Luxury Vinyl Plank flooring----any specific brands that are great (or those to avoid)

[Ottakee]

I are adding in a MIL type suite in our basement for my special needs daughter.  I know we want luxury vinyl plank flooring instead of laminate.  There are just so many different brands, styles, etc.  It will be professionally installed but ease of installation will help save me money.  I want something that looks good, is durable, easy to clean, etc. and great over cement floors in a basement.  We don't need super high end but I would rather pay now to get quality than have to replace it in a few years.

So far I have heard to Smartcore and CorTec but there are also other very high rated ones at Lowes, Home Depot, etc.

What do you have that you LOVE ( or hate)?

[alisoncooks]

We put in new floor this past spring. We went with Cali Bamboo's vinyl plank (Lowes), and while it looks fabulous...I'm not 100% sold on it. Easy to install, easy to clean, feels good underfoot. My main complaint is that it dents easily. Like, we rolled our fridge out to install flooring behind/under it, and it left "train track" dents in the already laid planks. (Not hugely noticeable unless the light hits it...but still!) We've been diligent with putting thick felt pads on all chairs and having a thick rug under the table, but I've seen some reviews that say chairs leave bad dents in the floor. Other than that, I like the look (but we'd go with real wood next time).

[Ottakee]

Thanks for the review.  These are the things I want to know.  It looks beautiful.  Hardwood is not an option due to budget and being in the basement....and kitchen and bath.  The denting is something to consider.

[PrincessMommy]

I just went through this.   The thing to look for is the mils level not just the thickness.   That is the "wear layer"- which reflects how durable it is.  Here's an article:

https://floorcritics.com/vinyl-plank-thickness/

I was looking for something for our sunroom, so it needed to deal well with extreme temps.  Most LVP only guarantee from about 50* to 85* so not a great option for sunrooms.   I finally found Lowe's SmartCore Pro brand which guarantees from -25* to over 100*.  Plus the  mils level was about 12.  It's also waterproof.  I've only had it about a month but I'm very happy with our choice.  We'll see how it performs over the winter.   It is heated, but only when we use it. - so not 24/7 like the rest of the house.   

The only thing is that it is hard to find the SmartCore Pro brand, and it has fewer styles. They have 2 others that are more readily available, but they don't have the same temperature guarantee so it didn't work for me.   I think their base SmartCore has a lower wear layer but the Smartcore Ultra should be better.   I special ordered a box of 2 styles we were interested in and laid them out on the floor to choose, and then returned the one we didn't want and special ordered the rest of the boxes.  

[alisoncooks]

FWIW, the brand I used claims a wear layer of 20 mil. So....idk. Maybe it dents easy because of the materials used inside?

[mom31257]

We put this down this summer, and we have a concrete slab foundation. We LOVE it. It feels great, cleans up easy, and we haven’t had any problems with dents as a person above said. 

It is Next Generation Flooring, Stargaze Collection, Meteor. It’s a locking plank. https://www.nextgenerationflooring.net/stargaze-collection.html

[KungFuPanda]

I went with Golden Elite. I think it’s a Canadian company, but for some odd reason I have a local showroom and distributing center near me. I was able to see everything in the showroom, place my order, and pick it up at the warehouse. The flooring was cheaper and thicker than anything I saw at Lowe’s or Home Depot.

I installed it myself, so I’d say it must be easy. I learned as I went and made mistakes, but I was able to just re-do it like a puzzle and you can’t tell it’s a diy job. It’s been on the floor for a year and a half. It has zero marks from overly long dog claws, a power wheelchair, a shower chair, and a hoyer lift. It’s very easy to clean.  I think I’ve damp-mopped it once since the summer. It just vacuums so nicely. It needs to be vacuumed now but here’s a photo for you.

I think the darker colors look more “real” but my house is has mid-century architecture and our trees can make it dark, so we went with the lightest blonde they had. I’m partial to the grays, but Dh has opinions  😒

I’m pretty surprised we have no black marks from shoes or equipment. I paid less than $1000 to do my LR/DR (which was turned into DR/Accessible bedroom)

 

Edited December 3, 2018 by KungFuPanda

[May]

Any reason you wouldn’t choose to put tile down? We debated between these two options when redoing out basement floor. Our contractor gave us the pros and cons of each. His thought was tile holds up better and the cost would be about the same between the two. We didn’t put the heated floor under the tile because we did have a budget😊 It’s not a walkout basement and not the forever home, otherwise, we would have paid the extra.

[Ottakee]

34 minutes ago, May said:

Any reason you wouldn’t choose to put tile down? We debated between these two options when redoing out basement floor. Our contractor gave us the pros and cons of each. His thought was tile holds up better and the cost would be about the same between the two. We didn’t put the heated floor under the tile because we did have a budget😊 It’s not a walkout basement and not the forever home, otherwise, we would have paid the extra.

I have problem feet and tile is terrible for me to walk on, stand on, etc for very long.  Plus it would be cold in a basement in Michigan.

[May]

2 hours ago, Ottakee said:

I have problem feet and tile is terrible for me to walk on, stand on, etc for very long.  Plus it would be cold in a basement in Michigan.

Understood😊

[kbutton]

We've installed Shaw and Mohawk. The Mohawk is in a house we sold, but it was super well regarded by the flooring store that sold us both kinds (and the flooring store gets seriously good reviews). The Shaw flooring has held up really well in our new house. The Shaw (and maybe Mohawk) were commercial grade--supposed to last longer and be more durable. We've had zero trouble with the Shaw.

FWIW, we had a lot of dents under heavy items on real hardwood in our old house, and it was fairly thick oak (more than .5 inches)!