Vinyl flooring jargon 101

Industry specific terminology develops over many years and becomes familiar to people regularly working with it.  But, it can be confusing and cause misunderstanding and frustration for someone trying to make sense of a product and the information and decisions related to that product.

The vinyl flooring industry has developed a range of (sometimes confusing) terminology over the last 50 years. This 4-part series of listicles aims to categorise and demystify some of the terminology and acronyms to make it easier for you to understand and work with vinyl flooring products.

PART I

What is vinyl flooring and what types of vinyl flooring are there on the market?

• Vinyl flooring: A type of resilient flooring made up of Poly Vinyl Chloride (chlorine and ethylene).  It is the commonly known name used for PVC flooring in the industry.

• Resilient floor: A generic term used to describe a variety of flexible floor coverings that recover their shape after being bent, indented or rolled.  Resilient floors include vinyl, linoleum, cork, rubber and similar and are opposite to ‘rigid floors’ such as ceramics, wood, concrete etc.

• PVC: Poly Vinyl Chloride.  PVC is made up of salt (chlorine) and oil (ethylene). PVC has uses in many industries, some of which include flooring, pipes, cabling and medical tubing.

• Homogeneous flooring: A heavy duty vinyl sheet flooring consisting of a single layer of material where the design is evident through the material. It offers vibrancy and depth of colour whilst being incredibly durable.  A good choice for heavy traffic and hygiene sensitive areas, i.e. hospital wards, corridors, theatres etc.

• Heterogeneous flooring: A multi-layer vinyl sheet product made up of a printed top-layer laminated to a base-layer and finished with a protective wear-layer.  The printed top-layer allows an endless variety of design possibilities. It is slightly softer underfoot than a homogeneous product and is suitable for commercial, retail, hospitality, healthcare and residential installations requiring top end design, yet hygienic and durable flooring.
  

• Luxury Vinyl Tiles or Planks (LVT/LVP): Essentially a laminated product made up of several layers with a printed decorative top layer available in either tile or plank sizes. Not to be confused with wood laminate planks. Very popular and available in a diverse range that realistically mimics the appearance of natural materials such as wood, ceramic and concrete or stone.

• Safety flooring: A vinyl floor manufactured with aggregates throughout the material to improve traction and safety underfoot. Suitable for wet and high slip areas such as commercial kitchens, ramps, bathrooms, wet rooms etc.

• Sustainable slip-resistant floors:  This refers to the slip-resistance of safety floors and requires a rating of P36+ in wet conditions. Slip-resistance must be assured for the guaranteed life of the product. When specifying a floor for slip-performance, care must be taken to ensure that the slip-performance is sustainable; always insist that a ‘slip-resistance for the life of the floor’ guarantee is given with any sustainable, slip-resistant safety floor. Some essentially ‘smooth’ products have marketed themselves as-slip resistant, due to a good slip-resistance rating ex-factory. However, slip-performance for these products can decline markedly after installation and use, as the products wear and undergo maintenance.  It is important to note that true safety flooring, with aggregates throughout the wear layer, show improved slip-resistance with age.  Over the many years it can take for the vinyl to wear, a greater concentration of more abrasive aggregates surface, improving the slip-resistance of the surface.  The pendulum test and ramp test will be explored in Part II in this series.

• Acoustic floors (floors with a foam layer):  Similar to heterogeneous in construction but with a bottom layer comprising of a closed cell foam backing offering additional acoustic properties.  

• Anti-static floors:  It is essential to understand the difference between the terminology anti-static and electro conductive or static dissipative.  Anti-static essentially means that the surface will not generate static (less than 2kv static) and will apply to surfaces such as vinyl, ceramics, concrete, etc. as opposed to surfaces that are more likely to generate static such as certain carpets.
  
  
• ESD floors: A hard wearing vinyl floor covering engineered for electrostatic discharge protection by conducting a uniform flow of static electricity to an earthing point to prevent damage to sensitive equipment, electronic components, people/patients etc.  
  
  
  • There are three types of ESD Flooring:
    
    
    • Conductive (Royal Ordnance Factory or ROF): Offers almost no resistance and is necessary for areas with an extreme chance of explosion such as munition plants and warehouses, chemical processing plants, fireworks production factories etc.
      
      
    • Electrostatic Conductive (EC): Offers more resistance than conductive and is typically used in hospital operating theatres still using flammable anaesthetics, in areas where extremely sensitive computer equipment or electronics are being manufactured, assembled or tested, or in server rooms with extremely sensitive equipment such as gamma ray cameras etc. EC is more critical inland with the lower humidity and dry winter conditions which create high levels of static.
      
      
    • Static Dissipative (SD): Offers more resistance than EC and is suitable for areas where computer equipment is manufactured, installed or tested.

• Semi-flexible tiles: A vinyl tile that is not completely flexible and when bent too much will crack or break. Suitable for general purpose installations and usually quite inexpensive. Used where trend or design is not a consideration but a solid, serviceable floor is required.

• Vinyl composition tiles (VCT): Falls into the semi-flexible category but is more rigid than a regular semi-flexible tile because of the larger percentage of aggregate; either limestone, calcium carbonate or quartz to keep the cost down.  A hard-wearing product available at a reasonable price.

• Loose-lay floors: Vinyl, adhesive-free, ready-to-lay sheeting or loose lay tiles or planks.  Designed to reduce installation time and available in a large range of designs. The material is slightly thicker than the conventional glue-down offering and has slightly different construction layers to stabilise and limit movement. Suitable for both commercial and residential installations.

• Sports floors: A high-performance vinyl sheet flooring designed to perform safely and effectively in multi-purpose indoor sports venues. Manufactured with a substantial closed cell foam backing and in certain cases, additional layers of foam to provide the functionality required, e.g.. bounce, etc.

• Cushion vinyl floors: This is typically the product found in ‘your granny’s kitchen’ but virtually obsolete now due to the development of heterogeneous and acoustic products. Used mainly in the residential market.

• Sheeting:  Sheeting simply means that the material comes in a roll of a specific length and width as opposed to tiles or planks. Homogeneous, heterogeneous, safety, acoustic, ESD and rubber etc. are all available in sheet format.  The sheeting is usually welded to other sheets to form an impervious surface.

• Underlayment: Flooring underlayment is a thin material that rests between the floor covering and the subfloor and may be installed under certain products to improve the acoustics and feel underfoot.  Heterogeneous flooring includes a bonded underlayment.

Watch out for Part 2 delving into technical terms like PUR and wear layer.

Now that you’re familiar with all the different types of vinyl flooring on the market, let us explore some of the terminology you will hear bantered about.

Download the definitive guide to vinyl flooring jargon, where we delve into all the jargon used in the flooring industry.

The guide aims to categorise and demystify some of the flooring terminology and acronyms to make it easier to understand and work with vinyl flooring products.