Durable and cheap flooring advice

[Robert Engel]

There may be other kinds, but the vinyl plank we had installed requires sealing and periodic finish application. We think it will require finish twice a year. We got it b/c we wanted something waterproof.

[Jim Becker]

Zachary, it sounds like you got a nice deal! You may want to be proactive and and calculate your actual sq ft need plus a comfortable contingency and see about sourcing any additional material as soon as practical. Colors/styles sometimes come and go and if matching throughout is important, be sure you have what you need now, even though you do not intend to physically install for awhile.

[Jerome Stanek]

If you do need more put the new stuff in closets

[Rick Potter]

...and use the 'extra' stuff you got with it in the bathroom, or bedroom.

[Tom M King]

This type does not require any future sealing. They're good at keeping the color consistent too. I ordered some to do part of a house we weren't intending to when we did some of the rooms a couple of years before, and even though there were no similar numbers in the batch numbers on the boxes, it was a perfect match.

It is also waterproof. Installation is not as easy to snap together like laminate because it's made to a little bit of an interference tolerance. It's not bad though-just takes some persuasion with the beater block and mallet. I tested it with standing water for several days, and none got down into the joints.

[Zachary Hoyt]

Thank you all for the advice. I do need to do a detailed floor space analysis at some point. It's around 800-850 from the rough numbers, but there are areas that will not be floored, like under the stairs, under the kitchen cabinets, under the woodstove etc. Possibly also where the basement access hatch is. The bedrooms are 8x9 and 9x9 so I have more than enough of the other stuff to do one of them. Each bedroom has a closet, but they are about 18"x30" so I could just put in a piece of painted plywood for the floors to match the baseboards. If I have enough I'll do it all the same, but I don't mind doing one room differently if needed. It's good to know that it can be installed backward, I was thinking about that, or trying to measure back from a chalk line to line it up in the hallway and the bedroom. I found a part number on the random boxes and found that they are Shaw Primavera which HD used to sell for $4 something a square foot, but are now NLA from them. It sounds like they would be plenty good enough for who this house is going to be for, as the saying is.

[Tom M King]

Estwing is normally my first choice, but I ended up liking this Vaughn mallet best for this flooring. Sometimes it needs a bump to get the mating parts together before you rotate it down. The white side of this is perfect. You can bump it too hard though, and damage an edge, so it needs to be close to going together before you bump it.

Either face works fine on the beating block. I had about 3500 feet to cover, so got a feel for it by the time I was finished.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/VAUGHAN-24-...B&gclsrc=aw.ds


Even multimillion dollar lake houses are using this for flooring here. All of them are intended for rentals, and it's proven to take abuse, and still look good.

[Tom M King]

I used these tapping blocks, and didn't want anything better

https://www.amazon.com/Bullet-Tools-...st_sto_dp&th=1

[Zachary Hoyt]

I have a couple of old mallets with red and green replaceable rubber faces that my grandfather gave me when I was about 5 or 10 along with some other hand tools. One is much bigger and heavier than the other. I'll have to experiment with how to tap, and try to learn from my mistakes. I saw on the installation video from the manufacturer that they used a flat bar with a 90 degree bend at each end to tap the last board in a row, so I'll have to get one of those, and some of those little black spacer things, but I won't be ready to install this floor till June anyway, or maybe even July, so I've got some time left to figure out the details of the plan.

[Tom M King]

Don't buy this tool. It bends too easily for the Coretec flooring. It's for the last pieces that you can't get the tapping block on. I ended up just using a Wonder bar off the baseboard. They make better ones, but I only discovered this was too soft too late to order a good one. The Wonder bar worked fine.

https://www.amazon.com/Heavy-Vinyl-F...s%2C77&sr=8-65

I bought a shear, which is great for cutting near where you need to without making a mess, but for a small job, I'd just use a mitersaw, and tablesaw.

After getting your first run of board down, run four or five rows at the time. Saves a lot of walking back and forth.

[Tom M King]

I think the red and green heads make be too hard to directly tap an edge with. That white one on the Vaughn is perfect.

[Zachary Hoyt]

Thanks, that's good to know. I'll see about a Vaughn mallet next time I go to Lowes. I agree about using saws for this small job, it should go pretty quickly. I don't mind a bit of dust, as long as I can keep it away from the face of the floor so it doesn't clog the tongue and groove.

[Rick Potter]

You have to do better than the 'PRO' installer my rental management firm hired to put in vinyl planks in a rental house I have. They removed the old carpet, then installed the soft vinyl right over a dirty floor. I even had a nail that was laying on the floor come up through the new stuff.

I asked the installers about their experience level. "Quien sabe, it's our first time".

The floor was redone by my choice of installer, paid for by the management firm.

[Zachary Hoyt]

I'm sure I can do better than that, anyhow. I have been wondering how smooth the subfloor should be. Most of the house has two layers of old tongue and groove softwood boards, but the kitchen will be new plywood once it has a floor at all. I wonder if I should put down luan or some other kind of thin plywood to smooth out the surface in the main house. The planks I have are 15/32" thick, so they should be relatively robust, I imagine.

[Jim Becker]

That's sad to hear, Rick...installing ANY kind of floor requires careful cleaning and prep. Sheesh...