Why I Hate Luxury Vinyl Flooring (LVT and LVP)

Luxury vinyl flooring has become the most popular choice for homeowners and has quickly taken over the flooring industry. I fell for these claims and installed luxury vinyl planks in my home a year ago. It was one of the WORST decisions I’ve made in my home remodeling experience. Several planks are buckling, seams are broken and bulging and the top veneer is peeling off.

Chapters
0:00 Introduction
0:58 Luxury Vinyl Flooring
1:46 How it's made
2:26 Why LVP LVT is so popular
4:03 My experience
5:12 Mistakes to avoid
7:03 Sponsor
7:42 Alternatives
8:33 Conclusion

Why Luxury Vinyl Plank and Luxury Vinyl Tile has gotten so popular.
1 - Pandemic: Residential remodelers, like myself and many of you, account for over 50% of the total US flooring demand. Since the 2020 pandemic, home renovation projects have surged including replacing large expanses of old, dusty carpet in older homes with hard surface flooring.

2 - affordability: While this is marketed as “luxury” planks, it’s actually one of the cheapest products available. Besides its low raw cost, LVP is also DIY-friendly, eliminating the need to hire contractors. With just a few simple tools and a YouTube instructional video you can revamp the entire flooring in your home by yourself.

3 - Influence of social media trends. We’re constantly bombarded with ads across all social media platforms telling us to feel dissatisfied with our dated gray flooring, laminate and tile.

4 - LVP is also very easy to clean. While the long fibers of carpet can collect dust easily, vinyl flooring can be kept dust-free with a vacuum, and damp mop. LVP is also waterproof, making it suitable for areas prone to moisture like kitchens, bathrooms, basements and laundry rooms.

I chose to buy and install luxury vinyl flooring for all those reasons. We bought this fixer-upper home in 2021 and decided to tackle all the remodeling work ourselves. This included replacing the old, stained carpet and the orange laminate flooring with luxury vinyl planks.

While I believed it would be durable and easy to maintain, it completely failed in this regard. Just a few months in, the floor started buckling, developed hollow spots, and the weight of chairs caused the seams to split, which was unacceptable. The veneer bubbled on the short ends of the planks and the top PVC layer has begun peeling off.

I followed all the installation instructions including leaving a 1/4” expansion gap around the perimeter of each room. In my opinion, the vinyl has expanded and contracted more than laminate MDF flooring I've used in the past. There has been a significant movement in the flooring between summer and winter. I call BS on the supposed durability and ease of maintenance of LVP.

In my opinion, LVP is not going to last you a long time. This is essentially cheap, disposable, plastic flooring. The thin, flexible planks you see people installing on social media are only meant to last 3 years of light use. Thicker planks may last you around 5 years. At the end of their lives, this flooring is heading straight to the landfill. While pure vinyl can theoretically be melted down or turned into chips, these are hybrids. The underlayment would need to be stripped off and the Stone Plastic Composite would need to be separated from the top vinyl layer. I would not consider this to be eco-friendly.

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#diy #luxuryvinylplank #flooring #remodel #sustainability #scam

[macmurfyjka]

I helped my father to fit out my grandfather’s apartment with Vinyl plank flooring in the main living space and Vinyl tiles in the kitchen. The original floor was carpet over concrete. It was misery scraping that padding off of the floor. But once complete, we couldn’t have been happier.

We bought the thick, premium stuff with the thickest joints and exterior membrane as well as built in underlayment. That stuff was heavy. It made tile seem light.

Even after ten years of hard use, including one tenant having a dog (German Shepherd) the stuff was almost like new. I hit the few deep scratches with a heat gun to flatten out the turned up edges of the dogs claw marks and picked out the few metal shards that embedded themselves into the floor. Presto! One would need to run their hand along the floor to find the blemishes.

It sounds like you bought poor planks, or had a floor issue, installed the flooring poorly. Not every flooring is perfect, but I would take Vinyl plank over MDF laminate any day.

[brucejohnson]

I needed to redo my wood floors. They were an absolute mess. I was about ready to install LVP, but I hated the idea of covering my hardwood because I have REAL SOLID 3/4 inch HICKORY floors. I finally got a reasonable quote for refinishing, and decided give refinishing a try. It was a hassle to be out of the house for a week, but the result was incredible. After refinishing, they look just like new. They are thick enough that they can be sanded and refinished many more times. I think a lot of the problems people have with flooring can be traced to the subfloor. If your house has settled, or the floors are uneven with poor support, you're going to have problems with any layer you put on top. But nobody budgets to repair and flatten their subfloor, they just throw a new top layer on and hope to cover up any problems underneath.

[kendalgoodson]

Whenever furniture breaks a joint, it is a good bet that the floor was not properly prepped before installation. The floor has to be dead flat and smooth before installation. Secondly, a better quality plank is HEAVY and will resist movement when it is properly joined.

[economicist]

I've seen enough "luxury apartment" complexes in my life to not trust the word "luxury" in any marketing context.

[JC-sguo]

Look, when I was a little girl (I'm 62), most people had wood floors in their homes because that was the product that was used for flooring except in the kitchen and bathrooms. It was not considered a luxury item. You didn't have much of a choice. That was what builders put in homes. Then everybody started getting carpet and would cover the beautiful wood floors with carpet. I remember being in the 3rd grade and my friend bragging about having shag carpet and I was embarrassed because we only had wood floors. Funny now, but it's all perspective. We eventually moved to a house with carpet and I thought we had arrived. Years later the carpet was taken up and what a delightful surprise to see those beautiful wood floors that had been hidden. We're manipulated to believe whatever product is the trend at the time is what we have to have to keep up with the Joneses. It's all just material. I currently have lvp and love it, so easy, and no problems.

[imgeeku]

As a General Contractor who has to deal with customers years down the road I no longer install LVP. In every price category there is a superior choice in laminate or engineered. Even if all of them haven't failed, the higher rate of failure is enough for me to stay away.

[sivacrom]

Buy once, cry once: 3/4 hardwood floor. Sand (or just buff) & refinish once every 15-20 years. Otherwise it’s barely any more maintenance than LVP. Expensive? Yes. But it’s 100+ years of beauty and character.

[tamil]

Overall excellent video Belinda but but painting a whole class of a product with a broad brush is a mistake. I installed a more expensive, thicker, higher quality LVP in my home 10 years ago and still looks brand new. Mine had an attached pad.

[jtrocksman]

I think the other problem is the WIDE difference in quality between cheaper LVP and higher grade. I've been very happy with the stuff I bought 2 years ago and its held up incredibly well. My mother went with a cheaper product and absolutely regrets it with the same problems you describe. (That said its much easier to justify spending more when your whole house is only 800 sq ft vs her much larger home.) I also had many problems in the rental I lived in previously where the flooring warps and cracks like crazy when exposed to the florida sun over months. I've generally found that the skinnier (side to side not thickness) the "plank, " the better it holds up but that could just be because the skinnier ones are generally more expensive per sq ft.

[dbackscott]

We had rigid core vinyl plank flooring (“Lifeproof” brand) installed throughout the majority of our house in 2018. It’s been great, and it still looks really good. We’ve only had a few issues with how the transition strips were installed, but that’s hardly the fault of the manufacturer.

[GazeboPelt]

We installed LVP throughout our entire basement in ~2019, and have had no problems at all. It is also our living room, so there is heavy furniture, a treadmill, etc laying on it and being moved around. I don't recall the thickness, but it had a thin cork underlayment attached. We also put a lot of work into making the slab very level (even renting a cement grinder floor buffer machine). Due to the significant amount of prep work, there is no give in the flooring for it to wear on the joints over time. We have been, and continue to be, very happy with the install. DIY saves on the labor cost (if you pay attention and do the details right), so springing for a higher quality product is a no-brainer.

[hp]

“Developed hollow spots” sounds like sub floor problem

[LenTexDIY]

I've had it in my hallway and guest bathroom for 5 years. I got it from Lowe's. Zero issues with it. No buckling. No peeling. No concerns. Sometimes, it's the brand and composition that are the problem. Also, seems like the installation might also be part of the problem. Also, yours looks a lot thinner than the one we bought.

[williamherzog]

as a installer what your video showed is semi rigid or the cheapest choice often under 2.00 a sq. ft., rigid style flooring which runs about 3.50 a sq. Ft .and doesn't have any of the problems you show, you went cheap and paid the price and are now complaining

[francosantarossa]

Stay away from cheap, thin planks typically found at your Big Box Stores; rather, purchase them from a quality flooring supplier. A good quality, thick plank installed on a solid subfloor will last for many years if you take care of it. Make sure to leave 1/4" expansion gap around the room to avoid buckling and cracking. Also, we didn't like the feel of walking on these planks with nothing underneath (or a thin plastic sheet) so we decided to invest a little more and install a 1/8" thick plastic underlayment which resulted in a much more comfortable walk. This will also allow the planks to expand and contract without friction. Even if the floor lasts you 10 years, it will be easy to remove, you can re-use the plastic underlayment and, for a reasonable price, you can install a new one. The key here is, "stick to higher quality" and you should be fine.

[IppiopaidFEEDBACK]

If this was a different YouTube channel, I might have some sympathy. She smart, she knows building material, she’s college educated and tech savvy, plus she clearly knows how to do research.

That product was only allowed to move up and down, because the substrate was not in tolerance or it was just such a cheap product!

I’m guessing she was being extremely cheap and that’s why she bought a product that I have never seen do that! . I’m gonna blame her 100%!

[lIII]

Sadly, parts of Texas are known for foundation movements especially clay soils as well as where you live.

[Retired-in-Osoyoos]

Looks like an install issue? Was the floor level? We have used glue down vinyl in two renovations and love it!

[jimjimgl]

"Luxury" is one of the most overused words today. Here in Chicago I laugh to myself every time I see a mundane new home or apartment building described by the realtor's sign as "Luxury". BTW. Today I am about to buy some LVF. We are selling an apartment we own and the previous tenant destroyed the floors (and well the walls, etc). The flooring person said the wood floor had been sanded so many times in the past he could not fix the damage since he would end up exposing the substrate. He suggested LVF. Unfortunately, for purely economic reasons we will have this installed. In our own living space that we gut-renovated a few years ago we installed oak hardwood floors.

[CuddleTrouble]

Our bamboo flooring has been holding up well for many years.