It’s been decades since a water-resistant flooring alternative became available to the average homeowner; at least, one that retains the attractive appearance of wood, without the susceptibility to the indoor elements. With countless variations to properly match your interior décor, wood vinyl flooring is the go-to replacement for traditional options.
Vinyl Wood Flooring is Durable
The operational lifetime of properly-installed vinyl flooring runs into the decades. Of course, this depends largely on the starting quality too, so second-hand sheets may already be partially into their lifetimes. As such, it is imperative to ascertain the age beforehand. Despite this enhanced durability, vinyl flooring is actually quite a bit softer than pure wood or tile, since there’s a supportive layer added during the manufacturing process. This has the added effect of minimizing fatigue for long standing periods. For exceptional durability, there’s also fiberglass-reinforced vinyl flooring on the market.
Getting Started with Vinyl
The first thing with vinyl is getting the installation procedure right from the very beginning. Unless you have experience with this, it’s best to have a professional to do it so that she can ensure the subfloor is level and completely dry. Make no mistake, however; installing vinyl wood flooring can be very much a do-it-yourself endeavor. The only real issues may arise during the preparation stages; however, there are plenty of YouTube videos and forums posts on DIY boards to guide you through the entire process.
Advantages of Vinyl over Other Options
Vinyl flooring is water-resistant, as mentioned; hence the importance of the preparation process to ensure that moisture doesn’t seep in via other methods such as poor sealing. IF you have children or clumsy adults living in your home, then you’ll appreciate the stain-resistance of the top layer. Since it isn’t permeable, this also makes the floor very easy to clean of spills – chemical treatments are never necessary, and sometimes, just a wet mop will do the job.
A Host of Design Styles from Which to Choose
With the improvements in technology, you can now obtain vinyl wood flooring in a huge range of styles to match your existing décor. For example, there’s the dark, almost ruby coloring of saddle oak, or the elegant, muted color of caramel walnut, or the evocative nostalgia of the always popular classic chestnut and natural hickory. For a shift from earth tones, you can opt for web gray oak, light grey walnut, whitewashed oak, or American walnut. For a quaint, countryside home with a more traditional décor, autumn hickory-infused vinyl wood flooring works wonders.
A few things to keep in mind with this type of flooring is that it isn’t feasible to try and repair it once it starts racking up damage. Because of its elite durability, this damage usually happens when the preparation process was subpar, and there was grit underneath the top layer because the subfloor wasn’t thoroughly cleaned.
Additionally, you should avoid placing vinyl down on an underlying rubber mat, because of the propensity for unwanted chemical reactions between the rubber and the phthalates, cadmium and brominated flame retardants in some vinyl coverings. Of course, many manufacturers have phased out vinyl containing these chemicals, so it may not be an issue with your particular brand.
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Author’s Bio
Wendy Dessler
Title: Super-Connector at OutreachMama
Wendy is a super-connector with OutreachMama and Youth Noise NJ who helps businesses find their audience online through outreach, partnerships, and networking. She frequently writes about the latest advancements in digital marketing and focuses her efforts on developing customized blogger outreach plans depending on the industry and competition. You can contact her on Twitter.
4 Comments
Great info. It’s something I considered long ago but ended up moving out before I ever got the chance to really make a decision 🙂
@MoneyReasons – We considered vinyl flooring for our manufactured home, but were told that because we have a double-wide, we couldn’t cover both halves with vinyl. So, we went with vinyl in the bathrooms and utility room, laminate in the living areas and carpet in the bedrooms. It will be great (if we ever move in. 😉 )
I put vinyl wood in my laundry room. It looks really nice. I considered it for my kitchen but there were a lot of imperfections in the subfloor so we ended up going with laminate.
@Carrie – Vinyl flooring can look really great and is a terrific option for laundry rooms and bathrooms. We also considered it in the living room of our manufactured home, but we were told that it wouldn’t cover the gap between the two parts of the house. So, we’re going with laminate as well.