GAPPING PLANKS! Glue Down Vinyl WARNING, Shrinking and Gapping - Telling 4 Year Review!

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I can understand your frustration. We sell a lot of 5MM "looselay" that we glue down residentially and commercially and have not had issues. Most are surprised when we recommend. With underlayment - the 2.5-3 MM will work in residential as well. Should not be installed Looselay though- needs to be glued down. Lots of factors involved. #1 - the adhesive used. They range from $83/ 4 gallon to $150/ 4 gallon pail- dealer cost. Guess which will perform better and hold up to sunlight? Mapei 399 is a newer adhesive designed just for gapping- really locks in place. Also, the material has a lot to do with it. Some manufacturers include a spec for dimensional stability - like .002"-.004" max- I would purchase those products. Of course, they cost more- probably not "middle of the road". Last, the locking products- there are only a few with a good name- stick to those. Other mfg's will not stand behind if you have problems- I've heard from several owners of retail flooring businesses. Coreloc has a good name, and there are some others, but fix your subfloors first(level) and you will be much happier.

You're honesty is what makes this truly valuable, so THANK YOU!!! You rarely hear of a man that bought a bad horse, so this is refreshing and will influence my upcoming decisions.

As a flooring installer id say click can be a good option but if its a cheaper variety of it you need the floor as leval as humanly possible and ive come to the conclusion that most of the time should be self levaled or else the lock systems will break where it isnt leval and will be much worse than having gaps like in glue down...also repairs on glue down with scratches etc is a breeze ...was ur floor acclimated before installed?(actually curious about if that could of caused it) To fix your glue down id get a heat gun and heat it up itll expand to fill in the gap and than use some tape to hold it in place while it cools so it stretches and doesnt shrink....cant promise thatll work but it comes to mind as potential solution ...end of the day im on the fence prose and cons to both ...i think if i where to do my house in either or id go glue down for how damm easy it is to fix...id do click only if my budget was big enouph to get self leval and a good quality floor.

It’s important that the flooring material acclimates in the room it being installed for a minimum of 5 days before installation. Also, spread the boxes out around the room. Don’t leave them stacked while acclimating. I have probably installed over a million square feet of this stuff and haven’t had any issues

I'm doing my bedroom in vinyl plank this weekend and have been going back and forth on glue down vs click for looks and I appreciate videos like this

Hey Mitch, Glad to see you back with more of this content. Been Subscribed since the beginning. Thanks for the truth, never heard back from either of the two glue downs we've done in the past. so far so good.

25 years ago I layed down laminate wood flooring at my mothers house. All types of laminate back then was the glue type, where glue was applied to the tongue of the planks not one of those planks have released or shifted the two areas of the house where you suggest that sunlight has created your problem does not exists at my mothers house. Five years ago I replaced here wall to wall carpet upstairs with click type laminate and within a year i started to see some gapping appear and got worse over the next year, this was in the hallway near the bathroom and other areas in the bedroom. I eventailly sucked out the dirt inside the gaps put glue into the tongue and groove of the planks and kicked planks back into place. I have not seen the gaps return, but new ones have showed up. I think mostly its a expansion contration problem.

I have that exact vinyl plank on my floor and same issues . It has been 7 years since I had it installed and it is shrinking and lifting throughout my home . 2 things I noted : 1) the guy that installed my floor never rolled it , I believe this has had an impact on my problems with this floor . 2) Some of the plank ends on my floor are lifting & curve upwards slightly ,I was using the beater bar on my dyson and I believe this has excerbated the issue .I'm going to roll the floor when the weather warms up ( I'm in Northern Alberta) and see if that makes a difference , I now vacuum with the beater bar off ...I have armstrong lvp in my bedrooms , it also shifted and gapped like this in a much shorter amount of time . I had the flooring company redo the bedroom floors with the same planks and the installer rolled the floor . Hasn't moved in 5 years and looks pristine ....

I used glue down vinyl and a few years later there are huge 1/8-3/16" and even some 1/4" gaps all over the floor! Absolutely hate it, the dirt getting stuck inside is disgusting, and being able to see the subfloor through the floor is such an obvious eyesore... the cost and suffering involved in trying to remove all the planks and all the glue, especially in the bathroom to have to pull the cast iron tub and toilet to get access is the reason it's not getting fixed. So mad about this product obviously being defective and manufactures lies about how it was going to hold up and be stable.... just criminal!

Thank you for your video. Your reason for using that product is EXACTLY the same reason I went for that product in my first home. But yes, the lifting, the heat, the gaps…is it really worth it!?! 🤔 the jury is out on that one lol

omg thank you for sharing this!!! Trying to decide what kind of flooring update we are going to do.

Dude I love how you keep updating cus at first it was all good but time always tells thank you so much

I am having issues with an install I just did at a house, and have had other installation site issues. All new subfloor, and the dining room keeps buckling or gapping. Its the SUN. Do not install these floors anywhere that gets direct sun or has extreme temperature variations. On the bright side, those planks are glued down with pressure sensitive adhesive. You can peel up the plank carefully, close the gap and push it back down without reglueing*. Thankyou for posting this.

We’re in a new build…SW Ohio. Our builder put in LVL’s and AdvanTech subfloors & finished floors are LVP click & lock. We have squeaky floors all over…even in a carpeted area. We were assured there would be no squeaks with the subfloor’s. The only issues with the LVP is small pieces not vacuumed underneath or screw head popping up. So at our 1 yr mark all this will have to get resolved. The maintenance on these vinyl planks is easy to clean and keep clean. We had Pergo Timbercraft Laminate in a different house & it had a more upper end expensive look to it…easy maintenance as well. I have friends with hardwood and the floors are scratched horribly from pets & kids. So guess there’s always a pay off from our choices.

This video could not have come at a better time! Very good and honest review! We will be going click lvp for our entire house! The lvp looks very nice and is so durable. As for the crack at least you know it is something you did and tile I’m guessing would have had the same result. Awesome video!

Awesome turnout! Also very true about the crumbs getting stuck in the cracks. Lots of effort to clean them out! 👏🏼 I agree, although some areas aren’t so bad, the click looks so much more “finished” without the gaps.

These gaps are inevitable, sometimes due to manufacturing faults, fluctuations in temperature or moisture ingress. If you don't deliberately look for perfection, it's not a big deal. If it is a problem, a filler with matching colour can be filled in.

Glad to see you back making videos again man!

Thank you for such a thorough breakdown. My wife and I have been contemplating our new floor product and are unsure about LVP even with the salesman talking it up