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Learning About Vinyl Flooring
Vinyl flooring is a versatile flooring option. It comes in sheet and tile flooring styles, it imitates wood, tile and stone products, and it's water resistant, so good in "wet" rooms like the bath, laundry, and kitchen.
If you are thinking about remodeling your kitchen, bathroom or kid's playroom, vinyl flooring is a product to consider. There are many types of flooring available today, but vinyl is one of the most versatile and durable of all floors.
When remodeling rooms such as the bathroom and kitchen, vinyl is a great choice because of its durability when in contact with water. This is very important so that you are not redoing your floor frequently. The advantages of vinyl flooring are numerous, this being just a quick example:
* Inexpensive
* Cleaning is easy
* Many different styles and colors to choose from
* Great do-it yourself project
* Easy to install
* Durable
The negatives of vinyl include:
* Vinyl wood flooring may not look authentic
* Pattern may be only surface deep
* A petrochemical product that off gasses
You can see that there are more pros than cons when it comes to vinyl flooring.
Vinyl flooring has many steps regarding its manufacturing process. All vinyl products are made from a combination of vinyl resin and various additives that create the design as well as the color of any vinyl flooring. For each different type of vinyl, the additives are different. Once these additives have been combined in with the vinyl resin, the resulting material is called vinyl compound which is in pellet form. When the vinyl is in this form, the manufacturers are able to create many different forms of vinyl including vinyl sheet flooring and/or vinyl tile flooring.
Vinyl flooring is durable and versatile. The more expensive the vinyl flooring you buy, the more durable and resistant to stains and scratches your floor will be. There are many levels of vinyl flooring and if you buy the top notch vinyl, you will have the highest standard of durability. Vinyl kitchen flooring needs to be as durable and scratch resistant as possible because there is so much traffic in this room. Versatility and durability are the number one factor when looking for a new floor for your home. Vinyl can give this to you, even the most expensive vinyl is not as expensive as some other flooring, but it provides for you the same great durability and resistance. Vinyl is durable enough that using it for garage flooring is a possibility.
Did you know that vinyl flooring has been around since 1933? This alone shows the great popularity and success that vinyl has had over the years. Vinyl made its first public debut in the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago. Vinyl began to be mass marketed after the war years in 1940. It quickly became a threat to linoleum manufacturers, as well as other flooring producers. At first, vinyl flooring was only used for high traffic areas. It did not take long however, for vinyl to become the number one choice for any hard surface area. Today vinyl is second only to carpet when it comes to choices for household flooring.
With the advanced technology of today, there are very few cons related to vinyl flooring. The number one con is that vinyl flooring may not look as professional and expensive as real tile, for example. Other than that, vinyl flooring is pretty ideal. It is inexpensive, and you have a large variety of choice when it comes to style, texture and color. Installing vinyl flooring is fairly simple, and repairing it is something that anyone can do. When it's time to remove old vinyl flooring, you can consider ripping it up or just laying the next flooring choice on top of it.
When you are remodeling your kitchen, bathroom or any other part of your home, consider vinyl flooring. It is an excellent choice in more ways than one.
Comments
Can you recommend what type of flooring would be best over a cement foundation for a bathroom, family room, laundry room and lower entry way that was covered with a rug, which I took out after the last flood in December. Unfortunately, those areas of the house have been flooded several times in severe rain storms, due to storm drain backup. We have visited with several flooring salesmen, asking for advice and are now more confused than ever. Help???
Mary at April 19, 2008 08:58 PM
There is very little out there that's going to survive floods. I don't know how much water got into your lower level, but if it was more than 1/2", maybe you want to consider just using the concrete and painting it. You could have lots of fun with the patterns, colors and techniques. It may suffer from the floods too, but repainting is a lot cheaper than reflooring.
If you only get a little water in -- which can do lots of damage if not planned for -- read the articles in my Moisture Proofing category: http://www.theflooringlady.com/moisture_proofing/
Good luck. I hope you are getting the cause of the flood waters fixed too.
The Flooring Lady at April 22, 2008 01:33 PM
Thank you for your reply. It was suggested to us to paint the concrete by another flooring salesman that we talked to, but it did not sound appealing to me for some reason. Is sheet vinyl our next best option for the lower level of our home?
As for the flooding, when the storm drains are running over capacity, is something we are battling with the local government and over capacity construction happening in our area, which are being tied into an old storm drain system....a newer 12 inch storm drain connected to an old 8 inch storm drain. In a heavy rain down pour, it backs up, as it becomes overloaded and it eventually backs up to the lowest house on the block, which we occupy. So we get the aftermath. We have done everything we could think of to keep the water away from our property, and for five years we may go without an incident of flooding. Last December we were hit with the biggest flooding we have experienced in the 28 years we have lived here. Even though it was awful for us, it was nothing compared to the flooding of homes in cities south of us, where whole towns were devastated by flooding. We were fortunate and just have to replace flooring. Now we just have to figure out what our best options are for flooring, as I would like it to look clean and nice again. Thank you again for taking the time to respond to my question.
Mary at April 23, 2008 12:36 AM
My guess is the idea of painting the concrete doesn't appeal to you because you want something soft and cushioned under your feet. You're right that paint won't give you that.
If you don't mind reflooring every five-ish years, go with anything that strikes your fancy. I personally wouldn't use vinyl in my home because of air quality issues and my personal desire to reduce the use of petro-chemical products. Instead of vinyl, if that's the type of general flooring I was wanting, I'd use linoleum because it's made of renewable resources and doesn't negatively impact air quality.
I hope you get those flooding issues worked on. Your story is what I anticipated it would be. Maybe you can get the local government to take over your reflooring efforts when their system floods you house. ;~>
The Flooring Lady at April 23, 2008 07:25 AM
Thank you for your advice regarding linoleum vs. vinyl. That is good information that I was not aware of or have been told before.
Your assumption is correct about a soft cushioned flooring under our feet, especially at our age.
Regarding the local government, we have been trying to get them to listen for over 2o years regarding the storm drain issue, but they do not see a problem as we are the only house that seems to be affected, as the building of newer homes around us proceeded over the years. It is not a simple story with simple solutions, but we get to make the best of what we have, until we are ready to move on.
Thank you again for your frank advice on flooring. I really do appreciate it.
Mary at April 23, 2008 05:19 PM
