My opinion on LVT

[LeserattePD]

Not sure if this is useful to anyone, but we looked at so many different LVTs from Amtico, Karndean, Polyflor, Moduleo, Invictus and I don’t even know who else. I have like 50 samples of LVT and IMHO they ALL look very fake, feel plasticky and the embossing is either the same across different fake woods and/or doesn’t line up with the fake wood grain. Some are very rough underfoot due to weirdly raised embossing. I should also mention that the fake embossing is particularly noticeable in the darker woods, so those tend to look worse IMHO.

 

Amtico and Karndean really didn’t impress when compared to others - Moduleo and the Polyflor Expona seemed the best of the lot to us. But we really just didn’t like any of them - our daughter has sensory issues so the feel of something is a very important decision point for us.

 

Naively, I thought that LVT would be cheaper than engineered wood, but that’s actually not necessarily true. You can get good quality engineered wood at about the price of the medium Karndean/Amtico. We got a couple of samples and everyone in the family (including the cat!) immediately agreed that we would be using engineered wood for our new flooring.

 

If you want near indestructible floor and easy cleaning then perhaps also look at the new composite laminates. However, for optimal heat transfer from underfloor heating, you want the floor to be gluedown and that isn’t possible with most laminates. We did choose a marble SPC for one of the upstairs bedrooms where we won’t have underfloor heating. That looks pretty good but won’t feel as cold as tiles underfoot.

 

Anyway, I thought I’d just state my opinion, hoping it will help others in their decision process.