Vinyl Flooring For Cold Weather

Don t install your vinyl floor with glue.

Vinyl flooring for cold weather.

Vinyl flooring naturally expands and contracts in the heat and cold. Using a thermal underlay is a good choice. Rubber is most likely used in a cold garage as a barrier against the concrete slab but can also provide the same benefits in a basement. We don t heat the place in the winter and although the lake has a moderating effect on temperature it does go below freezing in the winter.

Don t install an inexpensive vinyl floor. This will also keep your feet warm during those cold winter months. Rubber flooring like that found in gyms is an outside the box approach to colder climate flooring. Though vinyl floors are near perfect for all kinds of weather conditions they may not be a good option for those cold winter months.

Here are eddie s do s and don ts when selecting a vinyl floor for an unheated cottage. We would like to install some type of hardwood or engineered hardwood on the floors but we re concerned about having no heat in the cabin through the winter months and what that might do to the flooring. If your home is drafty the cool air will make your hardwood floor cold as well. If the floor is installed flush with the wall there is no room for growth in the hot months and the loose lay floor can easily buckle.

Nevertheless vinyl plank flooring might not be the best flooring for cold temperatures. As solid hardwood changes it can become warped or develop cupping. Well vinyl flooring does get stiff and brittle in the cold. Rubber doesn t grow or shrink noticeably with the temperature changes and for the most part is weather proof.

Hardwood will stay warmest in newer well insulated homes. I would expect 7 10 years out of a floating vinyl floor. The big temperature swings will shorten the life of the vinyl of any non stone tile floor. We are redoing the living room floor in our cottage in new york s finger lakes area.

We are now finishing an 18x18 foot addition that has a crawl space underneath. Our three season cabin is on the north shore of lake michigan in the upper peninsula of michigan. The glue can separate from a poorly prepared subfloor and can react poorly to extreme cold. This will help keep the floor warm and that may prevent it from expanding or contracting too much.

While solid hardwood is as warm as engineered hardwood it s prone to shrinking in the cold and expanding during warm weather. That is one of the reasons why you should use insulation for this particular type of floor. I know this cuz i ve cracked some pieces trying to install them in probably 20f weather so if you had a saggy baggy floor that moved when you walked on it i suppose there could be some risk of cracking.