Types of Luxury Vinyl Flooring

Luxury vinyl flooring is a great choice when you need a durable and versatile flooring option to fit your home’s aesthetic. Homeowners enjoy the multiple layers of stability and protection from everyday foot traffic, messes and scratches. Our luxury vinyl flooring is waterproof and holds up to splashes, spills or leaks for 24 to 72 hours. You can also find dozens of colors and patterns that make your living spaces stand out.

Choosing between different types of vinyl flooring can influence the life span, maintenance requirements and cost of your home’s new floor. Check out the following types of vinyl flooring to see which option is perfect for your living spaces.

The 3 Kinds of Luxury Vinyl Flooring

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With any choice of luxury vinyl flooring, you can rest assured your floors are one of the most durable options due to their synthetic materials and layers of protection. Many homeowners place these floors in areas with high moisture, such as bathrooms, laundry rooms and kitchens.

Now, for the fun part — you can choose different types of luxury vinyl plank flooring, tile and vinyl in a plastic composite for a soft and flexible feel. Or, if you prefer something more rigid, SPC flooring is made with a stone and plastic composite for exceptional durability.

1. Luxury Vinyl Plank

Luxury vinyl plank flooring is your budget-friendly alternative to hardwood floor planks. This flooring option is cost-effective due to the lower maintenance and installation process requirements. You can enjoy the same realistic look to hardwood floors with several benefits, including waterproof layers, resistance to buckling or swelling, maintenance-free cleaning and incredibly durable material.

The great thing about luxury vinyl planks is the wide range of style options you can choose to fit any room in your home. You can select natural styles for your home with different types of vinyl plank flooring, including wood, stone and decorative, which further include metallic accents, geometric patterns and other aesthetic designs.

Most homeowners install luxury vinyl planks in their bathrooms, kitchens, mudrooms and basements for heat retention and moisture protection.

2. Luxury Vinyl Tile

Luxury vinyl tiles are an excellent choice for homeowners who want stylish floors in their high-traffic areas. Similar to luxury vinyl planks, tiles resemble natural stone, wood, marble and ceramic tiles. The tiles come in square shapes compared to the long strips of material you’d see in vinyl planks.

Luxury vinyl tile flooring is waterproof, incredibly durable, eco-friendly, and cost-effective. With an impressive life span of up to 30 years, you can enjoy a stylish floor that matches your aesthetic for decades. Many homeowners choose to install luxury vinyl tile in climate-controlled areas with high foot traffic, including bathrooms, kitchens, living rooms, bedrooms and any gathering spaces.

When deciding where to install luxury vinyl tile flooring, you should ensure the space you choose contains climate control to keep the air temperature consistent. This flooring material is subject to ambient air temperature. As a result, keeping the material away from heat sources like large windows or ensuring you have coverings or a heat control film on the glass can help your floors maintain their ideal appearance over time.

3. SPC Flooring

SPC flooring comes in planks and tiles with many styles to choose from. This flooring is ideal when you want a natural material look at a lower price. Generally thicker than other luxury vinyl, SPC surfaces offer an enhanced and more realistic appearance that mimics hardwood or stone. You can choose from different lengths and widths or various edge treatments to suit your preferences.

With its sturdy and resilient form, the stone polymer composite keeps its shape regardless of the floor below it, allowing for easy installation on almost any existing hard surface or subfloor — it lays right over hardwood, concrete or plywood for a perfect look. SPC also has minimal maintenance requirements, with the color and textures keeping an ideal, attractive appearance with simple cleaning measures.

This product offers extreme durability against wear and tear and is an excellent option for active homes. It’s also versatile and rugged enough to work well in any room, including high-traffic areas such as entryways and hallways and high-moisture zones like bathrooms.

What Are the Luxury Vinyl Layers?

Now that you’ve learned more about the different types of vinyl flooring, you might have a better idea of the look you want throughout your home. With any of these selections, you can enjoy the same benefits that keep your rooms protected against excess moisture, heavy foot traffic and scratches.

This high level of protection comes from the luxury vinyl layers in each plank and tile. These layers include:

Wear layer: This top layer gives your floor extra shine while also resisting the damage from scuff marks, dirt, scratches and stains. With this protective covering in your vinyl flooring, you won’t have to worry about heavy furniture sitting or moving across the floor.
Image layer: For natural stone, wood, tile or other patterns in your home, the image layer provides the design you desire for any room. Many homeowners enjoy having multiple decorative choices to mimic in this layer, so they don’t have to limit their creative freedom.
Core: As its name gives away, the core layer is what gives the flooring structure and support. Your guests, pets and family members can walk across these floors as much as they want, thanks to the core’s sturdiness.
Backing: The final layer that sits below the wear, image and core layers of luxury vinyl flooring helps protect against moisture and mildew. You can easily clean up spills or water puddles without any floor damage. The back layer supports the other three layers to prevent warping after years of use.

Luxury Vinyl Wear Layer Choices

While each layer helps create the design, protection and long life span of luxury vinyl flooring, the wear layer can also come in various options depending on your preference.

Durable wear layer finishes include:

No-wax vinyl: For extra protection in low- to medium-traffic rooms, you can choose no-wax vinyl in your flooring’s wear layer. The installation team will add a thin polyurethane coating to the top layer of your floor that protects against scuffs and scratches. Most homeowners choose no-wax vinyl for their basements and laundry rooms.
Urethane: In medium-traffic rooms, urethane offers more durability and resistance to moisture and scuffs. This simple wear layer choice is excellent for dining and living rooms, making cleaning everyday mess easier.
Enhanced urethane: Scratches and stains are no match for enhanced urethane. This low-maintenance and highly durable layer choice is perfect for rooms with heavy traffic areas, such as kitchens and hallways.

What Should You Choose?

With so many benefits each floor provides, choosing one for your home can be challenging. No matter your choice, you can enjoy stylish floors that cost significantly less than natural hardwood and laminate flooring with the same realistic look. SPC flooring is one of the best options for achieving this realism thanks to its thick form and edge enhancements.

If your priority is choosing a floor with the least amount of maintenance requirements possible, SPC flooring and luxury vinyl planks are for you — just make sure the minimal cleaning you do aligns with the manufacturer’s recommendations so that you don’t void the warranty. For a longer life span, luxury vinyl tiles are best, as they can last 10 years longer than sheet vinyl and up to five years longer than planks.

The choice is yours, and you can enjoy a gorgeous finish to your home’s floors with any tile or plank or vinyl flooring option you decide.

Choose Luxury Vinyl Flooring With 50Floor

For stylish and durable luxury vinyl flooring options, look no further than 50Floor. We prioritize finding the highest-quality floor for your rooms. We offer a unique at-home shopping experience as part of your free consultation that lets you see different luxury vinyl flooring samples up close.

If you like the sound of luxury vinyl flooring in your home, schedule a free at-home appointment with 50Floor today!