Homeowners today are looking for more fashionable choices in their flooring selections. No other floor covering category offers the selection, styling, and ease of maintenance as a vinyl floor.  Vinyl floors feature long-lasting good looks to match any décor and the durability to excel even in high-traffic, active settings and places where moisture and spills are a fact of life. For kitchens, for bathrooms, for living spaces, for every room in your house, vinyl flooring is a great choice.

Vinyl flooring comes in more colors and designs than ever before. It makes an attractive, reasonably priced choice for kitchen, bathroom and laundry room floors.   With so 
many elegant patterns, rich textures and vibrant colors available, you have a wide range of options at your disposal. Whichever direction your fashion instincts point you.

You’ll find that our vinyl floors offer the broadest range of style, color, and performance options that are sure to fit your needs and budget. 

The wearlayer is critical to the performance of a vinyl floor. The thickness of the wearlayer is generally measured in mils. The thickness of a mil is about the same as a page in your telephone book. So a 10 mil wearlayer would be comparable in thickness to about 10 pages in your telephone book. Generally the more expensive vinyl floors have thicker wearlayers. Your expectations for how long your vinyl floor will look new and fresh are based on the wearlayer's performance. 

Installation of vinyl floors is labor intense.  Your new vinyl floor will be installed over either a concrete or wood floor.  Either of these installations requires a climate controlled work area.  We recommend that the work area be maintained at a minimum temperature of 65 degrees F. and a maximum of 100 degrees F. for 48 hours before, during and after installation.  This requirement can seldom be fulfilled with a temporary space heater.  A permanent heat source must be operational before proceeding with the installation.  For the entire life of the floor, the temperature should never fall below 55 degrees F.  If this minimum temperature cannot be maintained the performance of the flooring product and adhesives can be adversely affected.

Lets discuss the installation over the concrete floor.  The concrete floor should be smooth and dry before starting installation.  Floor prep will be used to smooth any rough areas if needed on floors that are bare.  If there is a vinyl down then an embossing leveler may be needed to give the installer a smooth surface.

When installing a vinyl floor over a wood sub-floor system, it is recommended to first install a wood panel or composition underlayment sheets to provide a smooth, clean surface. If there is an existing vinyl floor that has been installed over a sub-floor, chances are this floor must be pulled up and a new underlayment installed.  The reason is, if a new underlayment were to be installed over the existing floor it would raise the height of the floor over a ¼ inch making the transition at doorways a problem.  Our underlayment products are specifically designed for this purpose and are approved by the vinyl manufacture for warranty specifications.

In some cases, you may install a vinyl product over a single layer of existing vinyl.  The performance of the new flooring is directly dependent on the condition and continued bond of the existing floor, which can adversely affect the performance of the new floor, such as indention or adhesive bond. If the existing floor covering is textured or embossed, it may telegraph through the new floor unless the embossing of the old floor is filled with leveler.

It is also important to protect all the exposed edges of the flooring with trim or restrictive molding.  Wood molding such as quarter round or vinyl or rubber cove base gives your vinyl a very nice finished look.  Metal, vinyl transition or reducer strips are recommended where the vinyl meets other types of flooring or at doorways.

Homeowners are offered two types of residential sheet vinyl flooring. The older construction type is called inlaid construction and the newer, more common construction type is called rotogravure construction.

Inlaid contruction
The inlaid process uses solid colored vinyl chips that are laid on top of a carrier sheet and then bonded together with heat and pressure. The inlaid process has been around for years and generally results in geometric type patterns and designs. Residential inlaid floors have a clear wearlayer placed over the top of the chips to make the floor's finish easier to maintain. It is important to note that you are not walking directly on the inlaid chips, instead you are walking on the clear wearlayer that was placed on top of the chips. The appearance of your inlaid floor is dependent on how long the clear finish will last.
 
rotogravure contruction
The rotogravure printing process is the most commonly used method for making residential vinyl floors and offers unlimited possibilities in pattern and design. This involves a print cylinder that spins around while the vinyl's core layer (called the gel coat) passes underneath. The cylinder systematically prints various colored ink dyes to create the pattern. After the print dyes are set a clear wearlayer is applied to the surface. Like the inlaid the appearance retention of a rotogravure floor is dependent on the durability of the clear wearlayer.