How to Install Vinyl Plank Flooring

Are you planning a home flooring remodel and don’t know how to install vinyl plank flooring? You’ll get the information you need here. Vinyl plank floors are arguably the best water-resistant flooring options for your home. You can use them in your kitchen, living room, and bedroom. However, you’ll need to possess some knowledge of its installation if you’re looking to save cost on labor.

Installing vinyl plank flooring is easy. You can achieve it in simple steps, including designing a layout, removing trim moldings, cutting vinyl planks to size, clicking planks into grooves, and laying the last plank. First, however, you need to decide if you prefer a floating or glued floor.

This article will help you guide how to install vinyl plank flooring, even as a beginner. You’ll also get answers to some common questions regarding installing vinyl plank floorings, such as labor cost and the better option between glued and floating vinyl plank flooring.

Step by Step Guide on How to Install Vinyl Plank Flooring.

You’ll need some tools and materials to install vinyl plank floors successfully. First, get them ready to have an easy installation experience. Then, follow these steps to accomplish your installation goal.

Design Your Flooring Layout

Your floor layout will be easier if all rooms are square, but that’s never the case. You need to know where your plank laying starts and how it affects the ends. In your rooms, you should also plan for the corners and protrusions created by some fixtures, such as base cabinets.

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You can eyeball your design layout, but a more dependable method is to make drawings, showing the dimensions of the room, and dividing them by the dimension of your flooring Planks. Account for curves in the room, and ensure that each end of the room has equal sizes of planks.

As a rule of thumb, begin your floor layout design from the most prominent wall in the room.

Remove Trim Moldings

Once you understand how the flow of your floor will go, you should remove trim moldings. Baseboards, case moldings, and base shoe moldings may impede your flooring progress. So, it is better to have them out of the way before you begin flooring.

Remove trim moldings with a flat pry bar. Trim moldings are usually attached to the wall with thin nails that are easy to remove. After installing your vinyl floor planks, you can also use these moldings if they remain in good condition.

You can cut the planks to fit around them for door frames that get in the way of laying planks. Alternatively, you can cut the base of the door frames to allow the planks to slide underneath them easily. You may also remove your doors to make floor installation easier.

Prepare and Clean the Floor

Every debris on the floor is a threat to the near and balanced finish you desire for your vinyl plank floor. Therefore, vacuum the floor before installation begins. You may also have to vacuum, some feet at a time, while installation is ongoing.

Also, if you have a concrete floor, you should consider filling in every crevice and hole in the floor before you begin the installation. A concrete patcher will do the trick. However, if the floor has some high areas, sand the areas down to meet the flat level of the others.

You can also sand off the peak points and clean the debris for other subfloors, such as plywood. But, again, the goal is to have a level and clean subfloor.

To achieve a smoother and cleaner surface, you may have to lay some material over the subfloor. A thin plastic laid over the subfloor can do the trick. However, they shouldn’t crease during installation and maintain consistency, even with temperature fluctuations.

Lay the First Rows of Plank

From the most prominent wall of the room lay the first rows of the plank to test-fit them. Usually, the planks have tongues and grooves that aid in adhering one plank to the other. Lay the first plank so that the tongue faces the wall and the groove is exposed for subsequent planks to fit into.

Begin plank laying, with a full-length plank, from the midpoint of the prominent wall so that you can have planks of equal length at both ends of the wall. Place spacers at about a quarter of an inch from the wall to account for expansion in the planks. You may also need to screw the first row of planks into the subfloor to hold them in place.

Cut Planks to Size

Cutting vinyl planks is similar to cutting plywood or drywall panels. You can cut them with a utility knife, heavy-duty scissors, vinyl plank cutter, or hand saw. It is easier to get clean cuts with vinyl plank cutters – you can get them for rent at your local hardware store – and hand saws. However, make sure they are a few feet away from your floor.

Measure your planks to have different lengths, which gives a total of the actual room length. You can avoid a bricklaying flooring pattern and have the staggering pattern you’re shooting for.

Also, put protrusion into account when cutting. Mark your plank by measuring the protrusion and cutting the plank along with the marks.

Generally, you can cut your vinyl plank by drawing a mark across the face of the plank. Cut the mark with a utility knife. Make the cut drive more than once, and lay the plank with its finished surface facing the floor. Next, bend the plank along the marked part backward. Cut through the bend with a utility knife if that doesn’t trick. You can also place the marked point on the plank beneath a vinyl plank cutter and press down on the lever to cut the plank.

Fit Vinyl Flooring Planks Together

Once you have the first row of the plank in place, install subsequent rows, preferably from the middle, so that their tongues and grooves meet and click. Vinyl planks usually attach to the edges and on the ends. Some have the fold and lock type of connectivity, while others have the tongue and groove system.

Hold a vinyl plank at an angle, with one end fitting into the other or one edge fitting into the other. Place the board into the receiving board and lay it flat on the subfloor. You’ll usually have to lightly beat the ends and edges of the connecting planks with a mallet for better fitting. You may use a tap-in or pull-in block to make the connections tighter.

Lay the Last Vinyl Plank

When you’ve repeated the plank-laying to the other end of the wall, you are now ready to lay the final vinyl plank to complete your vinyl plank laminate flooring. Again, remember that the size of planks on both ends of the floor should be the same for good aesthetics.

Place the planks’ tongues into the previous row’s groove to make them connect. Use a pull-in block to firm the connection. Consider the spacers on the wall base to determine the right size of the plank to install.

Reinstall Trim Moldings

Once you’ve successfully laid your vinyl planks, you should replace the trim moldings to complete the flooring. If your baseboards, base shoes, and door moldings are intact, replace them on the walls and above the floor to cover the spaces.

You can hold the trim moldings to the walls with a pneumatic Brad nailer or a hammer. However, it would help if you were careful with the latter.

How-to Tips for Vinyl Plank Flooring

How to Start First Row of Vinyl Plank Flooring

The first row of vinyl plank flooring is the trickiest part of laying vinyl plank floors. Having got the floor layout, start laying floor planks from the most prominent wall in the room.

• Deduce the length of the room from your floor layout.
• Use a full-length vinyl plank in the middle of the prominent wall.
• Add an equal length of the vinyl plank to either end of the full-length vinyl plank.
• When you reach the end of the wall length, ensure to leave some space to the wall, usually a quarter of an inch.
• With a pull-in block, fit the tongue of the last planks at each end into the grooves of the preceding plank.

How to Stagger Vinyl Plank Flooring

With different vinyl plank lengths come different patterns due to the varying lengths of planks applied to the floor. The point of staggering a vinyl plank floor is to enhance aesthetics and reduce the possibility of weak spots in the flooring.

Generally, a good understanding of your room measurement, the number of planks your room needs, and an understanding of staggering will produce a good pattern in vinyl plank flooring. Avoid step patterns and H-joints in this type of flooring.

Understand Stagger Spacing Rules

To stagger a vinyl plank floor, you need to apply the right spacing to adjacent planks. Generally, the space between the end-points of adjacent planks depends on the width of the planks. For example, vinyl planks 2 to 3 inches wide require about 6 inches of space between the adjacent planks’ end-points. Wider planks can take 8 to 10 inches of space between adjacent plank end-points.

To get the ideal stagger spacing. First, divide the length of your room by the length of your plank. Start the room with a full-length plank if the result is 6 inches. If it’s less, use half or one-third of the plank for a start.

Mix up the Vinyl Planks

You can have better aesthetics if you mix them randomly in your flooring if you have vinyl planks with different undertones. Keeping the staggered spacing in mind, mix different hues of the same vinyl floor planks to give your room a good stagger pattern and color mix.

Start Installing the First Row

Getting the first row of vinyl plank floor right is the foundation of a good stagger. To determine the right stagger space, install the first row of planks depending on your calculations.

The next row falls in naturally, as do the subsequent rows. First, however, be conscious of your ideal stagger space.

How to Layout Vinyl Plank Flooring

A vinyl plank flooring layout is an important step in installing a long-lasting and aesthetic vinyl floor. The vinyl plank floor layout begins with understanding the orientation of your room.

Layout your vinyl plank flooring by following these steps.

• Remove all the movable furniture in the room.
• Measure your room and record your measurements.
• Make a sketch of your room to scale
• Measure your planks and determine how many you’ll need for your room. Then, divide your room measurement by your plank measurement. This also helps to determine the right stagger space for you.
• Include your measurements on your sketch.

Frequently Asked Questions About Vinyl Plank Flooring.

Here are answers to some of the common questions on how to successfully install a vinyl plank floor.

Can a Beginner Install Vinyl Plank Flooring?

Yes, a beginner can install vinyl plank flooring. Vinyl plank floors are probably the easiest DIY flooring endeavors a beginner can attempt in their homes. However, they still require basic skills, such as floor leveling, plank cutting, and glue application.

Vinyl plank flooring majorly involves cutting and placing planks into the appropriate places to connect them firmly. Measurements are easy to do. However, designing a floor layout may be the most challenging activity for beginners in laying vinyl plank floors.

With guidance from this article and probably some video guide, beginners can successfully install vinyl plank floors in their homes.

Can You Put Vinyl Flooring on Plywood?

Plywood is one of the common subfloors for laminate flooring; hence, you can put vinyl flooring on plywood subfloors. However, you may have to lay some plastic on the plywood subfloor with some vinyl floor planks for better adhesion and foot feel.

Plywood subfloors with uneven gradients may need sanding to achieve a level subfloor. Also, remove every sand-off scratches that may have some wood coverings on the plywood loose and exposed. Afterward, clean the dust and debris on the plywood surface.

How Long Does It Take To Install Vinyl Plank Flooring?

The duration for installing a vinyl plank floor depends on the size of your room or home, the extent of work you have to do on the subfloor, the number of people handling the flooring project, and the experience of the labor has with vinyl plank flooring.

Usually, you should expect to complete a 200 square feet room’s vinyl plank flooring in four hours – including the time for cutting and measuring the floor and planks. However, this time frame can be reduced if tasks are shared among the available laborers.

A 200 square feet handle by a beginner will take about four hours to complete. However, if the handler is experienced, they can complete the vinyl plank flooring of that room in 3 hours. You can further reduce the duration of installing a vinyl plank floor by employing more labor. With four people, the room will be done in an hour.

However, if you account for other pre-plank laying activities, such as designing floor layout, preparing the subfloor, and measuring and cutting planks, add another half-hour to the time you’ll normally spend.

On average, vinyl plank flooring for a 200 square feet home will take about two to three and half hours to complete by an experienced individual.

How Much Does Labor Cost to Install Vinyl Plank Flooring?

If you’re looking to get your vinyl plank flooring done by professionals, you can expect to incur costs, including labor costs, that relate to the size of your home or room you want to apply the flooring.

Usually, you’ll get labor costs that range between $2 and $5 per square foot, depending on your location. For example, the national average labor cost for vinyl plank flooring is about $2050; however, the costs can run as high as $3000.

Also, some laborers charge per hour. These laborers charge about $35 per hour. Vinyl plank flooring is considerably costlier to install than other vinyl sheets. However, luxury vinyl floors are costlier than vinyl plank floors.

Do You Put Anything Under Vinyl Plank Flooring?

You can lay vinyl plank floors on any type of floor, even existing floors, such as tiles and concrete since they are mostly floating. However, you may need to have some underlay if your existing floor isn’t the smoothest. While some vinyl planks have underlay, others don’t.

You may need a plastic underlay that bears some friction between the vinyl plank and the subfloor for concrete and tiles subfloors. However, they must have room for expansion, or else your vinyl plank will soon start to come off their grooves and tongues.

If your subfloor is plywood, you may opt for glue vinyl plank, giving it more connectivity to the subfloor. However, you don’t need any material beneath the vinyl plank with this type of flooring.

Is It Better to Glue or Float Vinyl Plank Flooring?

Whether to glue or float Vinyl plank flooring depends on the traffic in the room and the type of subfloor your room has. While you may choose to glue or float Vinyl plank floors throughout your home, you may want to consider combining these, depending on the traffic areas in your home.

Higher traffic areas, such as the stairs and hallway, may have glued vinyl plank flooring, while the kitchen and bedroom can have float vinyl plank flooring.

Also, glue vinyl plank flooring is suitable with tiles and plywood subfloors. However, with concrete subfloors, use float vinyl plank flooring.

Final Thoughts

Vinyl Plank Flooring is one of the easiest flooring options a beginner can attempt. They can be applied over existing flooring. However, to get the best out of vinyl plank flooring, you need to understand the concept of stagger spacing. Also, you don’t need to be a professional to grab how to install vinyl plank flooring.