ᐅ Vinyl Flooring: Lots of Questions

I am planning to install vinyl flooring in a new building with underfloor heating and controlled ventilation in the living room area of about 34 sqm (365 sq ft) and in all four bedrooms.

1. What is recommended here: gluing or click-lock installation?

2. Usually, gluing is recommended for new buildings, but how can a damaged glued vinyl plank be replaced in this case? Do you have any instructions for this?

3. Can glued vinyl be completely removed later to install a new floor?

4. How does vinyl react to heavy furniture?

5. Does the vinyl adhesive break down due to the temperature or moisture from the underfloor heating screed?

6. Is a 0.5 mm (0.02 inch) wear layer recommended for a family with children, or is 0.3 mm (0.01 inch) sufficient?

Thank you,

Hello Momad,

We are currently building as well, and the flooring installer will be laying about 160 m² (1,722 sq ft) of vinyl across all three floors (ground floor, upper floor, basement) next week or the week after. We have underfloor heating throughout.

Everything will be covered with vinyl except for the bathrooms, the anteroom to the basement, and the utility room.

Since we want to install the flooring without joints in all rooms on each floor, we were advised to fully glue it down. For example, for a living room of around 30 m² (323 sq ft) with large windows where sunlight hits the floor, floating installation was not recommended.

The advantage of gluing down the vinyl is that individual planks can be relatively easily replaced. This isn’t possible with floating floors. The installer explained that to replace a plank, it is heated so that the adhesive softens and the plank can be removed.

I would assume that the supply temperature of your underfloor heating likely isn’t high enough to warm the screed surface (or the surface of the levelling compound on which the adhesive lies) enough to loosen the glue.

Regarding moisture, we were told that the installer has laid vinyl in many bathrooms and that it is resistant to moisture.

I can’t say much about the wear layer right now. Since we chose three different designs, I believe the wear layer is either 3 or 5 mm (0.12 or 0.20 inches).

I should be able to share experience after we move in at the end of the month…

Best regards
Sebastian

A quick question about vinyl flooring: Does the screed need to be prepared in a new build? If yes, what needs to be done and how labor-intensive is it? Keyword: do-it-yourself work?

Baumhaus.Bau schrieb:
The advantage of gluing is that you can relatively easily replace individual planks. This is not possible with floating floors.

Actually, it is also possible with floating click vinyl; you just need to saw off the tongue and then glue it.

Regarding heavy furniture: We have had very good experiences with our vinyl flooring, both with heavy furniture and other types of wear. Our children are not exactly gentle, but so far the floor hasn’t suffered a single scratch. I even built cabinets directly on it.

@ seth:
We spoke with three independent flooring installers and heard more or less the same from all of them:
To prepare the subfloor, the "raw" screed needs to be sanded down; then a leveling compound is applied, and finally, it may be skim coated if necessary. (We have cement screed).
For us, this meant no DIY work. After all, it should look good in the end...

@uwe:
That’s true... That would be doable

Thank you for the feedback, that's great. It definitely will be vinyl and glued down.

@Sebastian: What exactly do you mean by installing without joints, or what are the benefits of that?
Which vinyl manufacturer or type (plank or tile) are you using?
My floor installer offers Amtico and Joka.