What is it about luxury vinyl tile flooring that is making it an increasingly popular product?
Luxury vinyl has become a product with many definitions. Among the more common terms, you hear SPC, WPC, LVP, and LVT. So many acronyms can certainly get a bit confusing.
What’s Different About Luxury Vinyl Tile Flooring?
As luxury vinyl flooring gained popularity, manufacturers and dealers grouped a large number of products. Referring to all of them as LVT, or luxury vinyl tile.
LVT and LVP refer to luxury vinyl tile and luxury vinyl plank. WPC is a vinyl plank with a foamed waterproof core. WPC creates a thicker product that is quieter underfoot. SPC – solid polymer core product is a more rigid product than WPC.
Luxury vinyl tile or LVT is still the most popular term used to describe a variety of flooring products. The industry has started to use additional terms and acronyms for the growing number of flooring styles produced. LVP for “luxury vinyl plank” and LVS for “luxury vinyl sheet.” Mannington, a leading producer of resilient floor covering products, is referring to LVS as “the next evolution in sheet vinyl flooring.”
Luxury vinyl flooring is designed to simulate both natural and man-made products such as wood, natural stone, granite, ceramic, and attractive designer patterns. Style possibilities are limitless, as the pattern that you see is actually an image that has been produced using high-definition photography.
Solid Vinyl Tile Difference
The American standards organization ASTM International has established a broad specification, ASTM F 1700 Solid Vinyl Floor Tile. Under this specification, they have included luxury vinyl tile flooring.
Some people in the industry apply the term LVT to vinyl composition tile, which is really a stretch. The primary ingredient of VCT, about 65% limestone, is used as a filler material. Less expensive material, VCT, is still a durable product, primarily used for commercial installations such as schools, retail stores, and other high-traffic areas.
Vinyl Tile or “VT” is a homogeneous (more uniform) product. Referred to as a solid tile material. If you break a “Vinyl Tile,” the color is consistent throughout, while a vinyl composition tile exhibits its pattern and/or color at the surface.
Luxury Vinyl Tile Flooring “LVT” and Solid “SVT” have a higher vinyl content than VCT and therefore are less porous yet as durable. Both routinely use a photographic image to provide unique designs.
LVT Flooring Offers Style and Performance
Luxury vinyl tile flooring has made an amazing transformation over the past decade. Once, just another vinyl floor covering, LVT and LVP are now an important and rapidly growing segment of the floor covering industry.
LVT is available in a large number of shapes, colors, patterns, and styles. There are ceramic tile and stone patterns that can be installed with or without grout while offering warmth and softness.
Other Considerations
For those with pets that are not perfectly potty trained, and the pet owner wants the look of hardwood, luxury vinyl has you covered. Mostly in plank styles, these products take greater abuse from pets than hardwood or laminate. Choices are limitless, from floors that provide a tabletop appearance to those with deep embossed, distressed texture.
Perhaps you are considering a laminate plank, but you like to wet mop your floor. While you cannot wet mop a traditional laminate floor, you can wet mop luxury vinyl. This flooring is a perfect choice for children, pets, or a husband who tracks in mud or those accidental spills, or even teenagers who leave a mess on the floor for mom to clean up.
As you can see, luxury vinyl tile flooring is not just another floor. LVT is a floor that offers style, durability, and ease of maintenance. Not a perfect floor, but a very good floor worth considering for most any flooring project.
