Could you really spot the difference in this sinuous parquet? Quality EVP Koreloc flooring by Kardean offers a simple floating installation. 

Vinyl in sheets, tiles or planks remains an affordable, versatile and easily installed flooring, but is it right for your project and that space?

Choosing flooring is a balancing act of aesthetics, practicality and of course a budget that may be already screaming in agony during a build, extension, or renovation. Let’s take a forensic look at this popular synthetic offered in sheets, in flexible LVP tiles, or float-able EVP with its hardcore that generally clicks right together. Always keep in mind that the print they carry is a decor layer only, containing no natural inclusions or timber veneer.

Vinyl sheet and tile and plank flooring (LVP and EVP) offers a superb price point starting at €22 sq m. Its installation following a short acclimatisation, is cheaper and faster than any other material. The finish relies on tailored, flaw-free perfection. Click fit, hardcore EVP from €49 sq m, offer the easiest self-install project. 

Otherwise, don’t skimp on professional fitting (generally offered to a price by reputable suppliers). Once sheet vinyl is cut too short to a skirting for example, you will have to live with that enraging mistake. High-quality brand choices will approach the cost (for materials at least) of honest traditional alternates, including tile and wood flooring. Skip on to our con-list and ensure you know this floor is for you.

A sandwich of a noise-dulling underlay, a filler layer, a printed decor layer, and a wear-resistant top face — even cheaper LVP vinyl is easy-care and engineered to last. Mop it, vacuum it, broadcast spray, and scrub it with the most brutal of commercial cleaning products — vinyl can take ruthless treatment and shine up like new for decades. It is generally impervious to staining, something that cannot be said of some unsealed flooring choices like quarry tile. Much vinyl flooring is removed during upgrades to a home in perfect condition. Grinding gritty dirt and intense pressure leading to punctures or tears can compromise vinyl, especially cheaper, thinner products.

Highly versatile. In glue down flexible LVP sections and rigid core EVP planks, it plays the clever pretender. Crisp and clean, used room to room, even budget sheet vinyl, cloaked in rugs, can aid visual flow in just the same way as more expensive stone, concrete, wood or engineered timber choices. Linoleum had a big presence in the art deco interior. Consider including a suitable vinyl in fabulous tiles, parquet sheeting, geometrics and repeating abstract monochromes to conjure the jazz-era on a kazoo budget.

A subtle give comfortable to walk on, with superb acoustic insulation from floor to floor. Look for a good acoustic rating in the 16dB area. Even without UFH it is still, always warm to the touch under bare feet unlike stone, ceramic or porcelain tile. Dishes are less likely to break hitting a vinyl floor (although you could say the same of rubber, engineered wood, and authentic wood flooring). Examine the textured key of the vinyl to ensure it is safe to travel over, even when wet — especially important with the elderly, children, and dogs.

Heat permeable vinyl flooring sheets or in planks with a rigid core, can be suited to UFH up to 27C. Air tightness is vital for the performance of heat-pump fed central heating with its low temperature and flow rates, and this extends from your doors, to your windows, your room’s edges, and ceilings and floor. A seamless vinyl floor can be installed with dedicated insulation, tapes, and seals to suppress unplanned air-exchanges. This work can only be undertaken and certified by a dedicated firm if you want it recorded in the heat-loss-index (HLI) for your BER and future energy surveys.

Vinyl flooring can deliver a seamless floor that can be perfectly washed down, bleached, and disinfected without compromising the materials, all but eliminating grot and any bacterial load. Between times, a vacuum or dry mop will deal with accruing dust, skin flakes, and mould spores, which is less likely to be flicked up and suspend back into the air. It’s a fantastic choice if you have anyone in the house with breathing difficulties, and can be layered up with rugs where needed upstairs and down for luxuriant toe comfort. Look for floors that use healthy plasticisers (100% ortho-phthalate free), and unlikely to off-gas VOCs, especially where you have small children and anyone with a respiratory compromise. An EU M1 label stands for low VOC emissivity in flooring

Despite the inclusion of some recycled PVC, vinyl remains environmentally problematic when it comes time to rip-’n’-tip. This last step in the cradle-to-grave cycle, rudely diminishes its sustainable standing compared to other smooth, warm flooring choices like Marmoleum, a real linoleum created with linseed oil. Currently as a sandwich of synthetic and natural materials, vinyl sheets and plank flooring, is still going to landfill in Ireland often right along with any underlay.

Quick Step, a popular brand for both vinyl and engineered flooring elements replicating stone, tile, and wood block claim worthy environmentally sympathetic production. It consists of about 40% chalk, a quarter is made from recycled PVC from their production waste, another quarter is made from virgin PVC, chlorine (common salt) and ethylene (crude oil). Does your company use a closed-loop or what’s termed a “circular-eco-system” where they are responsible for their carbon production and disposal of all industrial waste? Vinyl is a multi-layered composite, and the petro-chemical content is troubling even to its makers. Buy the most robust vinyl flooring you can afford, and keep it for decades, rather than vouching for a five-year fashion fix.

Vinyl flooring can look great for up to 25 years, but aside from piece replacement in planks and tiles, it cannot be refinished. Cheaper choices like LVP will offer a five-year guarantee. Tear it, melt it, ding it with spiked heels, and that damage is there to stay. In sheet vinyl that can’t be pieced out, this can be a disaster, forcing you to move the furniture to hide the damage. With cheaper products, the digitally printed pattern under a poor wear-layer, be it a parquet wood faux floor, or apparent porcelain tiling, can wear in high traffic areas.

For cramped quarters buy the best quality you can afford or invest in solid or engineered wood which can be sanded back a couple of times over its lifetime.

Look for a really tough wear-layer covering the printed image that makes up the colour and design. An AC rating signals its resistance to abrasion, impact, and stains. AC2-AC3 is perfect for domestic general and high traffic areas. Stone plastic composite (SPC) vinyl products offer very high damage resistance.

Not suited to wet rooms

Sheet vinyl can lift in high humidity areas, including wet-rooms, showing as the edges ping free, potentially forming leaks and pooling on the sub-floor. Ensure the MVHR is up to the job and any low level shower tray is wicking water away close to a vinyl sheet, tile, or plank product. Loose laid vinyl rather than glued is easier to lift, but where waterproofing counts — it demands adhesive and clamping

Despite its admirable advantages and sheer good looks, vinyl is not regarded as a fine floor. Introduced in the 1940s, it was an response to the higher prices linoleum manufactured since the 1860s, which could not deliver the range of imprint, patterns and colour of this new super synthetic. In the US, vinyl sales are second only to carpet — but we can be a bit sniffy.

It is, for some, a starter floor or commercial choice for public buildings. You are unlikely to see your estate agent crow about the inclusion of vinyl sheeting as they might over polished cement with glittering aggregate inclusions, engineered wide plank flooring, or great wool-mix carpeting. Impersonating other materials, once touched, many can detect a seam-free impostor.

Confined to utility rooms and back halls, vinyl is universally acceptable and retains a proud reputation as both robust and practical.

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