best type of vinyl plank flooring?

[nereo]

We're about to redo our kitchen/dining room with vinyl plank, replacing very old, poorly laid and utterly ugly linoleum squares.  The look we are going for will be wood, and we've chosen luxury vinyl planks (LVP) over hardwood for a mixture of cost, easy of installation and great resilience in an environment that will get a lot of traffic and the occasional spill.  We're sticking with the interlocking for this install.

Question now is what brand and model line should we go with?  Seems there's about ten available, some with an attached pad (which I think I like).  Anyone have a preference over the major brands (Smartcore, Mohawk, Stainmaster, Shaw, Trafficmaster, Armstrong, etc.)  Any particular reason to like one brand over another besides the visual appearance?

[ysette9]

@Dicey - do I remember correctly that you put something like this in a flip house?

[Jon Bon]

Ive used lifeproof from HD. Its not cheap ($3 sqft) but it works great when I dont have time to wait for thinset and grout to dry on my rental properties.

So far its holding up fine. Like most products it does pretty well when you install it right (and not so well when you dont.)

[nereo]

Ive used lifeproof from HD. Its not cheap ($3 sqft) but it works great when I dont have time to wait for thinset and grout to dry on my rental properties.

So far its holding up fine. Like most products it does pretty well when you install it right (and not so well when you dont.)

$3/sqft doesn't sound bad given how quick it is to install and the dimensions involves (~150sqft).  I mean... I'm sure I could find something for under $2 all in, but saving $150-200 on flooring which I expect to last a decade doesn't mean very much if it saves me an entire day with the install doing (as you said) thinset and subsurface prep and whatnot.

[Jon Bon]

Yeah the advantage is it goes down so quickly and claims to be waterproof.

I think I can found I can have the floor laid in the same amount of time I can get the concrete board down, maybe even faster.

Pro tip, I put a small section of tar paper right outside of where the tub/shower would be. That would catch any water that is able to get though. You can also run it up the wall an inch and cover it up with the baseboard after that.

In bedrooms it gets a little pricey, You can get a decent hardwood for close to that which I much prefer everywhere else that is not a kitchen or bath.

[mozar]

I went with Coretec one. It was a little more expensive but came with a 25 year warranty.