Vinyl flooring. Which/where?

[RoboCod]

Hi, I'm finally getting rid of the horrendous lounge carpet that came with our house. I've been having a read around and was initially wanting real wood floor. I was then persuaded to laminate due to the cost and maintenance of real wood. However, after further research it seems decent vinyl is the sweet spot!

I've only briefly looked at the stuff on display in wickes. Can anyone recommend a decent brand for wood effect vinyl? I want a quality finish, I don't want to skimp.

Thanks!

 

[RoboCod]

Karndean. You can't go wrong with that.

I put this stuff down recently https://www.carpetright.co.uk/vinyl/perfection-596-burned-wood-vinyl-flooring as vinyl goes looks pretty good.

Thanks, I'll get samples of all of these.

In your living room? Get a nice cosy carpet surely? I love wooden flooring but would never have it in a living or bedroom and vinyl wouldn't get a look in outside the kitchen or bathroom it just doesn't feel right!

We have nice carpets throughout but with cats and the lounge being the main thoroughfare from the main entrance, I don't want an expensive carpet that will ruin in no time. I've had this out with the gf several times (she wants carpet). I'm going to have a really nice big rug instead

 

[RoboCod]

Front door in the living room is a tricky one one of my pet hates in life. I'd still have a carpet with a rug
/Mat inside the front door for people to take there shoes off on. Cats shouldn't be trashing your carpets I'm always amazed what people put up with from them!

They don't trash the carpet, it's more the hair and cleaning it up

We have a small porch off the living room, not front door straight in. I'd still be more content that we didn't have a nice plush carpet as that's what we would have (upstairs has one of the most expensive carpets I could afford) - because what's the point in carpet if it isn't really nice?

With a rug over vinyl where our feet rest when sat on the sofa, at least if it does ruin I can roll up and throw it away and just throw another down. This won't cost thousands every time to do it.

 

[RoboCod]

Thanks all for the recommendations, samples ordered from all.

 

[RoboCod]

Alright guys I've finally gotten around to pulling up my carpet and underneath I've found these tiles. I'll be honest I'm not sure what they're made of but they're pretty thin, glued down and quite brittle. Where I've pulled the carpet grippers out, some of these tiles have broken resulting in an uneven surface around the room.

The question is, should I try and lift/scrape all these tiles up before laying my vinyl? Or should leave them down and use something like floor levelling compound around the edges to reduce and chance of depressions? Or should I put an underlay down?






https://imgur.com/a/ntlFl

 

[RoboCod]

I suspected asbestos tiles too

I think I might avoid lifting them for that matter and just pouring a thin layer of repair compound/levelling liquid to "seal" them in.

 

[RoboCod]

Reading further into this, I might be better in the long term to carefully pull the tiles up, and screed over the Bitumen. All the while wearing suitable PPE.

 

[RoboCod]

Tomorrow morning I'm nipping to screwfix to pick up a boiler suit and a polythene door to block off my stairs. I'm going to tape up all other entrances so my downstairs looks like a set from Dexter. I already have gloves and I'm going to use my standard issue GSR. Being full face and with twin filter canisters, I think it's going to be better than anything I could buy off the shelf. I'll post photos if I remember, wish me luck

 

[RoboCod]

Understand about covering over the tiles but to be honest, I want rid of them because your floor is as good as the weakest part and with already cracked and damaged tiles, that's the weakest part. I don't want to be lifting expensive vinyl down the line to fix it.

I've been and collected several items, namely the KA SBR primer and then KA tanking slurry. There is a bit of damp on the floor when I pulled the underlay up see. Following that I'm laying setcrete primer and finally setcrete latex SLC. I've used this stuff before so I'm confident. Big day ahead!

 

[RoboCod]

You're right, this is massive pita. The tiles around the edges came up easily, led me into false hope and the rest are a nightmare! Most of them are just crumbling up, which is exactly not what I wanted. I might have to leave them down after all.

Any Idea if you can SBR then slurry over these thermoplastic tiles?

 

[RoboCod]

All done. It took 11 bags of setcrete to cover the lot, I'm spent!

I'm not ashamed to say I ended up abandoning lifting the tiles because they were mostly difficult to lift and they tended to shatter into small pieces. Here's hoping the subfloor holds up then!

 

[RoboCod]

Can confirm, did die

 

[RoboCod]

I ended up laying karndean loose lay. Looks great!