Which vinyl plank brands are good and which are bad?

[zannej]

I am planning to get some vinyl plank flooring for my kitchen, hallways, and laundry room. I need it to have a nonslip texture but be relatively easy to clean. I want something easy to install that does not require glue-- some sort of click-lock floating floor.

Anyway, which brands out there are good and are there any to avoid? Any lines within brands that stand out as good or any that are notoriously bad?

I'm also debating whether to get separate underlayment or look for something that already has an underlayment.

Price is an issue-- we don't want to pay too much. We want the best bang for our buck, but obviously we don't want to get something that is poor quality just because it is the cheapest.

So, any suggestions?

 

[Ken]

Check out Core Tec Plus from US Floors. I swear by the stuff. No additional underlayment needed.

 

[zannej]

Thanks, Ken. Is it sold at any of the big box stores? I'm about an hour away from Lowes, Home Depot, Sutherlands, and Surplus Warehouse. I don't know about other places selling flooring though. There are a few very small places but when I've gone in, the employees were rather rude and the prices were very high.

 

[Ken]

Definitely NOT at a box store. If you look them up online you can find a retailer in your area.

 

[zannej]

Hmm.. I get an error page when I try to view the list of dealers. Bummer.

Although.. maybe that is the link for people who are dealers to click on? I'm not seeing anything called "store locator". It could be the format and I'm just missing it.

 

[Ken]

Should be something that says find a dealer right on the US homepage

 

[zannej]

Yeah, when I click Dealers I get:
Error processing request

The MAS200 ISAPI library generated the following error while processing your request.

Unable to establish a connection (4)
ISAPI Thread Variables

Server

myusfloors.com

Port

80

Agent

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/35.0.1916.153 Safari/537.36

Redirect

http://VS-USFLOORS01:2953

 

[Nick]

Try this . the link to the locator is on the right .

http://www.usfloorsllc.com/

 

[zannej]

Wow. The internet hates me this week:

Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.

Please try searching again here...

Or, take a look at Archives and Categories

Meanwhile I'm still fighting with FedEx about getting my snap ring.

 

[rugaddict]

ive had nothing but good experiences with congoleum endurance plank

 

[zannej]

I remember hearing of Congoleum. I had wanted a specific Congoleum Ultima vinyl sheet for my bathroom, but it was too pricey. I ended up with a pattern I didn't really like of some off brand (no idea what it is) from Surplus Warehouse. It looks better in the room than I'd expected though.

I'll have to look up the Congoleum one.
Thanks!

I just now remembered that one of my neighbors (my good neighbor) used to be in the rug business. He put in the rug and carpet in my house when we moved back. He had to close his business and drives a schoolbus now. I don't think he ever had vinyl plank though. I might be able to pick his brain about some stuff though. Maybe he'll know more about the self-leveling flooring stuff than I do.

 

[zannej]

Ok, so we got the floor cleared up enough that I could get pictures of the paint spill from my doofusaurus brother. Apparently at one point months after the spill, he tried to scrape up some paint with a metal putty knife, but it was still wet and he didn't wipe the putty knife off so he ruined it... Some trash and stuff really stuck to it. I have some scrapers that I will have to use on it when my stomach isn't giving me trouble.

I'm planning to replace the parquet flooring, but I'm wondering if its possible to salvage any of it. Like, if I clean it up well enough, do you think someone else could re-use it? I'm thinking of saving some of the undamaged stuff for some sort of project maybe..

This is what was originally in my back hallway and laundry room, but the tenants totally destroyed it. It was actually a nice looking floor at one time.

(I plan to get a short stool to sit on and clean up the cabinets and get everything all nice and pretty once I'm feeling better).

 

[Nick]

http://www.usfloorsllc.com/products/natural-cork-collection/traditional-cork-plank/

I have to sell some of it tomorrow . Pro Source carries it .

Does that stuff come with nosing for steps Ken ?

Not suppose to shrink, or expand .

 

[Ken]

I believe US Floors makes all of their transitions for the cork out of oak and stains them to match.

 

[Ernesto]

http://www.usfloorsllc.com/products/natural-cork-collection/traditional-cork-plank/

I have to sell some of it tomorrow . Pro Source carries it .

Does that stuff come with nosing for steps Ken ?

Not suppose to shrink, or expand .

Comes in stained bamboo.

 

[Nick]

Thanks E . Pro Source says you can use it on a outside deck. Don't know if i buy that .

 

[Ernesto]

Not according to the installation guidelines. They are same as hardwood but then you also are dealing with a HDF coreboard so it can't get wet.
And if you get some transitions with some back ordered don't depend on the back ordered ones coming in the same color. Just went through that last month with those people.

 

[Ernesto]

http://www.usfloorsllc.com/products/usfloors-technical-documents/

 

[Nick]

Thanks E . I saw it somewhere on their site that it didn't expand , or swell under normal conditions . I don't consider a deck , or that lady's house with the high R/h, and dew point Normal.

Going to be wasting my time tomorrow .

 

[Ernesto]

I saw it somewhere on their site that it didn't expand , or swell under normal conditions

Nothing does under normal "controlled" conditions does it? Tricky wording. I think lawyers write that.