When it comes time to purchase new flooring for your home, no doubt you’ll want to choose a beautiful-looking floor that matches your specific design style. You will certainly want to go with a durable material that will stand up to daily wear in your busy home. Perhaps easy maintenance and the ease of installation is a priority. Of course you will want these features at a price you can afford. Today’s luxury vinyl tile may be your answer.

Now the fastest-growing segment in the flooring market, LVT continues to grow in popularity with homeowners. Luxury Vinyl Tile is usually referred to as LVT and Luxury Vinyl Plank (vinyl in the plank form) as LVP.

LVT is a luxury vinyl product that can look like stone, ceramic tile or wood, complete with gorgeous natural colors and surface texture that feels like the real thing. The printing technology offers depth and realism, with a high performance wearlayer added to a vinyl tile product. LVT offers planks and tiles that can even be grouted to resemble ceramic and stone.

LVT offers several install options making for ease of installation. Two factors differentiate one LVT from another: Loose Lay or Glue Down. The Glue Down can be installed using a trowel or roll on application or a spray adhesive. The Loose Lay includes a tape system, Clic and Lock system or floating with no locking mechanism, but held in place by adhering to the perimeter with glue or tape.

Thick flooring is not necessarily what you should look for. You will want a thick wearlayer. That’s the top layer and the one that really counts. Wearlayers are extremely important to the performance of a vinyl floor because they determine how well your flooring will stand up to traffic, rips, tears and gouges. The wearlayer is measured in mils (thousandths of an inch). The thickness of a mil is about the same as a page of paper in a telephone book. The heavier the application of the wearlayer, the more durable the tile is and the more costly it will be.