LifeProof Luxury Vinyl Flooring w/ 1960's style tubs

[Phil Christian]

In the last ~2 years we have upgraded ~220+ units and our flooring in the bathrooms has always been either TrafficMaster Allure Vinyl Plank (the stick down flexible product) or 12"x 24" Porcelain Tile all depending on our budgets/community demographics. 

I have a project where we will be moving to the LifeProof Luxury Vinyl Plank (8mm/Waterproof/snap-together) throughout the unit; floating for installation.  

I just realized that we have the 1960's, old school, tubs with the obnoxious curves on each end (pic related).  If it was a flat surface we would simply install quarter round with clear caulking to act as the moisture barrier and keeping the flooring down. Unfortunately, I'm very concerned that the only solution might be the flexible base cove which never looks good nor would it offer a tight fit like quarter round. 

The 2nd picture is an example of our generic finished units and this particular project with the LifeProof flooring has to be a higher quality to hit our underwriting rents. 

Does anyone have any proven solutions or best practices as it relates to installing a floating planks against the uneven tub? 

[Ned J.]

I just did my entire rental with the Lifeproof planks....its really easy to work with.

You can easily trim/grind/file the material to fit tight up to the edge of the tub.....its just going to be tedious to do.

What I would do....use cardboard or construction paper to make a template that fits the contour of the tub perfectly.....then transfer that template to a plank....mark it out with a pencil etc...... make the big straight cuts as needed. Then use a Dremel/file/grinder to slowly grind away the material to match my template line....go slow and creep up on the fit with frequent test fitting. The material is basically plastic...it grinds off easily and quickly. Get it to fit just right and go on to the next piece......if you screw up, just get another plank and start again....not a big deal.

Get a good fit, and then a good bead of silicone between the plank and the tub.....that will need to be re-done every couple of years to insure a water tight seal

Unless the tub is sitting on top of the tile, that's basically what the tile guys did and then filled the gaps with grout...same principle

Pretty easy to do....just tedious.

The other option is to use quarter round....but you will still need to spend a lot of time trimming and getting the joints to match right at each angle etc