Popular Flooring Options
Today I’m going to talk about the most popular flooring options that people are choosing to put in their basement finishing and home remodeling projects here in Herriman, Utah. The most popular flooring that we see people choosing right now is LVP flooring. LVP stands for Luxury Vinyl Plank. Those floors are essentially made out of vinyl with a rigid core, a padding on the bottom, and an image layer on top.
2 Types of LVP Flooring Installs
Click together LVP does just that: they typically click together as one clips into the next, in this sequence from one side of the room to the next. Another type of LVP is glue down. Glue down LVP does not clip together. They just butt into each other and they’re adhered to the floor with a special flooring glue. Those are two types of LVP installations that are great flooring options for pretty much everywhere in your house. They can be installed in bathrooms and in kitchens, high traffic areas in residential buildings. They hold up really well. Many people have LVP with pets and I’ve found happy results with many owners.
LVP Flooring Features
LVP is also water-resistant which is another great feature about it. It’s not going to swell, crack, or warp with water like a classic wood floor would do. Make sure you check out the video to get a good visual on LVP products. LVP comes in many different colors, patterns, and style. It typically resembles a wood floor, but if you want a different look, there is a stone option. The stone option is called LVT (Luxury Vinyl Tile.) LVT is essentially the same composition, the same construction, and the same installation, it simply looks like stone instead of wood planks.
Composition of Luxury Vinyl Plank
Let’s evaluate the construction of LVP. There’s an acoustical pad adhered on the bottom of the flooring, which helps provide some cushion as well as a sound barrier when you’re walking on the floor. It can create a little more comfortable experience as well. Then there’s the vinyl core and the wear layer on top. So what we’re looking for in a quality product is to make sure that it has the pad on the bottom, try to get the thickest possible core you can find with the luxury vinyl core, and then the thickest wear layer that you can find is the best. We look for those three aspects when evaluating the quality of available products.
Best Residential Flooring Options for Utah Basements
When we look at flooring specifically in the basements, one of the best floors that I think you can install is carpet. The other one, if you want a hard flooring, is tile. Tile is a great option because tile adheres directly onto the concrete floor with thinset, which is really good in the event of a flood.
The downside to tile is that it costs a lot more money than luxury vinyl products. Many LVP or LVT floors go in at a fraction of the cost of their tile counterpart. The reason why is because the labor takes a lot more time to install real tile, which requires thin-set, cutting, grout, and everything else that luxury vinyl products don’t require. The cost savings influence many owners to choose the luxury vinyl options. What I don’t like about LVP and LVT, particularly if you get the floating option, is the click-lock system instead of the adhering system, water would absolutely go underneath the floor in the event of a flood. Drying out a floating floor would be difficult without tearing up the whole floor and replacing it. That is the downside to the floating LVP or LVT products in a basement application. The glue down version would be a good option in the basement, especially if you’re looking to prepare for any flooding accident that could happen in the future.
Residential Flooring Decisions
Throughout the ground level of the entire house, any tile, LVP/LTC flooring would work great. Down in the basement, a glue LVP/LVT would be a good second option to the real tile version for a flooring option. Otherwise, I believe that carpet or real tile is the best option for basements. The con to using glue down in a basement is that it’s not as comfortable because it doesn’t have that padding underneath. That is kind of a downside, but with any selections that we move forward with, there’s choices to make, pros and cons to every single option. Sometimes we have to choose between what we want to work with and what we want to pay for. That can help make a lot of decisions as far as what flooring would be best.
I hope you had the chance to enjoy the video. If you are looking to finish your basement or remodel your home, we’d love to talk with you. Take a peak around the website as we have more basement finishing cost guides and cost calculators as well as remodeling resources.
