What Do You Use Under Vinyl Tile Flooring

How to prepare a floor for peel stick tile.

What do you use under vinyl tile flooring.

Measure and cut 1 4 inch or thicker plywood with a circular saw to fit the entire floor of the room where you are installing vinyl flooring. Vinyl planks and vinyl tiles are not wood and they re not laminate they re vinyl. Priming the floor with a concrete primer before installing the tiles ensures that the moisture naturally present in concrete doesn t come through to the surface affecting the adhesive bond and damaging the tiles. Chipboard cushioned vinyl flooring particle boards of any type oriented strand board osb interior grade plywood tongue and groove planking and hardwood floors are unsuitable substrates for direct installation of ceramic tile.

When installing tile over sheet vinyl make sure to use a specialty thin set. Use a polymer modified thin set a type of mortar to attach the backer board to the subfloor. That sounds obvious but what it means is that you can t use products best suited for wood or laminate and expect the same results with vinyl. If you re laying the lvp over an existing cushion backed vinyl floor or a below grade tile floor then you won t need to use an underlayment.

Install a cement based backer board following the manufacturer s instructions. However you ll want to use one in every other application including covering existing hardwood floors vinyl flooring that isn t cushioned and concrete floors. This provides a solid surface under the tile that prevents flexing that could lead to cracking. Use the blade tip or sharp screwdriver to try to lift up the vinyl.

In fact you generally can t use underlay products designed for wood laminate or tile. Most peel and stick tile manufacturers will void the warranty on floors laid over unprimed concrete subfloors. Peel and stick tile has come a long way since the days when it was a cheap and easy if not very attractive way to give old floors new life. The goal is to have a wooden subfloor consisting of two.

Installing over wood.