Flooring Types
Vinyl Flooring in New Orleans
We install vinyl flooring in homes and businesses across New Orleans, and it's the easiest floor to live with in a kitchen, bath or rental, because spills and wet shoes won't hurt it. The catch is that a waterproof surface isn't the same as a flood-proof floor, and the right install method depends on whether your house sits on piers or on a slab.
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What kinds of vinyl flooring can you choose from?
This page covers the kinds of vinyl you can choose, how each one handles our raised homes, slabs and settling floors, and what happens to vinyl when water comes in from outside. If you already know you want vinyl, our vinyl flooring installation page walks through the job itself.
Vinyl comes in a few formats, and the format decides how it looks, how it's installed and how easy it is to repair later.
Luxury vinyl plank
Long boards printed to look like wood. It suits living areas and bedrooms because it gives a hardwood look without the worry about humidity.
Luxury vinyl tile
Square or rectangular pieces made to look like stone or ceramic. If you want a tile look in a kitchen or bath without cold, hard grout lines, see our luxury vinyl tile page.
Sheet vinyl
One continuous roll with few or no seams. Fewer seams means fewer places for water to get underneath, so it suits laundry rooms and small baths.
Click-lock or glue-down
Click-lock planks float over the subfloor and lock together, so damaged boards can be lifted out. Glue-down vinyl is bonded to the floor, so it's harder to pull up after a leak.
Built for New Orleans
Where vinyl works in New Orleans homes, and where it needs care
Most homes here sit either on piers over a crawl space or on a concrete slab. Vinyl can work on both, but the prep is different.
Raised homes over a crawl space
Mannington's install guide for rigid vinyl says wood subfloors must sit at least 18 inches above the ground, with cross-ventilation and a vapor barrier covering the crawl space soil. If your crawl space is low, damp or open to standing water, fix that first or the floor above it will suffer.
Slab homes
Concrete holds moisture. The same guide caps slab moisture at 8 lbs per 1,000 sq ft in 24 hours on the calcium chloride test (ASTM F1869) or 85% relative humidity on the in-situ probe test (ASTM F2170), so a slab should be tested before any plank goes down.
Floors that have settled
The City of New Orleans notes that houses not built on deep pilings are seeing uneven settlement and cracking as the river silt underneath compacts. Rigid vinyl needs a subfloor flat to within 3/16 inch over 10 feet, so an older floor often needs floor leveling before vinyl goes in.
Sunrooms and galleries
Floating vinyl needs an expansion gap of about 1/4 inch at the walls. Mannington also recommends blinds or drapes where the floor gets long hours of direct sun.
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How it works
Will vinyl floors survive a flood?
A spill or a leaking dishwasher won't ruin vinyl. Floodwater is different, because water also soaks whatever the vinyl sits on.
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On concrete
FEMA's guidance on flood-resistant materials rates vinyl tile set with chemical-set adhesive as acceptable over a concrete floor.