Has anyone fitted vinyl tiles with 'grouting strips' themselves?

[TremoloGreen]

How easy/difficult is it? I have fitted sheet vinyl and vinyl tiles without the strips before, however, for our new house I quite fancy something like Polyflor or Karndean for the back hallway and downstairs loo. My PIL put Karndean in their bathroom but without the grouting strips, and I don't think it looks great TBH. I would rather have the sheet vinyl with no seams. They have some tiles left over we could have, so I'm tempted, but I'm too tight/poor to pay someone.

I want this sort of effect - rectangular tiles in half bond with 'grouting' on all sides. If you've done it, how did you do the strips? I was envisaging pre-cutting them to the length of the short side of the tile, then laying columns lengthways separated by a strip, then laying long uncut strips down the side of the column, then starting the next column of tiles. Would this make the job of cutting the incomplete tiles at the edges too fiddly (because you're having to line tiles up to a tile plus fiddly 3mm strip)?

Also, could I end up with lots of messy looking joins between the vertical and horizontal bits of strip? My friend has this type of flooring in her kitchen (done by her kitchen fitter) and it looks absolutely flawless. I would rather stick with sheet vinyl than shell out for all this bumpf and have it look a bit squiffy.

Ps, I'm going to be quite heavily pregnant while doing this, but they do say that scrubbing the floor is good for you, right? My dad will help out a bit but he hasn't done it before either.

We're about to have vinyl 'wood' floor put in our new conservatory. We were told laying the floor is a specialist job, they only had one fitter who was top snotch at it.
If it's your first time laying vinyl tiles let alone with the grout I would give it a miss - especially with baby on the way! I may eat my words when I see them put ours down later this week and it looks dead easy!

Hmm; I think I would take that to mean 'there's only one bloke we've sent on the specialist course and therefore trust not to generate too many complaints... also it's a good thing to say when customers ask why we can't start for four weeks"

Obviously a company with public liability will take a different level of risk to a diyer though. I'm a reasonably confident diy-er, have done basic tiling and floor laying, just can't find any info online anywhere with tips about these strips!

I'm having a rethink about the order of work for the whole kitchen/back hallway/wc project anyway, so there's less time urgency now. I have noticed that the woodgrain designs look good without the feature strips but they're not suitable for my house - front half of house is original 30s wood flooring, or will be once restored!

I think I'd like to see some of the stone designs without strips on a bigger area and maybe also look at other brands like Polyflor, maybe I've been quick to judge based on DPIL's bathroom...

Ps, laying LVTs in conservatories is supposed to be a different kettle of fish to other installations, because of the extremes of temperature, not all floor treatments etc are suitable. So you do need someone who knows what they're doing!

My new kitchen is nearly fitted and the expert Karndean fitter arrived yesterday to fit tiles very similar to those in your picture, op. He was here all day, and is coming back today to finish off, he said fitting strip floor is simpler and getting the grout strips just right is a big task. I'd not do it myself.

p.s. the floor had to be screeded, then the screed sanded and gone over by hand too before he could start, which made it more complicated. We had ceramic floor tiles with difficult to remove adhesive before this floor was laid.

THanks Constance. I am leaning more and more towards doing it without the strips if I can find a design that looks good. I can't find an interlocking floor I like (is that what you mean by strip floor?). Our subfloor is 1980s concrete that had previously had sheet vinyl laid on it which is very flat and smooth, although there is one ~1m2 area in the kitchen with ceramic tiles where the old oil boiler stood, so I would probably remove these, see what I'm left with and screed the whole floor, as the manufacturers recommend a 3mm screed even for perfect floors.

I opted for no grout strips, though had them fitted professionally Adding to this thread becuase i found it difficult to see examples of lvt tiles without grout lines. Used Amtico Signature range (i liked the most expensive one unfortunately but you will save money on the stripping/grout and labour costs) The tiles have a very subtly bevelled edge not mentioned on the website that helps to distinguish between the tiles without the need for grout lines. It's so subtle you don't always see all the lines, depends on the angle you view them from and the light in the room. Overall I'm happy with it