Which Brand of Vinyl Flooring is Best

hey guys jeff from home renovation here and today we're doing a consumer advocate video we're discussing which one of these vinyl luxury plank floorings do i prefer the most is it this one or this one we're going to talk about all the options on the marketplace and how you can avoid buying a bad product thinking you're getting a good deal let's jump into this all right so before we get into all the nitty-gritty let's just break this down what is vinyl flooring because everybody's got a different answer basically it is a vinyl finish with a plastic or a wood plastic core it's either solid plastic or wood plastic mix okay so that's where the wpc spc rating comes from it has to do with what the flooring is made of now you need first of all to understand that the idea of this being a waterproof floor there is some validity to that but if you're putting this in a basement on your concrete and you don't have a moisture barrier you're in trouble especially if you're using the wpc because wood is still organic and organic makes musty mildewy smells so if you're going to be putting this in your basement make sure you get the solid core the spc flooring with that out of the way why in the world did they make this stuff it's a great question i'm going to answer right now traditionally the market has got just a few qualities of flow right we have carpet we've got a vinyl sheet good and that's changed over time so the vinyl that was in the market used to be on a big roll and it was glued in place and then they've adjusted that so now you can buy your vinyl in a loose lay format as well it's got a thicker heavier backing and you can just cut it to fit into space and that's still a great option for a lot of folks are out there watching this video we're going to show an install on that soon but it's a great option for you if you want a waterproof floor that's easy to install the difficulty there is there's zero room for making a mistake during your installation process so you better be real comfortable with what you're doing because one wrong move and you have to throw the whole sheet out you don't just have to throw one single plank so the idea of this plank flooring it came as a competitive option to the wood laminate flooring so this is a laminated vinyl okay you can take a look here and you will see generally these products come in three layers i'll show this one this one really shows it well because they made the layers different colors what you have is a wear layer and then there's this really thick section here they're calling that part of the wear layer but the reality is it's not that thick as soon as you get through the very thin surface on this it starts to all look black like that and it'll look like junk so that's not actual wear layer there's a core and then there's a part on the bottom and generally that's designed for one of two things one is either designed to be soft or it's designed to be rigid for strength there's different ways that this main floor is manufactured to solve different problems so you have to make sure that you understand what problem it is you're solving before you choose your floor now there are different kinds of consumers right so some of you are going to go to the store you're going to see a wall of vinyl options something like this and you're going to go oh that one would look perfect and generally speaking in a lot of situations you're right you can just pick the color that you want but there are performance issues here there are quality issues here and it's worth it to understand what those issues are so that you can navigate and get a good value now before we get going let's talk about the benefits of vinyl flooring one yes it's water resistant sometimes it's even waterproof okay some of these locking joints are so tight and the vinyl and the plastic that's in them actually repels the water it is waterproof up to a certain amount of time the water sits on that floor which is awesome and it was really good that way you can install that in a bathroom in times past you didn't have a laminate floor as an option in a bathroom and i know a lot of people have put that old wood click together wood floor laminate in a bathroom and you've all experienced the same thing it causes rot and stink and it's disgusting you can't use that product there but this one you can alright the other reason they invented this is to go in basements because there's a lot of houses that don't have waterproofing foundations or vapor barrier under the concrete when they pour the slab and if you use a wood laminate in a basement like that you have the same problem water destroys that wood laminate and they've tried to make the cores you know water resistant or mold proof they've put in micro bantu fungicide emulgicide and all that does is just slow down the inevitable destruction of the floor it's not a 25-year floor it's a five-year floor so they made this stuff to replace the application of putting a click together do-it-yourself flooring in a basement okay that's why it was made so that you don't use a product that's going to self-destruct in a basement or other wet areas now having said that it's also a great option in a lot of other rooms now because let's face it it has the best wear layer that's on the market this stuff wears better than hardwood yeah i said it all right this product here will last longer than hardwood flooring and the discussion and if you don't believe me then put your comment down below alright we can have this conversation but i'm telling you right now i've been renovating a long time and i've been in houses that have got vinyl flooring from the 1940s and that stuff is still in better shape now than hardwood that's only two years old all right you can take that to the bank so when it comes to vinyl the durability is not question all right it's a great product the question is is the application of a vinyl plank good for you and this is where we run into some of the drawbacks okay so we know it's good in wet areas we know it's great for durability we know it's diy friendly but now you got to consider well then why are there so many choices and not just in color there's a lot of choices in the design in the locking system now generally speaking even a few years ago all the vinyl was very smooth and didn't have a lot of texture to it now it's coming really embossed there's all kinds of grain it looks like real wood so the quality as far as the finish has gone way through the roof which is nice but what about all the thicknesses why do they make them all like this and i think most of the answer is found in well let's do the comparison okay here's all the different thicknesses now i went out and i went shopping at the home depot and the lowe's and i grabbed their products that are their flagship products okay so we're going to compare home depot and lowe's side by side here but you're not going to know what they are until the very end fair enough we have a four millimeter product and it goes for 2.99 a square foot now i know that might sound expensive depending where you live in the world i live in canada okay proud to be canadian which means all of our stuff is more expensive so if you where you live it's hey my stuff isn't 2.99 it's okay it's about comparatively speaking your changes in price point are gonna be relatively the same all right so we're gonna call it three bucks for four millimeter this product is a little thicker and they're charging 349. that's a lot of difference right that's 50 cents a square foot that's a big change for just a little bit extra vinyl is the locking system better i don't know we'll talk about all that in a second next one over we got a five millimeter product again same price well is that better than this it's the same price is it just thicker and cheaper all these questions start hitting your mind right then there's this product here it's a five and a half mil and it's basically the same price 350. right everything from 4.2 to 5.5 millimeter is the same price that's amazing and then you go up to seven millimeter this one is three dollars and sixty cents just a little just a hair more right basically the same price point and then there's this bad boy over here it's a seven and a half and it's five dollars and thirty cents wow that's really something that that must be like a cadillac of floors or something let's break this down because there are two distinct groups of flooring here all right good and garbage okay so first of all one of the first rules of shopping is this if there's a lot of variation in the thickness of the same kind of product all right let's just move away from the ones at the bottom all right these are so thin that these locking systems i don't know how they expect them to stay together i've seen people try this before they install it it looks good until it like overnight and then the next day they walk on it and it starts coming apart because there is no locking joint here these are more like set together okay not a great choice and i would really just say let's not worry about them they're not even in the game if you're shopping for flooring start at five millimeter as a bare minimum it's the only way you're gonna get a thick enough piece of vinyl that they can actually incorporate all the grooves and dents necessary so it has a locking joint okay so this is where you got to start now let's talk about who are these well this one's found at lowe's this is their cheap product okay and this one's found at home depot that's their cheap product now if you're price shopping only and you want just a cheap floor lozer's got the best cheap floor is that even such a thing the best cheap floor anyway i'll leave that with you now once you've gone and let's be honest here okay at three bucks a square foot if you have a room that's 10 by 12 it's 120 square feet if you want to go buy the cheapest floor in town to save 60 bucks go right ahead but you're gonna be really disappointed with the outcome now if that 60 bucks is that important to you then you know i understand but i'm not recommending it okay i'm gonna suggest that you cook chicken and rice two or three more times instead of ordering pizza and then buy a real floor just saying we start getting into other quality products here there's there's something that you're gonna see let's take a look at the back side okay so this one is a stainmaster product this is a lowe's product as well not bad it's got this interesting textured core very similar to this one this one's got a some sort of an under pad on it this one's got an under pad on it that's interesting now this is not an underpad so let's talk about these two first these two don't have underpants okay and the reason for that is every one of these floors regardless of what they're doing needs an underpad these two floors are sold being really super thick seven millimeter it says right seven and a half while there's not much of a difference barely catches your nail but part of the thickness is the underpad they're including that in the thickness of the flooring which is a lie because everything else on this shelf is being compared vinyl to vinyl vinyl vinyl vinyl with underpad ooh we're so thick it doesn't make it any better at the end of the day these products are almost exactly the same thickness as this one all right you also still need to buy an underpad for these you can't say oh we've got an underpad that's good enough this is so thin it's not going to do nothing because underpad has two values to it value number one is for sound transmission control right number two there's supposed to be a vapor barrier in there number three it's because floors are dirty and when you install your flooring you're gonna have little chunks of dirt and sand and whatever and having a thicker underpad underneath gives the ability for a piece of dirt to get embedded in that underpad and not affect when you're walking on it you aren't going to hear that crunching sound no crunching sound means quality floor install if you install this you're still going to get a crunch sound you got no sound transmission and no vapor barrier so do you put that in your basement i'm just saying now if we're to talk about these products now and include the cost of underpad okay they're almost all the same price here except for this one but it's trying to sell you with the underpad so you can't say oh that's that price plus underpad all right because even with underpad and if you buy it at the local store they're going to sell you an underpad 60 70 cents almost a dollar a square foot for underpad when you go to home depot and lowe's it's a complete ripoff don't do it i'll tell you where to shop for that in a minute but you can get an underpad this one that one i'm using in the demonstration for 30 cents a square foot and it's 10 times the underpad they're selling at that store okay if you're going to buy one of these flooring even if it has an underpad you still got to buy this so don't come don't don't fall into that trap of oh and i'm going to add the dollar a square foot well then this the reason this one is five dollars and thirty cents a square foot is because there are people out there who will do this they'll go okay here's all my price point that's cheap that's middle that's average that's that's expensive there's always a certain percent of the population that'll buy this one just because it costs the most money and they know that all right and lowe's they'll say oh we have the most expensive it's the best floor in town whatever it's still vinyl there's really no difference between this one and this one and this one all right yeah i'm gonna move that one out of the way i'm not a big fan of that this locking system is a little weak and it's really soft like i don't like a plank that's that soft i just feel like if there's any imperfections in the floor with this plank it's going to go like this and the joints are going to open up so i don't like a cord that's that soft what we're going to do now is show you the vinyl flooring and the the biggest problem you're going to have when you're installing this stuff okay and here it comes we're going to take a couple of these boards and we're going to link them together and show you how well the locking system works all right as you lay these things in on an angle okay you hold them tight together and you set them down okay they somewhat lock together and they get a seamless looking joint right okay now here's the problem if your floor isn't perfectly flat and this happens all the time okay you'll have floor joists that are dimensional lumber instead of engineered or on concrete and you have a curve now and so over time when you're pushing and walking on these floors these tend to open up just a little bit it's not doing here in this demonstration but okay so we'll get all this movement wow that's actually holding together really well this is actually pretty good stuff this is supposed to be a really simple demonstration how easy this pops out but here we go see i'm i'm half a millimeter off if you have too much deflection all right and you get to that point it will separate that make sense okay like even try to put it together on an uneven surface you can't do it right one ends always popping over the other oh i got that in oh oh this is the inevitable thing that drives you crazy when you're doing the install they come in such long planks it's hard to lock the whole thing in together that's if your floors aren't even okay if they're even and nice and flush if you've got engineered flooring engineered floor joists sorry and this this works together really well there you go oh a little love tap with the mallet right lock that joint that's all you need now ah that's for the good joint so let's just have a quick recap moment all right you get what you pay for generally speaking right don't buy the one at the bottom of the end don't buy the one that's overpriced it's not going to perform any better for you you're really left with this now at 4.2 millimeters my recommendation is it's just too thin the locking joint isn't going to work now you get up to this one stainmaster selling at lowe's huh not bad the price point is right okay it's comparable product as far as the vinyl is concerned on all three of these it doesn't have an underpad but you need one anyway this product okay doesn't have an underpad has a great locking system great value all right it's also five and a half mil which is a lot thicker now the funny part is there's a huge difference in the weight of these products this one it's more plastic than vinyl you know how i know that vinyl's heavy you need to know this they never put the weight on the box but this one is only half the weight of this one okay now we're back down to these two now it's really tough to do the weight test here because it's pretty comparable this one's still heavier by a long shot all right even though this claims to be a seven millimeter all right they're about the same price they both need an under pad here's where we're gonna separate the men from the boys this product versus this product these are the two i was holding up the beginning now you'll see that they come in different widths this got a lot more color a lot more texture designed to look a lot more wood don't be deceived they come in all kinds of different color variation options okay the biggest question we have here is which one of these is going to perform the best over time all right they both have a very similar core very similar standout very similar weight but here's the biggest difference okay the product that they're selling you from home depot is this one all right now watch this you see this layer here this tiny light gray on the outside so you got a tiny light gray and then you got this dark gray okay they're trying to sell you that these two layers together are what's called the wear layer those are both solid vinyl okay and then you're going to have a vinyl plastic core more vinyl than plastic which is why it's nice and heavy and i got this little underpad action going on but it doesn't mean anything this product here i don't know if you can see that difference back to back okay back to back that little gray line versus that thick silver line it's really hard to see on camera but this product here has twice the thickness on the wear layer now if the price is the same and the weight is the same and the locking system is the same and the core is made the same and they both need an under pattern the same price the only thing left to judge a product by is how thick the wear layer is and this has the thickest wear layer on the market at this price point now i'm telling you right now if i'm going higher than three and a half dollars a square foot on a floor i get to really have a good reason to do that and stay with vinyl that uh that other product that was up at the what was it five and a half bucks a square foot at five and a half dollars a square foot i can get engineered flooring hardwood right i can get hardwood plank i don't need vinyl now if you are looking to finish a basement or a bathroom and you got a wet area three and a half bucks a square foot will do the job it'll do it great don't fall in the trap and buy a more expensive floor for no reason at all okay it's just a waste of money and if you're somewhere else in the house and you're gonna put in flooring and you're looking for good value as soon as you go higher than three and a half bucks a square foot you got options right maybe vinyl's not the right product for you but if you're looking for vinyl flooring and you need one of these two i'm gonna suggest go with the best wire layer on the market and guess what this is home depot lifeproof decent product and if you need to buy this and it's got to be somewhere convenient and you're in a hurry or you don't have time to order this one online from my store that's right i partnered up with a distributor who's bringing this product in and they're making it available it used to be over four dollars a square foot this one has a special discount attached and we have the information the video below you can buy it from us and help support our channel just a tiny little bit all right the point is this if you can't get this or you need it in a hurry lifeproof from home depot is actually a great product on the market but before we go let's talk about the underlay because this is where you run into your problem so you go to home depot and you're like well jeff said that the home depot product was good so i'm going to go there to buy my flooring right hang on a second because then here comes the problem i know i'm not going to get my money back i can't return this but this is going to go straight in the garbage this is the crap that they're selling here for an underlay okay we're going to keep that because that's very important and we'll cut off a sample dear lord straight to the garbage all right so here's the underlay options wow that's impressive they got some great marketing on this so here here's this bubble wrap sheet i'm talking about right it's got the two-sided tape going on here so you can tape one layer over the next it's nice and sticky right they got little bubbles on here for impact this is designed to be the cushioning effect so if you have dirt in the floor those bumps all collapse fine whatever now here you go this is where we're going to get into reading the underpad a three in one wow that's awesome so it has a vapor barrier yes plastic sheet good can be used with all brands of floating wood engineered and laminate flooring of course it's just plastic and bubbles it's not going to hurt anything right superior sound dampening we'll see that in a second allows airflow to prevent trapped moisture really if you need airflow to prevent trapped moisture this is not the product for you first of all you need to put down a subfloor system we have a video on that we'll link it over here you've got to have a proper subfloor system for airflow to the any idea of making a claim that this is going to solve your problem if you're putting in a basement that doesn't have a vapor barrier you're dreaming all right you're guaranteed a problem um treated with microban to him at the growth of bacteria and mold and mildew because they're trying to tell you that you can put this directly on your concrete they're going to run into problems so they treated with microban to help to solve the problem that they're causing if your subfloor needs microban there's something wrong with your installation okay you shouldn't be putting products on the floor that need microbrand to protect them that's the problem um ideal for use over radiant heated floors if you say so thermal insulation they put an r rating on here look at that .39 all right i think hang on a second um i got a piece of paper here i'm going to put this down underneath my flooring it has an r value of 0.50 to even to even put an r value on that paperwork as a joke there's no r value all right that's just stupid even air has an r value now here's where we're gonna where it gets really interesting so these are the big numbers they're they're marketing here all right they're saying oh it's got this great sound deadening ability right and the sound transmission of 67. that's pretty impressive right up into the point where you read the fine print it says in order to qualify for 67 because remember sound sound rating technology the whole transmission it's all about the whole assembly sound transmission class is all the assembly of the whole floor and what they're saying is this underpad in conjunction with six inches of concrete with a suspended drywall board ceiling gives you the 67 stc raise your hand if you've got a six inch concrete floor in your house with a drywall ceiling underneath it go ahead anybody anyone maybe you live in an apartment right and you're thinking oh that's for condominiums do you know the standard for concrete pour in north america is seven to eight inches not six and a lot of these condominiums don't even put drywall on the ceiling and the unit underneath anymore because they like that whole you know rustic loft look so what they're trying to tell you is don't worry about the fine print just read stc67 it sounds like really impressive okay this crap is 70 cents a square foot before it tax all right garbage this stuff here this is a product that you can buy at 30 cents a square foot actually rated to be installed in condominiums because if you do live in a building like a condominium you've got to have an underpad that actually meets a certain rating now you're not going to find that at home deep or lows they don't sell it all right you've got to go and google for a wholesale flooring supply store if you want a real quiet floor or actually let me i'm stand corrected i was in a store when i was traveling down south called floor and decor those people got it right okay big shout out to this whole store uh i i'll actually love the place there's kind of a crossover between wholesale and retail they got the entire map high line they have some great quality vinyl flooring which i don't have sampled here today but if you are in the market for vinyl and they do sell in your area they're like florida georgia texas a little more east coast they're working on expansion but you know over the next few years don't be surprised to see them in every city in north america because they got the math figured out they're putting a quality product at a good price and putting demonstrations on the floor for you so you can compare different products i love the place so cheers to you guys because you make shopping easy for a consumer but like i said you need to get the right sound transmission rating in the underpad okay or your floor is illegal and if your neighbor complains that the noise floors are too noisy they'll call the superintendent up the superintendent will be like hey nice new floor you got there can i see the product label for the underpad guess what if you put the wrong stuff down he's going to give you a work order to have you change all your flooring wow that would suck wouldn't it anyway here's the deal the sum total of it is this guys you get what you pay for okay and you pay relative to where you shop right so if you're gonna buy at the local box store um my recommendation would be between home depot and lowe's go with the home depot their flooring is good but then you got to go somewhere else by your underpad okay they had a couple of other options they seemed really exotic but really expensive the only stuff they're selling over there is the stuff that has the biggest margin they're selling bubble wrap at 60 cents a square foot it's probably worth two or three they're making a killing on that stuff all right and remember there is no such thing as building code for underpad and residential units so they get away with selling that crap so the flooring is great the under pad is garbage but if you're looking for the best of both worlds like i said you can check out our site homerenovationdiy.com and go shop with us go to hardwood global okay in that they have the flooring they have a quality underpad very similar to this um they can take good care of you they ship all over north america everything's been reinstated so it's a good deal it'll help support our channel a little bit you know penny's a glass but it all helps right and you get great value best wear layer in the industry as far as i can tell and if anything changes then it will we'll make sure that our supplier changes the product they bring in the market right now it's the best thing we can find now real quick i wanted to show you one other thing about these floors because everybody is talking about you know what i'm gonna i'm just gonna show you these floors how they work in case you haven't seen this and if you aren't familiar with how to install this stuff we'll click the card up here we got an installation video we'll put the link in the description video as well because not everybody can see the card when the video shows you just take a utility knife flip it over and snap the stuff okay that's that easy now yes and for every other kind of cut you can use regular woodworking tools treat it like wood jigsaw table saw skill saw chop saw this stuff is amazing because it cuts without making dust it doesn't do a fine dust okay that's one of the other benefits of it now when you're putting it together you'll lock the joints and you'll get this huge ridge and the way we install that is with this mallet buy a rubber mallet six bucks okay now that's installed and if over time like let's say a couple years from now you see a little bump just grab your rubber mount and give it a shot you'll be fine all right anyway the only other thing you're going to need to know is how to work around your doors now i had to buy this i picked this up off of amazon the other day because it was like i keep on getting this advertisement in the videos have you ever seen this advertised yet oh it's great for contours you know you it'll it'll oh sorry here let me do this it'll it'll match any shape and then you can trace it out and cut it and yeah it does we've been using this tool forever on the industry these little metal finds here are half the size so if you're looking for precise cuts around your doors and tile this is a much better deal you can buy to your local home depot it's like a six buck tool okay now if you're gonna do exterior work with like stone and you're cutting your decking around stone this will probably work but this tool does the same thing okay it's very very precise all right great little gizmo you'll find this in the aisle where they have all the measuring tools and levels and and all the really fine detail carpentry tools okay so it's it's not a big secret to figure this out is normal in the industry this is not a new solution the world has been waiting for it's been around for the last 50 years as far as i can remember but they are packaging it and advertising it as a miracle so if you want one feel free to get one but make sure you use our amazon link in the video description if you're gonna shop there again help support our channel we get a little bit of a kickback every time you guys shop there and use our amazon link and we'd appreciate that now the only thing left to do in this video is figure out oh wow it's not hard to get a part that's probably a good joint ah um all right so it comes down to this home depot or the stuff that i'm selling on my site i think this wins this is why we put it there i don't think lowe's has a good quality product at a reasonable price so they're not in the running all right so listen enjoy your shopping let us know if information like this is helpful to you hit the like button okay uh we would like to do more of these comparison products i don't have a whole lot of products on my website as of yet as we find great deals for you and we can pass along a deal then we will add it but it's this little slow going process hey now listen if you guys are a fan of getting information in this kind of format where i can compare different products that are on the market and i can get my recommendations based on all my years of experience then hit the like button let us know and we will do more of these kinds of videos where i can compare different products and then put in the comments section what kind of products you'd like us to compare all right we've already done a video comparing insulation and that was pretty cool i i'm i really enjoyed all your feedback on that okay but listen let's get this done if you have questions about should i you be using vinyl is my house a good fit for vinyl work should i use it in my basement is my basement okay do i need this do i need that i know there's a million questions there's no such thing as one size fits all no such thing as one product for every situation every house is very unique based on its age and the geography and all kinds of other factors if you need help sorting all that out then consider joining our membership program alright for a small fee every month you get access to us through email and we also have some new live phone in live shows we do a couple of hours twice a month those are awesome and i would encourage you to join the membership program because a little bit of knowledge goes a long way to saving you money all right and that's our goal here at this channel is to help protect you from making bad decisions and having successful results with your innovations don't forget to subscribe to the channel if you haven't unless we've got a lot of other videos similar to this we call it our bench series we're gonna have a link up here in the video you can check that out all right we love bringing you information that helps you be very successful you're your best contractor on your job so get all the tools and information that you need to be successful at it we'll see you again soon

Channel: Home RenoVision DIY

Views: 676,676

Rating: 4.896759 out of 5

Keywords: vinyl plank flooring, waterproof flooring, vinyl flooring, vinyl flooring buying guide, flooring ideas, luxury vinyl plank, luxury vinyl plank flooring, luxury vinyl flooring, lvp flooring, diy vinyl plank flooring, home improvement, best vinyl plank flooring, vinyl flooring review, lifeproof vinyl flooring, lifeproof vinyl flooring review, vinyl planks, which brand of vinyl flooring is best, vinyl flooring installation, vinyl, affordable, cost effective, save time

Id: GDeYsRqMj6s

Length: 34min 48sec (2088 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 31 2020