What Happens on LVP Installation Day: Subfloor Prep, Transitions and Timeline

Most homeowners see the before and the after of a vinyl plank floor and very little in between. That is a pity, because the in-between is where the floor succeeds or fails. Luxury vinyl plank (LVP) is forgiving in a lot of ways: it shrugs off spills, it does not need sanding or finishing, and a good crew can put down a lot of it in a day. What it does not forgive is a wavy subfloor, a floor pinned against a wall, or a transition that was improvised on the spot.

This guide walks through an LVP installation day the way it actually runs on a job in Naperville and the western suburbs: what to do before the crew arrives, what comes up with the old floor, the flatness spec the planks need, underlayment, layout and door jambs, transitions, base trim, stairs, how long each size of job takes, and the first week after. If you are still deciding between materials, start with our vinyl plank vs. hardwood comparison. If the floor is going on a basement slab, the moisture questions come first and they are covered in our basement flooring guide.

Before the crew arrives

The day goes faster and cleaner when a few things are settled ahead of time.

• Clear the rooms. Small items, breakables, anything in closets that sit inside the work area, and everything on the floor. Heavy furniture is a conversation to have at the estimate, so nobody is surprised on the morning.
• Appliances. A kitchen job means the refrigerator, range and dishwasher have to come out of their openings for the floor to run underneath or up to them. Decide in advance who disconnects water lines and gas, because a gas range should be disconnected and reconnected by someone qualified to do it.
• Cabinets and islands go in first. A floating vinyl floor has to be free to move. COREtec Pro's residential instructions say that if cabinets or islands are installed on top of the flooring, that area has to be fully glued down, including an extra two feet beyond the cabinets. The usual answer in a kitchen remodel is to set the cabinets and island first and run the floor up to them.
• Other trades finish first. The same instructions say to install the floor after the other trades are done with work that could damage it. Painting walls before the floor goes in is normal; drywall sanding and dragging ladders across a new floor is not.
• Acclimation and room temperature. This is where brands genuinely differ. COREtec Pro's SPC instructions say acclimation is not required, but the room must be climate-controlled, between 55°F and 85°F. Mohawk's SolidTech instructions call for at least 48 hours in the room of installation at 55–85°F. In an Illinois winter that means the heat is on and the boxes are not stacked in a cold garage the night before.
• Pets and parking. There will be a saw running, usually outside or in the garage, and doors opening all day. Pets are happier elsewhere.

Tear-out and what is under the old floor

Removing the existing floor is usually the first job of the day, and it is also where the surprises live. What comes up decides what the rest of the day looks like.

• Carpet and pad. The fastest to remove, but it leaves tack strip around the perimeter and staples across the subfloor, all of which have to come out. Carpet also hides dips and humps that a rigid plank will not. Rigid-core vinyl cannot go over carpet at all; COREtec Pro's instructions say installation is not allowed over any type of carpet.
• Ceramic tile. Sometimes it can stay. COREtec Pro allows its SPC over existing ceramic or porcelain tile with grout joints up to 1/4″ wide, and joints wider than that filled flush with a cementitious patch. The tile has to be flat, fully bonded and sound, and its thickness raises the new floor, which matters at doors, appliances and transitions.
• Sheet vinyl or old vinyl tile. One layer of well-adhered, not heavily cushioned sheet vinyl can often stay under a rigid-core plank. Whether it should is a different question, and older resilient floors raise one more.
• Hardwood. Vinyl can go over a sound, flat hardwood floor in some cases, but it buries a floor that could probably be refinished. We cover that trade-off in vinyl over existing hardwood.

Once the old floor is out, the crew looks at what is left: loose or squeaky subfloor panels, nails and staples standing proud, old adhesive, and soft spots near a toilet, a dishwasher or a back door. Loose panels get refastened and squeaks are dealt with now, because a floating floor will not hide them and nobody wants to pull up a new floor to find one.

Flatness: the spec LVP actually needs

This is the part of the job homeowners hear least about and the one that decides whether the floor clicks, peaks or separates a year later. Rigid-core planks join with a locking profile on all four sides, and those joints are designed to sit on a flat plane. Over a dip, a plank spans the low spot and flexes every time someone steps on it, and that movement works the lock loose.

The industry spec is written as a deviation over distance. COREtec Pro's residential SPC instructions say the subfloor must be flat to 3/16″ in 10 feet or 1/8″ in 6 feet, and the same figures appear in other rigid-core manufacturers' instructions. Note the word is flat, not level: a floor can slope gently across a room and still be flat. What fails is a hump at a joist, a dip between joists, or a ridge where two subfloor panels meet.

On the job that means a long straightedge across the floor in several directions. High spots get ground or sanded down; low spots get filled with a patching or levelling compound. The instructions specify cementitious products, or gypsum-based ones that contain Portland or high-alumina cement and reach at least 3,000 psi. Filling a few low spots is routine. A floor that is out across the whole room is a bigger job, and it should be on the estimate, not discovered at 10 a.m.

On concrete, flatness is joined by moisture. A basement slab has to be tested before any floor goes on it, and the same instructions list moisture limits for both the calcium chloride test and the in-slab relative humidity test. We do not repeat that here; it is the first half of our basement flooring guide, along with the subfloor panel options for an uneven slab.

Underlayment: attached vs. separate

Many rigid-core planks arrive with a pad bonded to the back. That attached pad is part of the product, and it changes what can go underneath.

• Over a wood subfloor, an attached-pad plank usually goes straight down. COREtec Pro's instructions say not to apply sheet plastic over wood subfloors.
• Over concrete, a vapor retarder goes down first. The same instructions recommend 6-mil poly film under a floating installation on concrete, run two inches up the wall, overlapped at least four inches, with the seams taped.
• A second pad on top of the attached one is where people get into trouble. COREtec Pro allows a second underlayment under its attached-pad products in a residential application, but only up to 3 mm thick, and notes that its lab sound testing has not shown a second layer adds acoustic benefit. Other brands do not allow one at all. Thick, soft foam under a rigid plank lets the joints flex, and that is what the warranty is protecting against.
• Crumb rubber is ruled out under resilient floors in the same instructions, because of chemical incompatibility.

In a condominium the underlayment question has a second judge: the association's sound rule. If that applies to you, read our guide to condo flooring rules and underlayment before choosing a product, because the board and the flooring manufacturer both have to accept the same assembly.

Layout, expansion gaps and door jambs

Before the first plank goes down, the crew decides which way the boards run and where the rows start. Usually planks run the long way of the main room or toward the main light source, and the layout is planned so the last row against the far wall is not a sliver. In an open main floor where the plank runs from the foyer through the family room and kitchen, that one decision sets the look of the whole level.

Three details separate a careful installation from a fast one:

• The expansion gap. Rigid core is far more stable than wood, but it still moves with temperature, and a floating floor needs room to do it. COREtec Pro requires a 1/4″ perimeter gap for areas under 2,500 square feet and 1/2″ above that, at every wall, cabinet base, pipe and post. Spacers hold it during installation; base trim hides it afterwards.
• Nothing pins the floor. The same instructions say not to fasten wall moldings or transition strips to the planks. Baseboard is nailed to the wall, not through the floor, and transitions are fixed to the subfloor beside the plank, not through it.
• Door jambs are undercut. Rather than scribing a plank around a door casing, the crew cuts the bottom of the casing and jamb so the plank slides underneath with its expansion space hidden. It is a small thing that makes the difference between a floor that looks built-in and one that looks laid down.

Joints are staggered as the rows go in. COREtec Pro asks for at least 8 inches between end joints on adjacent rows. Planks are also pulled from several cartons at once so colour variation spreads across the room instead of collecting in one patch.

Transitions to tile, carpet and hardwood

Every doorway where the new floor meets a different one needs a transition, and they are worth deciding before installation day rather than on it. The common ones:

Most manufacturers sell matching transitions for each colour, and they cost less in frustration than improvised ones. Height is the thing to check early. Installing over tile, or adding a panel to flatten a subfloor, raises the new floor, and every adjacent floor, door bottom and appliance opening has to work with that new height.

Baseboards and quarter round

The expansion gap at the wall has to be covered, and there are two ways to do it. Which one your job uses should be written on the quote.

• Remove and reinstall the baseboard. The base comes off before tear-out and goes back on after the floor, sitting just above the plank. It is the cleanest look, and in older houses it is the moment to replace a damaged run. Old base does not always come off in one piece, so painted trim usually needs touch-up afterwards.
• Leave the base and add quarter round or shoe molding. The baseboard stays on the wall and a small molding is nailed to the base to cover the gap. Faster, and common in rentals and basements, but some homeowners do not like the look.

Either way, the molding is fastened to the wall or the base, never down into the floor. In bathrooms and other wet areas, COREtec Pro's instructions call for a flexible silicone caulk around the perimeter of the floor.

Stairs

Stairs are a separate job inside the job, and they take far longer per square foot than any room. A floating floor cannot float on a stair, so each tread and riser is cut and glued individually, and the front edge of every tread gets a nosing piece made for that product. If the stairs are carpeted now, it is worth knowing what is under the carpet before deciding how to cover them. Our guide to carpet-to-hardwood stairs walks through what you usually find and the ways the job gets done, and the same height questions apply when the new tread is vinyl.

How long each size of job takes

As we say on our luxury vinyl plank installation page, a typical room or main floor takes one to two days, and larger whole-home projects or layouts with a lot of cuts around cabinets can take two to three. What stretches a job is almost never the open floor. It is:

• the tear-out, especially glued-down floors or tile;
• subfloor flattening, and the drying time of any patch or leveller;
• kitchens, where every cabinet base, toe kick and appliance opening means cuts;
• bathrooms, closets and hallways, which are small but slow;
• stairs, which are measured per step rather than per square foot;
• and anything discovered under the old floor.

A glue-down installation adds its own rhythm. The instructions call for setting the planks into the adhesive and rolling them with a 100-pound roller, and the adhesive's label sets when traffic and furniture can go back on.

The first week after

• Walking on it. A floating floor can usually be walked on as soon as it is down. Our floor installation page says the same for LVP and laminate. For a glue-down floor, follow the adhesive label.
• Furniture. Put felt pads under chair and table legs before they go back, and lift heavy pieces rather than dragging them.
• Sun. Manufacturers warn that long exposure to direct sun can fade the floor and make it expand. Blinds or drapes at peak hours help, especially on big south- and west-facing windows.
• Tape. If other work is still going on, do not tape protection directly to the floor. COREtec Pro's instructions say to tape the protection to the base molding instead, or use a material such as Ram Board.
• Keep the spare boxes. A carton of leftover planks from the same lot makes a future repair simple.

The day at a glance

Every row is a starting point, not a substitute for the instructions in the box you buy. When those disagree with this table, the box wins.

What we check on an LVP estimate

Before we price a vinyl plank job, we want to know:

• What is on the floor now and what has to come out, including whether an older resilient floor should be identified before anyone disturbs it.
• What the floor is built on: plywood or OSB on joists, or a concrete slab, and for a slab, what the moisture test says.
• How flat it is, checked with a straightedge, and how much patching or levelling that means.
• The product you are considering, and what its instructions say about acclimation, underlayment, expansion and maximum runs.
• Every transition, door and appliance opening, and the finished height at each one.
• Base trim: remove and reinstall, or quarter round.
• Cabinets, islands and built-ins, and whether they go in before the floor.
• Stairs, counted by the step.

We install vinyl, laminate and hardwood across the western suburbs, from LVP installation in Downers Grove to vinyl flooring installation in Geneva, and our vinyl, laminate and hardwood floor installation work all starts from the same prep standard. If you are weighing wood for part of the house, see our hardwood flooring in Naperville, IL. When you are ready, send us the rooms and the product you have in mind with your estimate request.