Talk to me about LVT - Amtico, Karndean, Invictus

[likelysuspect]

Or any others in fact

Advantages/disadvantages?

What does it offer over engineered real wood? Particularly around mopping the floors, does wood cope with this?

Or in fact just getting the floorboards done nicely?

We got a quikstep LVT product for bathroom and en-suite plus the kitchen.
The kitchen being on the ground floor ( concrete ) we had glued down on top on a latex ‘float’ to ensure absolute level-ness ( if that a word ).
Upstairs were planks which click together. 8 in a box, could barely lift the box which was reassuring.

Durability, easy to clean and waterproof , particularly if water was sitting on them a while. Big range of finishes too.

We've Harvey Maria tile effect in half the kitchen and Amtico glue down parquet wood on other half.
It just looks immaculate. It's warm, easy to keep clean and no grout lines (we had porcelain before).

Have a look at Polyflor Camaro. We had it in our last house and it was fabulous (had a colour called Wild Amber Oak) and about to put it in the new place. Tends to be a little cheaper than those you’ve listed. You can order free samples.

We have Amtico. Easy to clean warm underfoot. If you have pets it marks regardless of what they tell you.

I used to have karndean throughout my whole ground floor and loved it. Waterproof, doesn’t mark ( I once dropped a can of paint all over it and it just wiped up), and good with underfloor. It does scratch so get a decent wear layer so you don’t end up with light marks. I’m about to get a few rooms done in Amtico signature as they have some nice laying patterns and I think it’s a slightly better looking product. I’ve always had glue down.

We love amtico. I got ours dirt cheap on eBay!!

We have Amtico. Love it and it's easy to clean and hard wearing with a toddler and a lab. Chose that over Karndean as it's made in the UK.

I am sure I’m in the minority but I loathe it. It’s over priced lino which dents and marks and regardless of pattern, looks like….lino.
I prefer engineered wood, or tiles or even decent quality laminate.

We have Amtico, I think it looks like cheap laminate. Maybe it's the colour, but I really am not impressed. Wish we had got engineered wood instead.

We have Amtico and love it. It was a higher range one and is textured and dinted of itself. It looks great and I can't see that it has any further scratches.

We have engineered wood on the living room and it's beautiful.

Oh no, ours is much better than our remaining bits of laminate which are as smooth and featureless as an ice rink.

We have Karndean

we used to have the engineered wood in the living room and sanded floorboards in the bedroom but it’s all karndean now

in addition to being soft underfoot and warm and not slippery ( bathroom and kitchen ) it’s easier to look after - doesn’t scratch as easily - just mop or vacuum whenever

it looks great and mother thought it was proper wood

Oh dear, what sort of pets as we have cats?

We have cats too. Scratches are very faint - we have the top one with the thickest layer - but you can see them in certain directions.

I have LG LVT and I love it. We have recently knocked 2 rooms together and continued the flooring which has been down 5 years into the new room and the old flooring has worn so well you can't tell which is new and which is old. Cleans brilliantly and is very tough.

Cats will scratch anything

possibly avoid the cheapest ranges.

Karndean has a refresh process for marks and scratches ( remove and refresh ). we got given some but haven’t used it yet - we may one day in the porch as there are a few scratches there from stones and metal dragged across the floor ( by our broken vaccum cleaner head )

you only see in some light though so not yet bothered

We have Amtico in two rooms. It’s expensive but to me worth it. The cost of having it laid by an expert is about as much as the flooring. We have a long hall between the sitting room and dining room and it has been laid so that when we eventually have the hall laid it will all match up.
Amtico is designed and made in Uk whereas Karndean for instance is I believe from China and is cheaper.
For reference our sitting room of 14x 15 cost around £2000 about five years ago.

Only note of caution I would give about Karndean is that in my experience it’s not very waterproof. We had a small leak in the downstairs toilet and it damaged the karndean. When I had my en-suite refitted last month the fitters warned me never to use Karndean in a bathroom, I had Howdens own LVT instead.

We're being told we have to do all the rooms at once if we want it flowing through, is that right? Due to the screeding

Its going to be a nightmare furniture wise though

Re pets: my dog has large claws.She's lived here seven years and the Amtico in the kitchen-diner, where she spends a lot of time, is unmarked. It is textured though so that probably helps.

I've also had a flood from the washing machine and the Amtico is undamaged.

The flooring company I dealt with lay a lot of it and have the necessary expertise.

I’ve got engineered wood and original Victorian parquet downstairs and original floorboards upstairs. Hate LVT and its ilk. Always looks artificial. They mop fine.

No we had a gap of a year or so. The rooms don’t meet but will once the hall is done which is why the guy that laid marked out for the future flooring. By that I think what he did was set one part a particular way( herringbone) that was followed for the other room and then will be for the hall. That way it should flow seamlessly.
I think from the installer’s point of view it would be easier but if you are not sure I would contact Amtico and see what they had to say.

Possibly he means in terms of levelling the floors if they are slightly different heights which is better to do all at once as it’s self levelling I think.

We have Amtico parquet effect and can’t say there has been any cat damage with two cats. I wanted the same flooring throughout a large kitchen/diner/living space so it felt like the best option for that as only part of the space had the original boards. An advantage over engineered wood is it avoids the faff of taking off skirting boards. I had seen it in a friend’s house and didn’t realise it wasn’t real wood parquet, but once you know you know!

I used an independent fitter I found via Instagram who were a lot cheaper than the two high street flooring places I had quotes from. We went with the mid range (rural oak) but I think I would go with the signature range if I was doing it again, although pretty happy with what we have.