# Loose lay vinyl planks



## joecaption (Nov 30, 2011)

If you go to the search section there's about 600 post on Allour flooring.
I've laid it and had 0 trouble with it. If I had to do it over again I would have just gone with sheet linolium.


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## Arky217 (Aug 18, 2010)

joecaption said:


> If you go to the search section there's about 600 post on Allour flooring.
> I've laid it and had 0 trouble with it. If I had to do it over again I would have just gone with sheet linolium.


Could it be that you're talking about "Allure" flooring that has the adhesive edges ?

I've read a couple of dozen of the posts on the search results of Allure flooring, but none
are referring to the 'loose lay' product that is demonstrated in the link on my first post.

These 'loose lay' vinyl planks are 5 mm thick and they neither click lock together nor have
adhesive edges. They simple lay beside one another and butt up tight to the baseboard 
trim. They are suppose to have an extremely low expansion coefficient and are held in 
place simply by gravity and the edges are held tight by no clearance along the perimeter
where they meet the walls.

Arky


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## 123pugsy (Oct 6, 2012)

I used Allure flooring with the stick strip. It has not popped up anywhere or curled, so it does seem to lay down nicely.

Do yourself a favor and check the cross section of the material you choose. If it's like the garbage I bought, it will have a nice bright white plastic core just below the micron of top color.


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## Mr Tile (Mar 20, 2013)

That looks nasty!! Have you ever thought of using vinyl tiles as opposed to a vinyl sheet?


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## 123pugsy (Oct 6, 2012)

Tiler 1984 said:


> That looks nasty!! Have you ever thought of using vinyl tiles as opposed to a vinyl sheet?



I will never use a piece of vinyl in my house again.
Problem solved.

Good thing I'm knocking down the house. I'll be rid of the stuff.


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## Arky217 (Aug 18, 2010)

Thanks for the replies, but I don't believe the product that I'm referring to has been mentioned yet. It is a relatively new flooring technology that uses non expanding vinyl planks that are held in place simply by the perimeter of the room.

One company that manufactures it is Karndean at

http://www.karndean.com/en/commercial-flooring/about-us/innovation.aspx

A link to a video demonstrating the installation method is found at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiO84zh9gUI

Arky


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## 123pugsy (Oct 6, 2012)

Arky217 said:


> Thanks for the replies, but I don't believe the product that I'm referring to has been mentioned yet. It is a relatively new flooring technology that uses non expanding vinyl planks that are held in place simply by the perimeter of the room.
> 
> One company that manufactures it is Karndean at
> 
> ...


I personally would never use a new product idea immediately. It's better to wait and hear the horror stories come out about it if it's a bad idea or maybe hear good reviews about it.

The videos show the material laying down nicely and as I mentioned, a similar floating vinyl plank lied down fine without popping up. I guess the worst that could happen is the tiles start curling at the edges or something. If that happened, just pick them up easily and redo the tiles with another product.

Who knows, maybe in about three years time when someone asks about them you can answer their questions and if you're answering questions about them because you have experience, I sure hope the reviews are positive.

Good luck. :thumbsup:


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## eaglefortune (Oct 12, 2013)

Did you end up with the Karndean Loose Lay. I am about to purchase them for a 350 sq ft room. I have read nothing but posistve reviews and the samples I brought home are very durable and seem to "stick" to the floor even without the whole floow to stabalize them. Almost seem to good to be true, although they are not cheap! Any feedback would be helpful!


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## Arky217 (Aug 18, 2010)

eaglefortune said:


> Did you end up with the Karndean Loose Lay. I am about to purchase them for a 350 sq ft room. I have read nothing but posistve reviews and the samples I brought home are very durable and seem to "stick" to the floor even without the whole floow to stabalize them. Almost seem to good to be true, although they are not cheap! Any feedback would be helpful!


I plan on maybe using them later on, but for now I just couldn't afford it.
So I got an idea off the internet from a lady who finished her living room subfloor. I did the same, but for the whole house.

It was a lot of work, but I think it turned out rather nice.
My subfloor is 3/4" T&G Avantech and finishing it involved the following steps:
1) Sand with 80 grit (used Bosch orbital sander).
2) Vacuum and wipe down with damp cloth.
3) Fill seam gaps and rough spots with wood putty.
4) Sand with 80 grit, then 120 grit, then 180 grit.
5) Vacuum and wipe down with damp cloth.
6) Apply oil base primer (I used kiltz).
7) Apply base coat (latex porch and floor paint, satin sheen)
8) Apply stencil coat (latex porch and floor paint, satin sheen)
9) Apply polyurethane coat (Varathane ultra clear, high traffic, satin sheen)
10) Apply 2nd coat of Varathane.

Here are a couple of pics.



















Arky


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## poppameth (Oct 2, 2008)

We've done one install like this with a product called FreeFit. It was a tile pattern and we perimeter glued it just like in the video. Seems to be identical construction to this product. We haven't heard anything bad about the install yet. It was done a couple of months ago. The biggest complaint the installer had was getting it started. He worked out from the center on this room and you have to get a couple of rows aligned perfectly before it stops shifting on your. The rest flows pretty easily.


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## prickey (Mar 8, 2014)

*Yes, I have loose lay flooring in my basement family room*

My husband and I replaced the carpet in our basement family room and installed loose lay vinyl planks (Supreme Elite from Floors to Your Home, $2.59 per sq. foot) not quite two years ago. It also comes in click lock, but I preferred the loose lay so we could replace only one plank if we ever needed to. I love it and would do it again. The floor still looks as nice as the day we finished installing it. 

Since we put it down, our furnace drain hose clogged and made a huge puddle through the whole room, almost to the wall by the time we found it. I was on my way out and didn’t have time to wet vac, so I just turned the dehumidifier on and left. To my surprise, when I came back, the floor was dry and looked like new. I am now considering installing it in a rental property as well. Here are my thoughts:

*Cost:* At the time, my only options for loose lay were Karndean and Shaw, or the very cheap stuff from Home Depot with the adhesive tabs. I had an acquaintance who installed the Home Depot and liked the look, but told me it was easily damaged. Plus, when their floor got wet, they had to glue it down again. Kardean and Shaw were marginally nicer than what I chose (mostly on the underneath side that doesn’t show), but 2-3 times the cost. Floors to Your Home hit the sweet spot for me on price, quality and looks. While they do ship nationwide for free and send out samples, they are located just west of Indianapolis so I was able to go in person and look at the displays. If you can do that, I recommend it as they have enough laid out that you can see what it will really look like on your floor. I also saved 20 cents a foot by picking it up. They have a platform set up with an overflowing bathtub to demonstrate how waterproof it is.

*Durability:* I purposely tried to scratch the surface with a knife and could barely see the scratches only by holding it up to the light a certain way. You men, with stronger hands than mine, could, most likely, have scratched it deeper than I did, but it was enough to show me that it will hold up (and has since proven to do so) to moving furniture, etc. Not that I recommend dragging the furniture around on it, mind you. But it should hold up to the occasional movement of a chair. The only vulnerability I found was that the wear layer could be chipped off at the edge of the plank. But that would be very unlikely to happen after it is laid.

*Looks:* To the discerning eye, it will not look quite as good as a very high end wood laminate. It does look better than cheap laminate. The texture on the planks follows the grain on the wood pattern, which is important to me, and better than what you get with inexpensive laminate. Laminate is not an option for almost any basement due to swelling from moisture so this was the perfect alternative for me. They also have stone and marble look tiles available which rival ceramic in looks.

*Safety*: Being safety conscience, for a bathroom, where most home accidents happen, I would choose this over ceramic tile. There are choices that look as nice as ceramic, and look better than sheet vinyl. It is less slippery than ceramic when wet, and a fall would not be as hard. The only drawback would be that the seams are not grouted like ceramic, so if the bathtub overflowed, it would get underneath through the seams. I would suggest something underneath to protect the subfloor.

*Installation:* This is the best part. It is sooo easy to do. If your surface is smooth and clean there is no prep work needed. It is quiet to walk on without any underlayment. We installed ours directly over concrete. The room was large—about 30’ x 15’. I opted out of using any glue, even around the edges--a choice I do not regret. In the two years since installing, I have had no problems with any popping up, expanding or contracting, or any problems at all.

The only hard part, for us, was cutting around the jagged and uneven edges of our large stone fireplace. My husband made a pattern, using a pattern tool from Lowes and did that cutting. I installed most of the rest of the floor myself, cutting the planks with a vinyl tile cutter that looks like a paper cutter. I highly recommend getting one as it makes the job really easy and fast. We borrowed ours, but they are not all that expensive and would be worth the cost to buy. 

After I finished, I was able to step back and look at the floor with a discerning eye and spotted several places where I felt I had laid a repeating pattern too closely together. Normally, you would be stuck with it unless you redid the whole floor. But, I just took the hose on my shop vac and suctioned up a plank (you can also use a knife and pry one up, but I recommend the vacuum method) and dropped another one in. A repair would be that easy! I bought two extra boxes for repairs, but they have not been necessary, so far.

*Installation tips:*


 Unlike a floating floor, start by installing a row with the long edge of the plank very tight up against the wall. Do NOT start in the center of the room. If you are concerned about the width of the plank being even on each side of the room, simply measure the room first and calculate how wide your first plank should be and cut, lengthwise, accordingly. Trust me, even if you end up a little off, no one will notice if you end up an inch difference in plank width from one side of the room to the other.

 I don’t know that it matters whether you remove your baseboard first, or not. Our baseboard was off so ours goes under the baseboard and that would be my preference.

 *MOST IMPORTANT!* Tamp each piece of plank in tightly as you lay it, and again when you lay the next row. I found that a small piece cut off from the end of a plank worked well as a tamper, using the uncut edge. As I laid each piece, I tapped it down the side of the long edge with the tamper to push it tightly against the wall or against the piece next to it. When you work your way down the next row, be sure to tamp the previous row a second time (it loosens up some before you get back to it), then lay the next plank, tamping that one into place.

 I am sure it goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway for newbies (actually, I was a newbie when I did this and am glad someone mentioned it to me). When you get to the end of the room, and cut off the last plank to fit the length, save the cut off piece to start a new row (with the cut off edge against the wall). But, don’t use it on the next row. Use them on random rows. And, cut some of them into different lengths. Otherwise, if you start each row with the piece from the row before, you will see a stair step pattern when you look across the finished room.

 A day or two after you finish, check the end piece in each row. I had forced the last piece in a couple of rows in a little too tightly (didn’t cut it off quite short enough) and a couple were starting to pop up ever so slightly on the other end of the plank. The fix was easy. Simply take out the piece and shave a little off the cut end then put it back in. Presto! No problems since.

As I mentioned previously, even without any glue in a large room, we have had no problem with any pieces shifting, popping up (other than mentioned in #5 above), or swelling (even after flooding). I am very pleased with my choice and would not choose any differently after living with it for two years.

Hope someone finds this helpful, although I am quite sure it is too late for the original poster.

Pam R


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## vegascrist (Nov 13, 2015)

Great review! Thank you for being so thorough.


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## Cracker39 (Feb 10, 2016)

I am a DIYer...I do everything, and most of the projects I take on are new to me, like loose lay vinyl. My wife and I decided to get rid of all the carpet in a home we just bought and put down laminate flooring. That is, until I found out about loose lay vinyl. It appears to have a number of advantages over rigid laminate, as already stated by Pricky. I have also been looking at the product at floorstoyourhome.com and pretty much think that's where we'll get the 840 sq ft that we need for 5 rooms. I can't wait to get started...after I get started on putting on a new metal roof, something else that I'll be doing for the first time, but that's another post topic.


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