There’s a reason there is such a thing as “Main Street” type flooring, luxury vinyl or otherwise: It’s made sturdier than flooring designed for the home. For example, with our new NovaFloor® Abberly™ or Davidson™ collections, you get a 10-Year Heavy Commercial Warranty as well as a Lifetime Limited Residential Warranty. That’s pretty sturdy! Of course, you can also put either of these gorgeous collections in your home, but for Main Street, they can “take it.”
What we built into our Main Street lines:
- A thick plank: 2.5 mm for direct glue, 5.0 mm for clic
- A thick wear layer: 20 mil polyurethane CeramGlaz™ coating
- Really great looks!
Why durability and performance are important
Among the myriad of details and concerns the Main Street business owner should have, the floor on which his or her business is built shouldn’t be one of them. And yet, a shabby or worn floor is one of the first things that can reflect badly on the business image.
Most businesses have very predictable “traffic patterns” where customers and employees will traverse frequently during the work day. Or there may be excessive furniture or roller traffic. Any of these will take a toll on flooring unless it’s up to the task.
(Note: For a broader perspective on Main Street, be sure to check out Part One in this series!)
Foot traffic or usage considerations
Direct glue applications with a LVF commercial grade wear layer will handle high traffic scenarios, rolling loads, etc. which makes this a great product for Main Street. Floating luxury vinyl flooring (Clic systems) is fine for straight foot traffic areas and medium weight static loads, but if a rolling or more dynamic loading is part of the business, this might not be the best option, says Jim Kups, North America Technical Manager for Novalis.
To “float or not to float” a Main Street floor?
According to Jim, the basic and simplest answer is there are three major considerations when it comes to luxury vinyl flooring: temperature, traffic and substrate. Installed environments with non-controllable temperatures are better with direct glue installations. Dynamic loads and very heavy traffic are better with direct glue installations. Difficult to bond to substrates, such as a very poor concrete surface or hard to bond to wood floor is perfect for a floating floor.
Coming up will be Part Three of our “We LOVE Main Street” series … stay tuned!
