How to Install Luxury Vinyl Plank Floor

Get a great-looking new floor in i day

Fourth dimension

A full day

Complexity

Intermediate

Cost

$101–250

Introduction

Luxury vinyl (LV) is tough and good-looking—and the easiest floor textile you'll e'er install. These tips and tricks will help you get the job done right.

Tools Required

Luxury vinyl floor (LVP) is like to canvass vinyl, but information technology's thicker, more durable and easier to install. Information technology comes in tiles and planks, merely this article covers planks only, and uses a product called Adura LockSolid. Information technology's a floating floor which means it isn't fastened to the subfloor—it just lies there.

Luxury vinyl is the fastest-growing category in the flooring industry. LVP starts at about a couple of dollars per foursquare foot, similar in price to medium-form laminate. It'due south available at flooring stores and home centers.

Project step-by-stride (ix)

Step i

Sand Downwards the High Spots

  • Detect the high and low spots on woods subfloors with a straightedge.
    • Note: The floor height should non rise or drop more than 1/8 inch over the span of iv feet.
  • Sand down the high spots with a chugalug sander equipped with a coarse-grit belt.
    • Annotation: This is a dusty chore, and so turn off your furnace to avert spreading dust all over the house, and wearable a dust mask.
    • Pro tip: Utilize the coarsest sanding belt you can find, such every bit 40- or lx-dust.

Footstep 2

Fill in the Low Spots

  • Fill the low spots with flooring patch, and plumage it out with a trowel.
    • Pro tip: Avoid self-leveling floor patch. The flooring doesn't have to exist level; it just has to be smooth.

Begin and End with Half a Plank or More than

If y'all lay the planks parallel to the longest wall as you're installing vinyl plank flooring, you'll end up making fewer cuts. But don't outset that showtime row with full planks without figuring out how wide your last row is going to be. Neither the start nor the final row should exist ripped downwardly much smaller than one-half a plank.

Measure the width of the room, and divide information technology by the width of the exposed portion of the plank earlier you kickoff installing vinyl plank floor. For example, if your room measures 123 in., and your flooring is 5.75 in. wide, yous'd divide 123 by five.75, which is 21.39. That is, it would take 21.39 planks to complete the flooring. Because this .39 represents less than half the width of a plank, y'all would want to cutting down the first plank past an inch or and then to increment the size of the last plank.

Pace 3

Undercut Doorjambs

  • Trim jambs and casing and then you can slide the flooring underneath.
    • Pro tip: An aquiver multi-tool works great. Apply a pocket-sized scrap of floor every bit a guide.

Step 4

Leave an Expansion Gap Along the Walls

  • Insert shims to create about a 1/four-inch to 3/8-inch gap between the flooring and the walls.
    • Note: These gaps allow the flooring to aggrandize freely with temperature changes.

Pace five

Snap the Planks Together

  • Snap the planks in the first row together end to end.
  • Slide the tongue of the first plank on the second row into the groove of the showtime row at a low angle and lay it on the flooring.
  • Install the second and subsequent planks in each row by locking the ends together, and and so you work your way down the plank, pushing the tongue into the groove as yous become.
    • Pro tip: It helps to twist and bend each plank into place.

Watch Your Floor Height

New floor raises or lowers the concluding elevation of the floor, which can create unexpected issues. Hither are some things to keep in mind:

Jambs
If you're pulling out old flooring that is thicker than your new stuff, you'll stop up with gaps under the doorjambs. To prevent that, you could cover the subfloor with a layer of 1/4-inch underlayment to heighten the height of the entire flooring.

Dishwasher
In most cases, there's enough space above the dishwasher so that yous can raise the floor level a piffling and still reinstall the dishwasher. But bank check the gap between the meridian of the dishwasher and the countertop first but to exist certain.

Stairs
Be conscientious when changing flooring that butts up to a flight of stairs. Building codes allow no more than a 3/eight-inch divergence between the heights of the lowest and tallest stair risers. Irresolute the floor meridian at the elevation or lesser of stairs will alter riser heights and could create a trip take a chance.

Existing canvass vinyl and rug
If your kitchen flooring is canvas vinyl and the dining room is carpet, don't forget that the sheet vinyl volition have a 1/iv-inch underlayment beneath it, but the carpet won't. If y'all want to install LV flooring in both, you'll take to remove the underlayment in the kitchen or add together some to the dining room.

Stride 6

Stagger the Seams

  • Stagger the seams at least 6 inches, and don't start or end whatsoever row with a plank less than 6 inches broad.
    • Pro tip: Open several boxes at once and mix them up to ensure a varied pattern.

Step 7

Tap in the End Planks

  • Hook the pull bar onto the end of the piece, and tap stubborn seams closed.

Pace 8

Install Bridge Molding

  • Cover the expansion gap betwixt the flooring and the base of operations trim.
    • Pro tip: Don't smash into the flooring—that volition prevent the flooring from expanding freely.

Effectually the Doorjambs: Planks Parallel to Openings

Land the seam in the door opening
It'southward easier to work away from door openings than into them, just sometimes that's not an pick. When working parallel to a door, make sure the seam on the row that intersects the jamb lands inside the door opening. Mark and cut the beginning plank, then tap it into place using a scrap of flooring and a tapping block.

Curve the second plank into identify
Mark and cut the second plank to fit, and so slide it under the jamb. Bend it up in the centre so y'all can lock information technology into place. This is some other situation where the flexibility of this product comes in handy. The larger this second plank is, the easier it is to work with.

Around the Doorjambs: Planks Perpendicular to Openings

Tap the first plank under the jamb
Sometimes you lot'll have to cutting around jambs while laying the planks perpendicular to a door opening. This is easy if the door opening falls on the aforementioned side equally you started your rows. Only marker and cut the showtime plank to size and tap it under the jamb with a tapping block.

Tap the end plank in sideways
It's trickier to piece of work around a jamb when the door opening is located at the end of the rows. One solution is to mark and cut the end plank to size, and tap it in forth the end groove of the previous plank. Y'all may non be able to lock it into place without removing the bottom lip on the plank yous're snapping information technology into. If y'all remove more 6 in. of the lip, use seam sealer to mucilage the planks together. Buy a bottle of seam sealer for about ten dollars from your flooring supplier.

Pace 9

Install Shoe Molding

  • Once your flooring is downwardly, install shoe molding to cover the expansion gap between the flooring and the base trim.
  • Shoot 1-1/iv-inch cease nails through the shoe and into the base of operations trim.
    • Pro tip: Be conscientious not to pin the flooring downwardly in the procedure. Finish the molding to match the trim, not the flooring.

Originally Published: September 23, 2022