Flexible vinyl floors are first-generation vinyl floors. They are also known as LVT floors. When compared to this generation, the rigid vinyl floors from Floorify have a number of practical benefits, but the most important is that Floorify rigid vinyl floors do not contain harmful plasticisers.
Practical differences:
The evolution into rigid vinyl floors
At the beginning, flexible vinyl floors were merely floors that were glued. Levelling (making the surface flat) is always required when installing these kinds of floor. You then need to affix the floor strips to the surface with the aid of glue. This is a solid locking method, but also rather complex, time-consuming and costly. With a rigid vinyl floor (Floorify), unevenness can usually be bridged by the rigid core.
In a subsequent phase, the same flexible vinyl floors became available as a slightly thicker version with integrated click system for floating installation (as with laminate and floating parquet). This will make for easier installation. As these are flexible products, however, there are a number of restrictions that apply to installation:
Installation is not possible in direct sunlight. When a flexible plank heats up, it will become even more flexible and begin to expand. It will then try to push the other planks away into the expansion joint, but that won’t work because the plank is flexible. As such, it will rise at the weakest point in the floor—the end faces will rise slightly. Conversely, this means that in colder temperatures, the flexible vinyl floor will shrink, thus elevating the risk of open joints. On floating floors with less flexible planks, this doesn’t pose a problem. The expansion and shrinking occurs in the expansion joints, so there are no problems.
In addition, the click connection of a flexible vinyl floor has the same core as the floor itself. This means that the click connection is weaker. With a rigid vinyl floor, the click connections are extremely strong, like the core of a rigid vinyl floor.
Conclusion
|
Flexible vinyl floors |
Floorify |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|