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CarpetsPlus COLORTILE
David Ellis, Marketing Director, Alliance Flooring, Inc CarpetsPlus COLORTILE retailers are known for product, design, and installation expertise. But, with so many Luxury Vinyl Flooring options, you need an expert to guide you — and with us, that's exactly what you'll find. Here, we explain the features and benefits of rigid core or glue-down vinyl flooring to help you make an educated selection.
Rigid core flooring is what most people today think of as luxury vinyl flooring. The rigid core category has been around for nearly ten years, but its rapid growth and innovations have confused different names and acronyms. You may have heard terms like LVT, LVP, LVF, WPC, and SPC. Let’s define these terms:
CarpetsPlus COLORTILE American Pride Gettysburg in color Baltimore LVT Luxury Vinyl Tile (may or may not be tile looks because, in the beginning, this is what people called the entire category) LVP Luxury Vinyl Plank (wood looks) LVF Luxury Vinyl Flooring (some use this term to refer to the entire category) EIR Embossed in Register (the embossing follows the wood grain)
WPC Wood Plastic Composite Core SPC Stone Plastic Composite
When selecting the right rigid core floor, consider the application and your performance expectations.
1. The Core Differences — WPC and SPC
WPC stands for Wood Plastic Composite. This core was introduced in vinyl flooring by US Floors around 2012. It is made of wood dust, plastic, and foaming agents. Compared to SPC, WPC is thicker, softer, warmer underfoot, and quieter. This softness allows deeper texturing for more realism but can be dented slightly easier. In addition, it can be installed over many floors as a floating floor, which means it is not glued or stapled to the subfloor.
SPC came next and stands for Stone Plastic Composite. SPC's core exchanges the wood of WPC for stone, making a harder, more dent-resistant floor. SPC began its life in the commercial market but moved quickly into residential because it was less expensive and durable.
2. Formats — Click, Glue Down, Loose Lay
Click-together luxury vinyl floors are rigid core floors that are clicked together with a tongue and groove. Some locking system names to look for are UniClic, Valinge, Tap-n-fold, and Angle/Tap. These better systems can keep spills and moisture from seeping into the subfloor for up to days at a time.
Glue Down luxury vinyl is mainly used in commercial and is ultra-durable, installed in strips, and glued to the subfloor.
Loose Lay is a format that can be installed without glue or a locking system. The planks literally just lay side by side. It sounds crazy, but most have a grippy rubber backing, and with weight and friction, they remain in place the same as any other floor. An adhesive is required in some instances around the perimeter.
3. The Layers
WPC and SPC are often made in several layers, including an attached underlayment, the core, the print layer, and the wear layer. Sometimes there is an additional coating to prevent scuffs and scrapes or for added rigidity and dimensional stability. ■
To locate your nearest CarpetsPlus COLORTILE retailer, visit CarpetsPlusColorTile.com.
CarpetsPlus COLORTILE Elite Performance Engineered Stone in color Duomo
