What substrate to use under the vinyl floor if the thickness of the vinyl is 4.5 mm, and the desired height of the installation – 12 mm?
Our kitchen is being completely renovated, including a new floor. The vinyl we have chosen is 4.5mm thick – the floors in the adjacent rooms are about 12mm high.
We wanted to at least get close to that height. The first thought was to use appropriately thick insulation. However – wherever you look – you can only find approved vinyl underlayments that are no thicker than 2mm. Whereas for laminate/parquet, you can find substrates that are 5mm thick. The temptation is to just use one of these...
What are your opinions + tips on this issue?
Answers
Options:
1. use a leveling compound, then vinyl is fine now, but no other coating later (or remove the leveling compound).
2. live with a small step
2. choose another floor covering. With 12mm tiles, glued two-ply parquet or "thick" designer flooring on HDF with cork insulation or laminate is possible.
However, for me, plastic flooring is simply too expensive compared to parquet, for example. Not to mention the look and feel.
If the height difference between adjacent building elements (or adjacent rooms) is 12 mm and the PVC flooring is 4.5 mm, the calculated (rounded) height difference is only about 7 mm.
If the PVC floor is glued, the difference between the two is about 3.5 mm more for the glue layer. This leaves a height difference of 3.5 mm. In any case, the whole surface should be filled in beforehand, and we can easily accommodate 3.5-4 mm at this stage.
Now an example of a floating installation:
The height difference is 12 mm – 4.5 mm = 7 mm (see above). Since the empty space will have to be filled anyway (highly recommended!!), and the kitchen area will be an acceptable size, the extra cost of filling (5 mm total) is not significant. That leaves 2mm, which is absorbed by the transition profile in the next room.
The latter option is the most reasonable, because there are no "half measures" in the new structure. For example, when the room transitions by 0.6 m, fill ramps, etc.
Underlayments for resilient floor coverings are also not tasked with compensating for height differences!Unsightly joint formations are almost inevitable due to foot traffic and point loads of furniture.
Which option you choose is entirely up to you.
What is the construction of the floor? I'm afraid you can only use putty to make up for the missing mm, since if the insulation layers are too thick, the vinyl will have seams, so they are only approved up to 2mm.
