturer to have their name put on a box and pick from a set group of "bells and whistles" that they offer to make a "unique" product. The reality is that there are few manufacturers and a ton of private label imports who hide the fact that they don't actually make their product. These companies often run at the first hint of a problem leaving us as an industry to try and resolve the mess for the end-user.

Over the past couple of years I've had to deal with "crossover" issues where both Architects and Interior Designers who have purchased these products for personal use suddenly become Apostles of the category without fully understanding the limitations of the product in commercial applications and have specified huge projects where the product is entirely inappropriate and will fail. This is happening with ever increasing frequency and it's not a pleasant experience to have to tell someone in those positions that they simply have made a huge mistake. Some will "forge ahead bravely" right into the oncoming train wreck that is about to ensue.

Hope that helps provide some background and I wish you the best with your project!

 

[BroncoBilli]

Hm. some interesting tidbits there. Yeah, I talked to the guy who worked at the MSI warehouse, and he basically grinned and said, "You know there are only a few actual manufacturers, right? Buy whatever you can get at the cheapest price that has a sales rep that you trust and will back you up. Good luck because that's impossible to find." Nice honesty.

Why would I want to put the flooring under the cabinets? when I KNOW the cabinets will 'sink'? I was hoping that even if they did 'sink', it would only be 1mm or so, and if it's just that much, do I care? The reason I'd put the flooring under the cabinets would be "clean lines", but y'all are scaring me so much, I think I will just put the cabinets on the subfloor and call it good. Sigh.

Don't feel like putting the LVP on top of tile, because the tile is only in the kitchen, and i want to extend the LVP out into the hallway/etc. There will be a mismatch in height by a few mm. I was thinking of how to remedy this and the only thing I can think of is to put 'padding' down in the rest of the unit that's the same height as the tile in the kitchen. Is that assumption correct? I don't want a height bump of a couple mm.

 

[C.J.]

Clean lines, no problem. Shim your cabinets up high enough for the LVP to freely slip underneath. 3/8”? 1/2”? Set your shims back 1/2” from the edge of the cabinets so your LVP can freely slide around and do whatever the hell LVP does yet is not locked in in any way. Now you can set your toe skins tight to the LVP and voila you have clean lines. As far as transitioning from the tiles to non tiles, most guys would float that out and install over it. Get a quality Portland based cement floor patch and float it. Ardex feather finish, Mapei, Uzin, even Henry’s will do the trick and is something that is done all the time.