You have decided on LVP, or you are standing in front of nine hundred of them. This page is the store visit: how to read the tag, what is not on it, what to do with a sample before you commit, and the nine things to get in writing. It assumes you know what LVP is — if not, the guide is one click back.
Each is a section of the guide. Settle them at the kitchen table; the store is a bad place to think.
SPC downstairs and in kitchens, WPC upstairs and in bedrooms, flexible glue-down where the floor will be repaired rather than replaced. Decide this first; it sets the price band and the install method. Flexible, SPC or WPC →
12 mil for a family home, 20 for a large dog or a shop, 6 for a guest room you rarely use. It is the one number on the tag that is a specification, and the one to refuse to compromise on. Wear layer, in mil →
Kitchens, basements and baths are what it is for; a sun room with direct afternoon light and an unheated garage are what it is not. The room list decides how many cartons and whether you need a transition. Where LVP works, and where it does not →
Every plank on a retail shelf or a product page is described the same way. One of those numbers is the specification; the rest are format, a claim, and a shopping note. Here is the line as it appears on a best-selling plank, taken apart.
12-mil × 7-in W × 48-in L Waterproof Click Lock Luxury Vinyl Plank Flooring (23.21 sq ft per carton)
The only durability number on the tag, and the one to shop on. 6 mil is a rental, 12 is a family home, 20 is a large dog or a shop. Note what it is not: total plank thickness, which is a millimeter figure on the spec sheet and mostly decides how high the floor sits at a door.
Retailers bucket it: narrow under 7 inches, standard 7 to 9, wide 9 and over. Width is a look, not a grade. Wide planks read as fewer, calmer lines and suit large rooms; narrow planks make a small room read bigger and are what the cheapest tier is cut to. Widths within a line are usually priced the same.
Longer planks mean fewer end joints, and end joints are where a floating floor shows its seams first. 36-inch planks are the budget format; 48 is the norm; 60 and up is the premium tier and needs a flatter subfloor to sit without rocking. Stagger end joints at least 8 inches, ideally a third of the length.
True of the plank, silent about the floor. Water finds the click joint and whatever is underneath, which is why the waterproof section exists. The word is on every plank in the category now; it no longer separates products.
Floating, no adhesive. The alternatives on the same shelf are glue-down, loose-lay and peel-and-stick, and they are different products for different jobs — the four, compared.
Room square footage, plus 7 percent for waste on a straight lay or 10 to 12 with a diagonal or many closets and jogs, divided by the carton yield, rounded up. A 12-by-14 room is 168 sq ft, 180 with waste, eight cartons of this plank. Keep one unopened carton for repairs; the color will not be the same in three years. The calculator does the arithmetic →
Planks meet flush, the floor reads as one surface. Best on a flat subfloor and a thick rigid core — any height difference between planks shows as a lip you can feel. Least dirt-catching of the three.
The default on most lines. A small chamfer defines each plank, hides slight lips, and does not trap much. If a listing does not say, it is probably this.
A deep chamfer for a hand-scraped, real-board look. In a kitchen the V-grooves collect what falls, and a dark line along every plank is what a light bevel looks like after two years. Choose it for bedrooms and living rooms; think twice in the rooms that get mopped.
Core type, total thickness, which pad is attached, whether the top coat is enhanced, and how many unique plank faces there are before the print repeats. All five change how the floor lives and none appear in the product title. They live on the spec sheet, which is why the checklist is nine items, not one.
Retailers sell samples for a few dollars and they are the best money in the project. Order two of each candidate, not one. Put them on the floor by the window and look at them at breakfast and at night — store lighting is why floors come home a different color. Click the two together and leave a spoonful of water on the joint overnight; look underneath in the morning. Drag a key across each with the same pressure: a 12 and a 20 mil plank feel identical in the hand and behave differently here. Stand a chair leg on the WPC candidate for an hour and see whether the dent comes back. Then turn them over: a white or beige chalky core is SPC, a foamed core is WPC, a thin bendable one is flexible, and the pad is either firm (IXPE) or spongy (EVA). That is the spec sheet, in your hand.
Nine specifications, all of which live on the spec sheet and none of which show in the box. A salesperson who cannot produce them is selling you the picture.
Not "thickness". 12 mil minimum for a family home, 20 for dogs or commercial use.
Flexible, SPC or WPC. Rigid for a house — SPC for dent resistance downstairs, WPC for comfort and quiet upstairs. Flexible glue-down where the floor will be repaired rather than replaced, or the budget is the point.
${SPC.spec[1][1]} for SPC, ${WPC.spec[1][1]} for WPC. It sets the height at doors and appliances, and how much subfloor it hides. It is not a durability number.
IXPE holds its thickness; EVA compacts under traffic and does not recover. They feel identical in the store.
Aluminum-oxide or ceramic-bead. Same mil rating, very different behavior under claws.
A static-load number. WPC typically lags SPC here by a wide margin, and the number tells the story the marketing does not.
Reputable current products carry both. Cheap imports frequently do not. Ask for the certificate, not the claim.
A floating floor is capped on how far it can go in one piece. Long open plans need the number before the layout is drawn.
Read the exclusions: rubber-backed mats, stacked underlayment, untested slabs, direct sun, and point loads on WPC are the usual five.
A listing like “12-mil × 7-in W × 48-in L Waterproof Click Lock” is one specification and four descriptions. 12 mil is the wear layer, the durability number and the one to shop on. 7 inches is the width and 48 the length — a look, not a grade. Waterproof describes the plank, not the floor. Click lock is how it attaches. The carton yield tells you how many boxes: room square footage plus 7 to 12 percent for waste, divided by the yield, rounded up. The label, decoded →
Measure the room, add 7 percent for waste on a straight lay or 10 to 12 percent for a diagonal, many closets or a lot of jogs, then divide by the square feet per carton printed on the box and round up to the next whole carton. A 12-by-14 room is 168 square feet; with waste, 180; at 23 square feet a carton, eight cartons. Buy one more than that and leave it sealed: dye lots drift, and a repair plank three years from now will not match a fresh carton.
Not by the number that matters. Two planks can cost twice the money for the same wear layer; what the higher price buys is usually an enhanced top coat, a firmer pad, a better print and a brand. Those are real, and the coating in particular changes how the floor lives with a dog — but they are on the spec sheet, not in the price. Pay for a specification you can read, not for a price.
For a house, one of the rigid two: SPC downstairs, in kitchens and anywhere dents matter; WPC upstairs and in bedrooms where warmth and quiet matter more. Flexible glue-down where the floor will be repaired rather than replaced, over a good slab, or when the budget is the point. The three cores, compared →