Trafficmaster Allure or Novalis Vinyl Plank Flooring?

Flooring is probably one of the trickiest choices in a rental. We’ve switched to hard floors of one type or another in all our units. Carpet isn’t cheap and just looks nasty after a couple of years–even with shampoo, it never looks clean and I *really* don’t like thinking about what’s been ground into those fibers.

We’ve found a contractor who charges $3/sq ft to install ceramic tile. If we can possibly squeeze it into the budget, this is our first choice. The grout gets sealed with Aquamix Grout Colorant–fantastic stuff. Still, occasionally a tile gets broken and has to be replaced which can get expensive. Plus we’ve had a few houses with settling foundations and surprise! ceramic tile cracks right along with the slab. Not a problem if the tile is confined to smaller areas, but a whole-house installation is particularly vulnerable to this misery.

Laminate floors are great They’re durable and scratch resistant but quality is a direct corrolation  to price and around here, we’ve found the tipping point hovers around $4/sq ft for anything that will hold up to tenant abuse. Also, repairing a laminate floor means taking up the whole floor like a giant puzzle and putting the silly thing back together.

Sheet vinyl floors aren’t so bad anymore. We toured (read that, “snuck into” as the silly owners left the doors wide open) a house for sale in an area where most homes have lovely oak flooring under the ratty carpet the owners installed on their 50th birthday. Almost everyone around here is ripping out the carpet and refinishing the oak with one of the newer, polyurethane finishes, ourselves included. We wouldn’t have known this particular floor was sheet vinyl if the installer hadn’t left a scrap on the kitchen counter. (Okay, we *might* have figured it out eventually, but when you’re in stealth mode, you’re usually not crawling about on hands and knees examining  the floors in close detail.)

We’ve used the newer peel and stick vinyl tiles in some of our smaller units and they’ve held up surprisingly well. Even buying the most expensive tile, we’re only talking $1/sq ft and these newer tiles are thicker with better adhesive and wear like thunder. There’s also an important benefit in Tenantville– peel and stick flooring is extremely easy to repair.  Just buy an extra box and if one (or two or three) get gouged beyond bearing, heat with a blow dryer, lift and replace. Cinchy

Still, we’ve only used them in kitchens and bathrooms, places where folks expect square tiles. This photo shows the utility room installation at the Magnolia house.

Our current rehab project needs new flooring throughout, ceramic tile isn’t in the budget and no way I’m putting square peel and stick tiles in the bedrooms and living area. We’ve finally narrowed the choices down to Novalis Vinyl Plank Flooring and a newer product available at Home Depot, Trafficmaster Allure. Both look like wood and come in planks which adds to the illusion.

Novalis Plank Flooring

We first encountered Novalis planks about 3 years ago when we lived in our blue doublewide. At less than $1/sq ft, this seemed like the perfect solution for our aging kitchen/utility room floor. We bought a couple of sample planks and ran our own series of durability tests, which included dog chewing, key scratching and sticking a piece outside on the concrete steps. A year later when a tree smashed the trailer, the sample still looked like new with no lifting, no scratches and no fading. We never got around to using Novalis, but we hung on to the samples just in case. After tons of searching, I can’t find any negative reviews, except for maybe a few hardwood flooring snobs who’ll never love anything but hand-rubbed Brazilian Cherry personally installed  by Bob Villa using only hand tools, forged nails and beeswax.

Here’s a thread over on Garden Web (with pix) from folks who seem happy with their floors:

First room of Novalis vinyl plank done (pic)

Trafficmaster Allure

Last week, a friend told us about a floating vinyl flooring and claimed that wandering gypsies prophesied of its coming to a big box store in our vicinity. After much tromping up and down the Home Depot aisles, we finally found the boxes of Trafficmaster Allure. After a quick perusal, Mr. Brz spent lots of time cartwheeling about the store… something the non-handywoman he married couldn’t quite figure. I mean, a vinyl plank floor is a planked vinyl floor, right?

 Apparently not.

The Allure floor sticks *to itself* rather than the subfloor, hence the acrobatic display. The mister claims this will save him tons of time, if not money. At $2/sq ft, the price is almost double although there will be some savings on floor prep materials. However, after much internet searching, the reviews appear mixed as this entry on the Apartment Therapy blog seems to indicate: Trafficmaster Vinyl Flooring 

And another thread on a Canadian site: House and Home

Mr. Brz seems to think this product is worth a shot, lifting edges and rub marks notwithstanding. Mrs. Brz wants to beat knots on Mr. Brz’s head, but being a gentle soul, will probably opt for commando nagging maneuvers.

 Guess we’ll see… updates to follow asap.

For an update to this article, click here.

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Tags: allure, aquamix, flooring, laminate, novalis, peel and stick, plank, trafficmaster, vinyl, wood