Which glue down lvp? Help!

[Klwhite]

Hi everyone, I am looking for advice for brand of lvp to fit our needs and budget.

We are moving to our next home soon (retirement) in Wisconsin. We currently have 5 active rescue dogs and need a floor that will hold up to their active play and I really don't want to worry about droplets of water /snow they may bring in the house.

In our current home we have Pergo, which has held up well, but we are going to go the lvp route this time. Glue down seems to be the best option for replacing pieces if needed and there is also a heavy rolling kitchen island that will be on top of the floor.

Can anyone recommend brands that they have seen perform well? I am most worried about scratches.. We are currently looking at Mannington Adura flex and Karndean Van Gogh line.. Honestly, I don't know what to even think any more... There are so many differing reviews... I would appreciate any help... Than

 

[highup]

A lot of the grocery stores around town have LVP, but I'm not speaking of the click together type. They are flat sheets of material that are only intended to be glued down. I've never installed one of those type but if they can hold up in a grocery store they can probably hold up in your house just fine. One thing I would look at is the price. If you see a handful of these materials for a 1.50 per square foot, and a lot of others that are 6.50 per square foot, that alone will tell you a lot. The cheap stuff is not made of the same materials as the expensive stuff. center wear layers or where layers without aluminum oxide will definitely be cheaper.
Like I said I haven't installed this material before but the bargain basement price is not what you want.
You can't install this thin, direct glue down product over OSB. You need a smooth floor such as plywood.
What is the flooring underlayment that you have down now?

 

[Klwhite]

A lot of the grocery stores around town have LVP, but I'm not speaking of the click together type. They are flat sheets of material that are only intended to be glued down. I've never installed one of those type but if they can hold up in a grocery store they can probably hold up in your house just fine. One thing I would look at is the price. If you see a handful of these materials for a 1.50 per square foot, and a lot of others that are 6.50 per square foot, that alone will tell you a lot. The cheap stuff is not made of the same materials as the expensive stuff. center wear layers or where layers without aluminum oxide will definitely be cheaper.
Like I said I haven't installed this material before but the bargain basement price is not what you want.
You can't install this thin, direct glue down product over OSB. You need a smooth floor such as plywood.
What is the flooring underlayment that you have down now?

It's going to be put over existing sheet linoleum (with skim coat) in kitchen, entry and bathrooms. Over plywood (wherever there was carpet..

 

[Commercial Floor Rep]

When searching for the most scratch resistant LVT, or really any resilient flooring, many people get hung up on wearlayer thickness. However, while this is a significant specification for the product, it's only part of the story. The wearlayer is the clear layer above the print film that contains the design (wood, stone , abstract visual, etc.).

Traditionally, industry standards are that a minimum 12mil wearlayer (mils are .001" not millimeters) is recommended for a residential installation or light commercial installation and a 20mil minimum wearlayer is recommended for commercial applications. Many of the manufacturers of the more common LVT's on the market are using urethane (sometimes called PU for polyurethane) as the basis for their wearlayer. What makes a wearlayer resist scratching is the overall hardness of the wearlayer. Hardness for materials is compared on the MOH's scale which is a scale from 1-10, 1 being the softest (talc) and 10 being the hardest (diamond). If we take urethane as a material it's going to measure at about a 2 on the MOH's scale if it is unmodified (no mineral additive). What many manufacturers will do to increase scratch resistance is to add a mineral additive such as quartzite (6-7), ceramic bead (6-8), aluminum oxide (9), and even diamond (10) to the urethane to provide greater scratch resistance. Some manufacturer's will use other chemistries for their base wearlayers as well such as acrylic or other forms of plastics such as surlyn. However urethane remains by far the most common chemistry in wearlayers.

The problem that you run into is many companies, especially on the residential side don't give a lot of detail regarding what they modify with or even if it's modified. Those manufacturers who don't modify the urethane will often times just increase the overall thickness so that when the product scratches it's less likely to effect the print film and cause a visual problem. There are products out there with 60+ mil wearlayers that are straight urethane, but at the end of the day urethane is still much softer than a modified urethane with a mineral component.

There are some ways to get clues to what type of wearlayer you're dealing with if the manufacturer doesn't explicitly state what they are using. A major one is to take a look a the maintenance instructions for the product. If they start talking about using a "restorative" product that requires "coats" to be applied chances are you're dealing with a straight urethane or a urethane that contains a softer mineral modification.

The two products you've listed are both good manufacturers' of LVT floors with long term experience in the product. Karndean uses urethane modified with what they call K-Guard enhancement. I've done some searching and can't really find an explanation of what K-Guard is but I would assume it's Karndean's proprietary name for one of the minerals listed above. Mannington's Adura products use aluminum oxide under their proprietary name of "Scratch Resist" on the residential product category.

For your circumstance I would recommend a minimum of a 20 mil wearlayer modified with ceramic bead or better. There are several commercial products that would meet the need as well that you can get an even thicker modified wearlayer from both manufacturers.

I wish you the best with your product and hope this helps with some basics to make your choice easier.

 

[Klwhite]

When searching for the most scratch resistant LVT, or really any resilient flooring, many people get hung up on wearlayer thickness. However, while this is a significant specification for the product, it's only part of the story. The wearlayer is the clear layer above the print film that contains the design (wood, stone , abstract visual, etc.).

Traditionally, industry standards are that a minimum 12mil wearlayer (mils are .001" not millimeters) is recommended for a residential installation or light commercial installation and a 20mil minimum wearlayer is recommended for commercial applications. Many of the manufacturers of the more common LVT's on the market are using urethane (sometimes called PU for polyurethane) as the basis for their wearlayer. What makes a wearlayer resist scratching is the overall hardness of the wearlayer. Hardness for materials is compared on the MOH's scale which is a scale from 1-10, 1 being the softest (talc) and 10 being the hardest (diamond). If we take urethane as a material it's going to measure at about a 2 on the MOH's scale if it is unmodified (no mineral additive). What many manufacturers will do to increase scratch resistance is to add a mineral additive such as quartzite (6-7), ceramic bead (6-8), aluminum oxide (9), and even diamond (10) to the urethane to provide greater scratch resistance. Some manufacturer's will use other chemistries for their base wearlayers as well such as acrylic or other forms of plastics such as surlyn. However urethane remains by far the most common chemistry in wearlayers.

The problem that you run into is many companies, especially on the residential side don't give a lot of detail regarding what they modify with or even if it's modified. Those manufacturers who don't modify the urethane will often times just increase the overall thickness so that when the product scratches it's less likely to effect the print film and cause a visual problem. There are products out there with 60+ mil wearlayers that are straight urethane, but at the end of the day urethane is still much softer than a modified urethane with a mineral component.

There are some ways to get clues to what type of wearlayer you're dealing with if the manufacturer doesn't explicitly state what they are using. A major one is to take a look a the maintenance instructions for the product. If they start talking about using a "restorative" product that requires "coats" to be applied chances are you're dealing with a straight urethane or a urethane that contains a softer mineral modification.

The two products you've listed are both good manufacturers' of LVT floors with long term experience in the product. Karndean uses urethane modified with what they call K-Guard enhancement. I've done some searching and can't really find an explanation of what K-Guard is but I would assume it's Karndean's proprietary name for one of the minerals listed above. Mannington's Adura products use aluminum oxide under their proprietary name of "Scratch Resist" on the residential product category.

For your circumstance I would recommend a minimum of a 20 mil wearlayer modified with ceramic bead or better. There are several commercial products that would meet the need as well that you can get an even thicker modified wearlayer from both manufacturers.

I wish you the best with your product and hope this helps with some basics to make your choice easier.

Very helpful.. Appreciate it! Is there a commercial product that meets that criteria you can steer me to? I Specifically brand? Line? Thank you in advance!

 

[highup]

When searching for the most scratch resistant LVT, or really any resilient flooring, many people get hung up on wearlayer thickness. However, while this is a significant specification for the product, it's only part of the story. The wearlayer is the clear layer above the print film that contains the design (wood, stone , abstract visual, etc.).

Traditionally, industry standards are that a minimum 12mil wearlayer (mils are .001" not millimeters) is recommended for a residential installation or light commercial installation and a 20mil minimum wearlayer is recommended for commercial applications. Many of the manufacturers of the more common LVT's on the market are using urethane (sometimes called PU for polyurethane) as the basis for their wearlayer. What makes a wearlayer resist scratching is the overall hardness of the wearlayer. Hardness for materials is compared on the MOH's scale which is a scale from 1-10, 1 being the softest (talc) and 10 being the hardest (diamond). If we take urethane as a material it's going to measure at about a 2 on the MOH's scale if it is unmodified (no mineral additive). What many manufacturers will do to increase scratch resistance is to add a mineral additive such as quartzite (6-7), ceramic bead (6-8), aluminum oxide (9), and even diamond (10) to the urethane to provide greater scratch resistance. Some manufacturer's will use other chemistries for their base wearlayers as well such as acrylic or other forms of plastics such as surlyn. However urethane remains by far the most common chemistry in wearlayers.

The problem that you run into is many companies, especially on the residential side don't give a lot of detail regarding what they modify with or even if it's modified. Those manufacturers who don't modify the urethane will often times just increase the overall thickness so that when the product scratches it's less likely to effect the print film and cause a visual problem. There are products out there with 60+ mil wearlayers that are straight urethane, but at the end of the day urethane is still much softer than a modified urethane with a mineral component.

There are some ways to get clues to what type of wearlayer you're dealing with if the manufacturer doesn't explicitly state what they are using. A major one is to take a look a the maintenance instructions for the product. If they start talking about using a "restorative" product that requires "coats" to be applied chances are you're dealing with a straight urethane or a urethane that contains a softer mineral modification.

The two products you've listed are both good manufacturers' of LVT floors with long term experience in the product. Karndean uses urethane modified with what they call K-Guard enhancement. I've done some searching and can't really find an explanation of what K-Guard is but I would assume it's Karndean's proprietary name for one of the minerals listed above. Mannington's Adura products use aluminum oxide under their proprietary name of "Scratch Resist" on the residential product category.

For your circumstance I would recommend a minimum of a 20 mil wearlayer modified with ceramic bead or better. There are several commercial products that would meet the need as well that you can get an even thicker modified wearlayer from both manufacturers.

I wish you the best with your product and hope this helps with some basics to make your choice easier.

Beautifully written. That's a lot of new news to me. Great input, thank you.

 

[Commercial Floor Rep]

Very helpful.. Appreciate it! Is there a commercial product that meets that criteria you can steer me to? I Specifically brand? Line? Thank you in advance!

Apologies for the delay in responding I've been buried this week. Mannington has a product in their commercial offering called City Park which is a rigid core, click-lock floating product. It has a 20mil aluminum oxide wear layer. However, it's a bit more limited in visuals than the Adura line would be. Honestly, for what you're doing the Adura Apex, Adura Max, or Adura Rigid products should all perform just fine. They would have a more realistic visual than the City Park as they have more embossing that helps give the product a bit more depth than the City Park product. We don't tend to add a lot of embossing in the commercial world as it can make cleaning in commercial applications more difficult.

I'm not as familiar with the Karndean line as it's sold differently in my market. They sell through "Agents" directly to the end-user or retailer rather than through distribution. As a result we don't really see it used residentially much here in Indiana. Where we do see it here is that it's often sold direct to several of the nursing homes in our market. It appears to perform fairly well but quite honestly since it's used commercially in those applications they use the direct-glue version of the product rather than the click-lock version. But specific to wear, which would / should be the same regardless of the format it wears well.

We don't really recommend click-lock floating floors much in commercial because they have limitations for maximum size before they have to be "broken" with an expansion molding. In many cases it's around 2500 sf. They also have maximum directional "run" lengths, typically around 50' feet in length or width, before they have to be "broken" with an expansion trim. They don't handle rolling traffic such as hospital beds or machinery well and this can cause the locking mechanism to fail or become unlocked. Lastly, given their floating nature and the need for an expansion space around the entire perimeter of the floor they don't really "play well" with commercial maintenance and disinfection protocols in many commercial applications. This typically involves flooding the floor with cleaning solution which could find it's way underneath the flooring via the expansion space at the edge or possibly through the locking mechanism itself. These disinfecting solutions have to "dwell" on the floor for 10-15 minutes in a wet state which essentially means they are flooding the floor with this solution and letting it sit. Then it's rinsed (read more water). The end result being a high probability of getting something underneath that floor that could potentially grow mold or mildew.

Sorry for that long explanation, but my point in writing it was that as a result of the limitations there aren't a lot of heavy click-lock commercial products. With your plan to lay over existing flooring, this pretty much dictates you use a floating floor. Again, I feel secure in saying that a 20 mil modified urethane will perform well for you and your family of pups.

Wish you the best and let us know how you progress.

P.S. Thanks @highup. Always glad to help where I can.