Luxury Vinyl Flooring underlay

[Brandon Stevenson]

Hello!

About 2 weeks ago the wife and I closed on our new home. Everything looked great until carpet cleaners hit the carpets with a black light and found all the stains left behind from the previous owners pets X.X. Wife opted to replace all the flooring in the basement with the luxury vinyl planks, as I've seen recommended here as well.

Curious on what underlay is recommended by the pros! This flooring is for a basement in the greater Indianapolis area. Concrete floor that we may end up spreading a layer of Kilz down. When removing the carpet underlay, some parts were stuck due to the severity of the pet mess. Thinking of using the "water proof" flooring due to having kids that don't follow the "no drinks outside the kitchen" rule. But if you feel water resistant is good enough, that opens up some options on the plank itself.

Thank you for all your input!

-Stevenson

[Carson P.]

We are just wrapping up a LVP install on our duplex. We went with lumber liquidators 5mm LVP with 20mill wear layer. We originally were going to go with a Home Depot brand but I couldn’t get over how easily I could scratch it. IMO I wouldn’t go with anything less than 5mm in thickness and 12mill in wear layer. I also like the click together. It seems pretty durable and is water proof. I paid less than 2.20/sqft. I anticipate a long life cycle. If it was me and my personal residence, I would put an underlayment down. It gives it a little cushion and “feels” softer to me plus hides subfloor imperfections. I believe that on concrete you have to put a vapor barrier down as well.