Do You Need Underlay For Vinyl Plank Flooring

If you ve chosen luxury vinyl plank flooring as a replacement for your current flooring you ve made a very smart choice.

Do you need underlay for vinyl plank flooring.

This baselayer makes the vinyl flooring incredibly durable and comfortable to walk on. It is important to know if you need underlayment or not with a vinyl flooring installation. What about for click and lock vinyl tiles. This is a question we get daily.

They mimic hardwood yet offer the ease of maintenance of luxury vinyl. It s extremely beautiful flooring that mimics natural hardwood and sometimes even stone. Installing new flooring is a costly enterprise so you want to get it right the first time around. Actually you may not even need underlayment depending on the product and where you plan to install it.

If you re installing new vinyl flooring over an existing floor such as hardwood tile laminate or vinyl then cork or foam make good choices. Unlike laminate flooring most vinyl floors are designed to lay directly on top of the subfloor. Most vinyl flooring or luxury vinyl tiles do not require underlay. There are several types of underlayment for this type of flooring and we ve seen brands with a thin layer of foam pre attached as well.

If you ve chosen to go the vinyl path you re probably wondering about the best underlayment for vinyl plank flooring. Vinyl floors are designed with a base layer making the addition of underlay pointless. If your subfloor had dips or damage it could show through the vinyl over time. That doesn t mean you don t need underlayment for sheet vinyl however.

The only time a vinyl floor may need underlay is when the surface beneath is uneven or has issues with damp. Do you need underlayment for those. Most lvp flooring is water resistant some types are even waterproof and it s also very durable able to resist dents dings scratches and stains. Like plywood or osb flooring you can forgo the underlayment entirely if you prefer.