Luxury vinyl plank and laminate get talked about as the same product and they are not. Vinyl is a plastic-core plank that shrugs off water, which is why it has taken over entries, laundry rooms, mudrooms and any floor sitting on a slab. Laminate is a printed wear surface over a fiberboard core. It takes surface abuse extremely well and it takes standing water extremely badly, because the core swells at the seams and does not go back.
Both are usually installed as floating floors, and that is where the oversell starts. A floating floor is sold as forgiving, and it is forgiving about a lot of things, but it is not forgiving about a subfloor that is not flat. Ride a click-together plank over dips and you get flex, hollow sound, joints that work loose and edges that eventually separate. Thin material telegraphs a bad substrate faster than thick material does, not slower.
Concrete gets moisture readings, wood subfloor gets checked for movement and fastening, and the whole floor gets read for flatness across the room rather than spot checked in one corner.
Water exposure, whether the room sits on a slab, pets, sunlight and how much traffic the floor takes. One of the two is usually clearly right for a given room once those are on the table.
Leveling compound, grinding or patching brings the plane into tolerance, then the correct underlayment goes down once, matched to the plank and to what the moisture readings showed.
Planks are racked for pattern, perimeter expansion space is held everywhere including behind trim, and transitions at doorways let adjoining runs move independently instead of pinning them.
Plank quality drives most of the material difference: core construction, wear layer thickness, plank size and how convincing the surface texture is. Square footage sets the baseline, and layout complexity raises it, since small rooms, angled walls, closets and doorways all add cuts and waste that an open rectangle does not. Subfloor prep is the swing factor again, because a floating floor demands flatness and getting there can mean grinding, patching or pouring leveler across a whole room. Removal is its own line, and glued-down material with stubborn adhesive costs more to take out than carpet does. Stairs, transitions and furniture moving finish the list.
The plank itself handles water, but a floor is an assembly, not a plank. Water still travels through seams to the subfloor underneath and sits there, and it can still reach the walls. Vinyl is the right call in wet rooms because it survives spills that would destroy laminate, but treat it as highly water tolerant rather than as a sealed surface.
In dry rooms that take hard use. Laminate wear surfaces resist scratching and denting well, which suits busy hallways, family rooms and bedrooms with pets and furniture. It underperforms anywhere water can stand or wick, since a swollen fiberboard core at the joints is permanent damage rather than something a refinish can correct.
Yes, and it matters more than most people are told. A floating floor is not fastened down, so it bridges dips instead of following them. That bridging shows up as flex, hollow sound, joints working loose and edge damage over time. Flatness tolerance is the single most important prep item for click-together plank of any kind.
Sometimes, and it depends entirely on what is there. A sound, flat, well-adhered surface can occasionally stay. Carpet cannot. Cushioned or loose material cannot. Anything hiding moisture or movement should come up so the substrate can be read. Going over an old floor also raises the finished height, which changes every doorway and transition in the room.
Solid wood moves with Utah's dry air, so acclimation and moisture readings come before installation. Engineered construction stays flatter over concrete. Which one belongs in your house depends on the subfloor under it and how often you want it refinished.
Learn more →Tile does not crack because the tile is weak. It cracks because the substrate under it moved. Proper backer, a flat mortar bed and movement joints in the right places are what keep a tile floor intact through years of seasonal shifting.
Learn more →The pad under carpet decides how the carpet wears more than the fiber above it does. In bedrooms, on stairs and over a cold slab, carpet still solves problems no hard surface solves. Get the pad specification right before you shop color.
Learn more →Refinishing an existing hardwood floor is a genuinely different job from replacing it. How many sandings a floor has left depends on the wear layer above the tongue. That gets read honestly before anyone quotes you a tear-out.
Learn more →Get the subfloor checked before anyone shows you a sample box.
Request a QuoteRooms, current flooring and what is underneath. We will take it from there.
