Luxury vinyl plank and sheet vinyl installation, laid over a subfloor that has been read and flattened first. It looks like wood and it is waterproof through the plank, which is why it ends up in kitchens, bathrooms, basements, rentals and any house with dogs or kids in it. San Antonio and Austin, and the Central Texas towns between them.
A luxury vinyl plank is a rigid core board with a printed wood layer on top and a clear wear layer over that. The core is not wood, so water does not swell it, and the wear layer is the part that takes the scratches instead of the picture underneath. That combination is the whole reason vinyl ended up in kitchens and bathrooms, where a real hardwood floor cannot go.
One owner lays every vinyl, hardwood and tile floor at I Do Floors & Co. The person who measures your rooms and prices the job is the man cutting the planks, so the layout, the seams, the transitions and the trim are all decided by one person from the first measurement to the last piece of quarter round.
Individual boards that click or glue down and read as a wood floor from standing height. Because each board is separate, a damaged one is pulled and replaced instead of the room being resurfaced. Wear layers come in different thicknesses, and that thickness, not the price on the box, is what decides how the floor looks in five years.
One continuous piece rolled out across the room, so there are almost no seams for water to find. That makes it a strong answer for a laundry room, a utility room, a mud room or a bathroom where the floor gets wet regularly and you want the fewest joints possible. It is faster to lay than plank and it costs less to cover a room with.
These are the rooms that rule hardwood out and push people toward tile they do not really want. Vinyl gives you the wood look in a room that gets wet, without the cold and the grout lines. The plank does the waterproofing, and the prep underneath decides whether it stays tight where the room moves.
Vinyl is usually the right call for a rental, because it takes tenant turnover, it does not hold stains and odors the way carpet does, and one damaged plank gets swapped rather than the unit being redone. Commercial spaces get the same approach, with the wear layer specified for the traffic the floor will actually see.
Vinyl is one owner's trade, epoxy is the other's, and most homeowners end up wanting both. One call, one walkthrough, and a quote that covers every floor in the house.
Vinyl plank is thin, and thin floors telegraph. A high spot shows up as a bump underfoot, a low spot works the locking seams until they open, and neither one can be fixed later without pulling the floor back up. So most of a vinyl job happens before a single plank gets cut.
Rooms measured, plank direction chosen, and the transitions and cuts worked out before anything is ordered.
Carpet, tack strip, tile or worn vinyl comes out, and the staples and old adhesive come off with it.
A straightedge across the room finds the high spots and the dips that a finished floor would show.
Highs ground down, lows filled and feathered out, so the plank lands on a flat plane instead of a wave.
Set off a straight line, seams staggered so no joint lines up with the row beside it, and an expansion gap left at every wall.
Baseboard and quarter round back on, thresholds set at every doorway, and the expansion gap covered out of sight.
Vinyl is not one product. What it looks like, how it goes down, and how it handles water all change with which of these you pick, and the right answer is usually decided by the room rather than the taste.
Luxury vinyl plank. It reads as wood and it is waterproof the whole way through the plank, not just on the surface, so a spill that would ruin real hardwood does nothing to it. The default in kitchens and rentals.
Luxury vinyl tile. The look of stone or porcelain without the cold underfoot, without grout to seal, and it is far more forgiving if something gets dropped on it. Goes down faster than real tile.
One continuous piece with no seams across the floor, which means no joint for water to find. It is the most water-tight of the three and the reason it still goes into laundry rooms and bathrooms.
Ask to see real samples at your estimate.
We work out of San Antonio and Austin and cover the Central Texas stretch between them. If your address is in either city or the towns between them, the answer is most likely yes. Call and we will confirm it and book your free estimate.
One of our two home bases. San Antonio homes and rentals laid over a subfloor read and flattened first.
They look similar in a showroom and they behave very differently in a wet room. Laminate is built on a compressed wood fiber core, so if water gets into a seam and sits there the core swells and the edges lift, and swelling cannot be sanded back out. Luxury vinyl plank is built on a rigid plastic core that does not absorb water at all. Laminate is harder underfoot and tends to sound louder, while vinyl is softer and quieter to walk on. If the room will ever see water, vinyl is the safer of the two.
The plank itself is, and it is worth being precise about what that covers. Water will not swell or delaminate a vinyl plank the way it does laminate or engineered wood, so a spill, a pet accident or a mopped kitchen is a non event. What is not waterproof is what sits underneath it. If water is left pooling on the floor for days it can still work down through the seams and cause a problem in the subfloor even though the vinyl above it is fine. Wipe up standing water and the floor will not give you trouble.
Often yes, and that saves you the demolition. Vinyl plank goes down over tile, sheet vinyl, plywood and concrete as long as the existing surface is sound, clean and flat. It cannot go over carpet, and it should not go over anything hollow, loose, cupped or badly uneven, because vinyl follows whatever is under it. Going over the old floor also raises the finished height, so door bottoms, appliance clearances and thresholds get checked at the estimate before anyone commits to that plan.
This is the main reason people choose it. The printed wood layer is protected by a clear wear layer, and the thickness of that wear layer is what decides how well the floor shrugs off claws, chair legs and dragged toys. It is scratch resistant, not scratch proof. The thing that actually scratches most floors is grit tracked in from outside, so a mat at the door does more real work than any product claim on the box. Water is a non issue, which matters more than most people expect with a puppy or a toddler in the house.
Almost always some. Vinyl plank is thin and it telegraphs, which means a high spot or a dip in the subfloor shows through as a bump or a hollow underfoot, and a bad low spot keeps working the locking seams until they separate. So the subfloor gets read with a straightedge, high spots get ground down, low spots get filled, and old adhesive and staples come off before any plank is cut. Prep is the part nobody sees and the part that decides whether the floor is still tight in five years.
Vinyl costs less to buy and less to install than hardwood, and it goes into rooms hardwood cannot, which is the practical trade you are making. Hardwood is the better floor where water is not a factor. It can be sanded and refinished several times across its life and buyers still respond to it. Vinyl cannot be refinished. When a plank gets damaged you pull that plank and replace it rather than resurfacing the room. The owner lays both, so at the estimate he will tell you which one the room actually wants instead of pushing whichever is easier to sell.
It depends far more on what has to come out and how much the subfloor needs than on laying the plank itself. Pulling old tile or carpet, scraping adhesive and flattening the subfloor is usually the longer half of the job. The planks are also left in the room to acclimate to its temperature and humidity before anything is cut, so they are not still moving after they are down. The owner gives you the day count at the estimate, once he has seen what is under the floor you have now.
Yes. Vinyl is usually the right answer in a rental, because it takes tenant turnover, it does not hold stains and odors the way carpet does, and a damaged plank gets swapped out instead of the whole room being redone. Commercial spaces get the same approach, with the wear layer specified for the traffic the floor is actually going to see rather than for the lowest price. Call (210) 201-3112 and we will come walk the space.
Tell us the rooms, what is on the floor now, and whether you are after plank or sheet. Someone answers, books the walkthrough, and the owner prices it standing in the room. A floor cannot be priced from a photo.
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Tell us the room and we will get you a written estimate. Takes about a minute.