The floor is only as flat as what is under it
LVP flooring installation in Rome, GA
LVP is forgiving to walk on and unforgiving to install badly. It is a floating floor, which means it moves as a single sheet, and almost everything that goes wrong with it traces back to two things: what was underneath, and whether it was given room to move. A plank floor laid over a subfloor nobody leveled will telegraph every dip within a season, and one butted tight to the walls will peak in the middle come summer.
When people call about LVP
- Carpet coming out and something easier to keep clean going down
- An older vinyl or laminate floor that has lifted, curled or split at the seams
- A kitchen or bathroom where sheet vinyl has failed around the edges
- A rental turnover where the floor has to look new and go down quickly
- Floors that feel soft or springy underfoot, which is a subfloor question first
- One room done years ago and the rest of the house never matched to it
- A floor that peaked or gapped after somebody else laid it
How the work goes
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The subfloor is checked before anything is ordered
Flatness is the whole job. Plank flooring is rated for a tolerance over a given span, and past that the joints work loose no matter how good the plank is. Dips get filled, high spots get taken down, and anything soft gets found now rather than after the floor is over it.
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Old floor covering comes up properly
Carpet, pad and tack strip out, or old vinyl lifted where it is loose. Laying new plank over a failing floor buys a year and costs the whole job twice. Where an existing floor is sound and flat, going over it is sometimes the right call, and you will be told which situation yours is.
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It is left room to move
LVP expands and contracts with temperature. It needs an expansion gap at every wall, every cabinet run and every fixed object, hidden afterward by trim or scotia. A floor laid tight looks perfect on the day and peaks in the middle by the first hot week.
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The edges are where the job shows
Anyone can lay the middle of a room. The work is in the doorways, the transitions to carpet or tile, the cuts around door casings, and the trim afterward. Casings get undercut so the plank runs beneath them rather than being scribed around them, which is the difference between a floor that looks fitted and one that looks laid.
What drives the price
Square footage is the starting point and rarely the whole answer. What moves it:
- Square footage, and how many separate rooms rather than one open span
- What is coming up first: carpet and pad, old vinyl, tile, or nothing
- How flat the subfloor turns out to be, and how much leveling it needs
- Whether any of it is soft and needs repair before the floor goes down
- Doorways, transitions and thresholds, which are slow compared to open floor
- Whether trim comes off and goes back, or new scotia is fitted instead
- Cabinets, kitchen islands and toilets, which are cuts rather than straight runs
The subfloor is the part nobody can quote from a photograph. If it turns out to need leveling or repair, you hear the number before that work starts, not after.
What to expect
Tell us the rooms and roughly the square footage, and what is down now.
The subfloor gets checked on the first visit, because it decides the rest.
Material gets left in the room to acclimatise before anything is laid.
Furniture moved, old floor out, new floor down, trim finished and the offcuts taken away.
LVP Flooring Installation questions
Can LVP go straight over my existing floor?
Sometimes, and it depends entirely on what is under it and how flat it is. Over sound sheet vinyl or tile that is well bonded and level, going over the top is often sensible and saves a day of demolition. Over carpet, never. Over anything loose, hollow-sounding or failing at the seams, no: the new floor will move with whatever is beneath it. It gets checked before it gets promised.
Do I have to move the furniture?
It helps if the small things are gone, but the heavy items are part of the job. Say what is in the rooms when you ask for a price and it gets included. What does need to be cleared beforehand is anything breakable and anything inside the cabinets if a kitchen floor is being done.
Why does my old floating floor have gaps at the seams?
Usually one of two reasons. Either it was laid over a subfloor that was not flat enough, so the joints have been flexing every time somebody walks over the dip until they worked apart, or the expansion gap at the walls was too tight and the whole sheet has been fighting itself. The second one usually shows as peaking in the middle rather than gapping, so the pattern tells you which happened.
How long does a room take?
An average room over a sound, flat subfloor is a day including the trim. Leveling adds time, and so does a floor with a lot of doorways, cabinets or transitions, because those are slow compared to open span. Material also needs to sit in the room before it goes down, so the first day is not always a laying day.
Is LVP a good idea in a bathroom or kitchen?
It is one of the better options, which is much of why it has taken over. It handles spills and mopping in a way laminate does not. It is still a floating floor over a subfloor, so standing water from a leak will eventually reach what is underneath. It is water-resistant in normal use, not a waterproof membrane.
Where we do this work
LVP Flooring Installation across Rome, Floyd County and the towns around them across Northwest Georgia and Northeast Alabama, including 5 distinct parts of Rome, from Between the Rivers to the West Rome / Coosa side. That is Floyd County, Bartow County, Polk County, Gordon County, Chattooga County, Paulding County, Cherokee County, DeKalb County, Cobb County, Walker County, Haralson County and Cherokee County, anywhere inside about a 45-minute drive of Rome.
Town by town, that means Rome, Lindale, Adairsville, Cedartown, Summerville, Rockmart, Calhoun, Cartersville, Euharlee, Shannon, Cave Spring, Kingston, White, Emerson, Plainville, Resaca, Fairmount, Aragon, Trion, Lyerly, Menlo, Dallas, Centre, Cedar Bluff, Sand Rock, Gaylesville, Fort Payne, Mentone, Valley Head, Acworth, Kennesaw, Buchanan, LaFayette and Waleska. Smaller places in those counties are covered too. The full picture.
Recent work
LVP Flooring we have finished
Our own photographs, taken on the job.
- Before
- After
Before you call
Work out what you are looking at
The same checks that happen on site, written down. Worth a read if you want to know whether what you have is a small repair or the start of something bigger.
What a soft, springy or squeaky spot in the floor means
Bounce, a soft patch and a dip are three different faults, and which one you have decides whether it can wait.
Read itOften booked together
Related work
These come up alongside LVP flooring often enough to be worth mentioning when you call.
Siding & Structural Repairs
Damaged siding, rotten soffit and fascia and spongy subfloor, cut back to sound wood.
What's involvedInterior Painting
Filling, caulking and cut-in work, then two coats. The prep is most of the job.
What's involvedHandyman & Home Repair
One visit for the pile of small jobs that never justify a specialist on their own.
What's involvedNeed LVP flooring in Rome?
Tell us the rooms, the rough square footage, and what is on the floor now. Photos of the worst corner help.