20 Tips for a Great Vinyl Plank Flooring Installation

20 Tips to help you install luxury vinyl plank flooring faster, better and easier! If you follow these vinyl flooring installation tips you’ll have a great end result and amazing renovation.

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[Fixthisbuildthat]

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[claudiadickerman]

Hi there! I am so happy to have found your channel ! I am a 71 yr old lady still in reasonably good working order so I have been watching your how to install vinyl plank flooring. I have had several price quotes from the usual flooring companies, (Empire, LL Flooring, plus one from Lowes. The first two nearly gave me a heart attack, the price quotation was two pages long! I think they had charges on there for each move they would make to install. Lowes was ok on the installation price $2.09 per square ft, but the flooring they had I looked up and read hours of comments from the homeowners and came to the obvious conclusion that I was not going to buy the flooring from Lowes. I don't want to put Lowes down, but the comment section was not happy with Lowes at all. So, there I was, still no flooring bought, still no installer to do it. I went out to the mailbox and there was a flyer in the box from Ollies Bargain Outlet near me. For the first time I ever saw in their flyers, they had a huge ad for Vinyl Plank rigid core waterproof per sq ft and it is ALL Armstrong in several color availability. I had previously looked to see what brands of this type of flooring were the better bets for quality and longevity. Armstrong reviews were encouraging. I started to look to buy places selling to the public it was $6.99 per sq ft. So, I have decided to go tomorrow to Ollies Bargain Outlet to see what colors they have of the Armstrong Vinyl Plank rigid core. If they have a color I like and enough (they might have to call their other stores if they don't have the number of boxes I need in stock) I think I am going to take the plunge and buy it. I will save hundreds of bucks! I have done click laminate before all by myself but not so sure I want to take on the project so watching your how to videos, I think I have convinced my brother who is mechanically inclined and who does have some of the tools needed, to work with me to put in the vinyl plank ourselves. I know how to miter and have a miter box for use with a hand saw, I know how to put cove or quarter round in, I know how to undercut the mouldings the door jams but watching your videos I sure have picked up some great tips and a good "revisit" to days past when I put laminate floor in all by myself. I have already ripped out the wall to wall carpet and padding, pulled all the base off which was making me CURSE because it was put on with HUGE and I mean HUGE staples so ya, I will have to get taller base to cover what those cursed staples did getting pulled out. My subfloor is good, I do need to check for level and fix per your advice and I am going to put very thin underlay as I don't want the floor to be COLD as it is my bedroom, so I read that one CAN use underlay even if the planks already have a pad. So all that to say I love watching you and when I get my floor all done I will see if I can post a picture and hopefully I won't be in a wheelchair at the end of it all. OH the wonderful satisfaction of doing something for ones self. I grew up with a father who was a custom home builder and I followed him around like a puppy dog. Later I managed his bookeeping and his payroll and his kept his subs in line. I wanted so badly to take over the business, but in those days a woman in the building business was taboo and my parents wouldn't hear of it, so off to a useless college I went and by the time I left college there were actually TWO WOMEN not even 90 miles from where we lived that had taken over their family building business and were featured on the local news quite a bit. I love everything about construction and have remodel just about every home I have ever had. I talked my various boyfriends into helping...(I had lots of different boyfriends and they were either mechanics or in the building trades ....I like men that are men and can work with their hands. So thank you for your informative videos and I have enjoyed over four hours this evening watching them and intend to watch all that you have on your master bath room is calling for me to help it, and I need a walk in show with bench and all the safety grabs etc so when I get to need those it will already be installed. I am single and live with my younger brother and his adult disabled son and between the three of us, we will get it done with the exception of plumbing, which we will get a pro in for that. God bless and keep sharing your talent with the world on U tube.

[rickcimino]

Nice video. One thing I would add is that if you leave one of your cuts of carpet open (in the hallway or in another room) you can put all of your tackless strips into it and roll it up. That stuff is so nasty. The carpet makes a good wrapper for it and keeps you safe when you go to throw it out.

[brentufkes]

Very good video. Couple things I’d like to mention. When you use that many starter shims on a wall that isn’t straight it can make it difficult to get the first couple rows locked in. Secondly, if you continuously use the cutoff from the previous row you will have a constant stair step in your seams. I like to do 4-5 rows at a time and make the seams look more random. Feels less commercial to me. Side note, HD just started carrying life proof wall spacers that function similar to the ones you used. Not as tall but work for most installs. Thank you for the content. One of the best I’ve seen on vinyl plank.

[geanbechthold]

Great overall video. I did my whole home over a long weekend. I took off all my base board at the same time. If reinstalling the same baseboard I would recommend marking the back sides of the boards and the part of the wall that will be covered with a code like 1-1, 1-2 where the first # is the room number and the second is the location in the room. I used nipper plyers to pull stubborn nails. If you have a sub floor while it's exposed is a good time to fix those squeaky floors by screwing deck screws over the areas that have flexed over time at high traffic areas. Just screw them into the floor joists. I bought one of those laminate cutters for the job. The best $100 I ever spent on a single function tool!

[andrealavigne]

Boy - that went way better than my first (& last, according to my mom, who helped) try a few years ago. The tongues & grooves on our (allegedly) "top-of-the-line" floor planks kept breaking & chipping off, basically making those planks useless. And yes, we did let the flooring acclimate for actually a few weeks before we began. At first, whenever I was tapping one plank into the previous row along the long edge, I'd get one end in place, & it would pop out as I worked my way down. Finally got a tip from a local flooring company to tape the top along the seam with pieces of painter's tape as I went to prevent that. That, at least, worked like a charm! While we didn't work on it every day, the "few days long" job turned into a few MONTHS long job. Mostly due to trying to figure out problems and having to buy more flooring to replace the planks that had the tongues/grooves break, which new flooring then had to sit & acclimate. Blew through my "waste" allowance even before the job was done, with the chipping/breaking issue! Plus, having to work around lower cabinets that protruded into the room (making the perimeter "jagged"), since this was in part of our kitchen. NOT a fun job! I don't know if I'd trust flooring from Home Depot or Lowe's again. I had previously installed engineered wood flooring - went much more easily. I may give vinyl a try again someday. We'll see.... Thanks for the tips, anyway. Really like your videos - mild humor ("me" nails), no hype, no huge rushing through things, & no loud voice. Have an awesome day!

[nomad]

Bro, that’s the best install video I’ve seen touching on all the major points and stuff you might come across concisely and recapping love it!

[ElementsWoodworking]

By far the easiest way to remove all those carpet staples is to hand a pair of pliers to my kids at tell them to go to town. If they are unmotivated, I offer them a nickel for each staple. And the best way to find ones they missed it just take your socks and shoes off and walk around. Like legos, even if there's only one, you'll find it quickly enough.

[williamellis]

Great job, Brad. Another tip is to make sure you have enough material to do the entire job and they are all the same lot number. I had an instance where I bought an extra box and the pieces were slightly thicker.
Bill

[bryankia]

I used a shovel to pull all the staples from the flooring. Saves my back!

[JonStephen-tzjx]

My dad always says the more you learn the more you earn, Great Video!!! 💯 🔥 👌👀👍

[jaredatkins]

I lay floor for a living, what you’re laying is hybrid! Use floor scraper to clean floor (even takes up staples), even if not smacking them into the floor with a hammer is way more efficient, same with nails in wall. Have never had a problem shooting skirting back in after as well. When cutting gap filler cut on wall as opposed to skirt so you can easily clean filler off skirting rather than wall.

[angelahagood]

My husband and I put down two bedrooms plus a walk in closet of vinyl plank flooring last week. We bought it from Lowe’s and used their installer for the living room/dining room install three years ago. We were very disappointed with his work. Sloppy. I’m not kidding you, it was challenging, especially around the doors, but it’s done! We divorced three times, but it’s done! Whew!😅

[juanplus]

This is the only laminate install video on a wood subfloor. Thank you! Now I can replace my upstairs carpet! Thanks a lot!

[bretttamlin]

Great advice taking the skirtings off. Who likes those like scotia moulds

[jacobwills]

Additional tip: don’t use a tap block. You can damage the locking mechanism and ruin pieces of your floor. Use an off cut of the same flooring bc it fits the locking mechanism perfectly and won’t damage anything.

[ColtenRogers]

Very helpful, I will be using this as a guide for future installers to view before doing work for my company!

[johnshumake]

My installation made a lot of cut offs. Rather than tossing out a pile of waste that will live forever, I used the scraps to make coasters. Reduced my scrap pile from an overflowing bushel basket to a shoe box sized pile. Made about 100 nice coasters for gifts and sale at craft shows.

[olachus]

Great video and valuable infornation for the diy'ers. You only forgot to mention one tool which is shown in your video: a board pusher (you used it to push that plank under the trims for the first door shown, towards the hall way).
THAT pusher (not the block, but the Z-shape metal pusher) is very essential for this type of job as you need it for every single row to tighten in all the boards on the short seams, all across the span.
Again, great info and awesome job you've done. It looks like mine: great!

[sgsax]

Lots of great tips here. We did most of our first floor with engineered hard wood, but used LVP in the kitchen. Planning on doing LVP in the basement, so will keep this one in mind. Those wall shims looks spectecularly 3D-printable. 🤔 Thanks for sharing!