Ready for the “kitchen battle”

Floors covered with so-called “design floor­ing” (mod­ern vinyl tiles or planks) are robust, water­proof and easy to main­tain. They even for­give the odd kit­chen mis­hap – no mat­ter wheth­er it’s dropped dishes, oily salad dress­ings or wine spills. With a damp cloth, everything is quickly wiped up without leav­ing any residue. That’s why mod­ern vinyl floor­ing is the per­fect choice for tough kit­chen use. The vari­ety of col­ors, shapes and decors makes all your liv­ing dreams come true. It is, how­ever, highly recom­men­ded to bond the floor­ing firmly to the sub­strate. This pre­vents the form­a­tion of joints or waves at a later point in time.

When cook­ing, there is usu­ally a high level of humid­ity, vis­ible on the steamed-up win­dows. For this reas­on, the floor cov­er­ings used in kit­chens should not be equipped with a mois­ture-sens­it­ive car­ri­er mater­i­al. Vinyl floor­ing made of plastic is ideally suited for use on kit­chen floors: it is not only mois­ture-res­ist­ant, but also hard-wear­ing, slip- and abra­­sion-res­ist­ant. This is a par­tic­u­lar advant­age in the kit­chen where you often turn on your heel because space is lim­ited or you are in a hurry.

Due to its robust nature, vinyl floor­ing is also for­giv­ing of the odd “acci­dent”. No mat­ter wheth­er gravy runs from the plate, ice-cream drips from the cone or lem­on­ade is spilled on the floor: Everything can be quickly wiped away with a damp cloth. Kit­chen utensils like pots or knives can fall down without leav­ing dents on the floor. That’s why plastic vinyl floor­ing is per­fect for use in kit­chen areas. The mater­i­al is also pleas­ant to walk on as it is soft and warm to the feet.

The vari­ety of col­ors, shapes and decors opens up an unlim­ited range of design options: vinyl floor­ing can even imit­ate the look of tiles, stone and wood. Visu­ally, there is hardly any dif­fer­ence between vinyl floor­ing and wooden floor­ing or ceram­ic tiles. Due to its low install­a­tion height, vinyl floor­ing is also ideal for renov­a­tions. It con­sists of indi­vidu­al tiles and planks that are easy to handle and can be quickly installed. To ensure the mater­i­al remains dimen­sion­ally stable, it is best to glue it to the sub­strate over the entire sur­face. This pre­vents later buck­ling and warp­ing of the vinyl floor. The work should prefer­ably be car­ried out by a pro­fes­sion­al floorer.

What’s the struc­ture of vinyl floor­ing? The mater­i­al is sup­plied as tiles or planks and con­sists of sev­er­al dif­fer­ent lay­ers. At the very bot­tom is a plastic lay­er, fol­lowed by a car­ri­er lay­er made of wood-based mater­i­als or cork. Next comes the dec­or­at­ive lay­er with a prin­ted design (e.g. stone, wood), topped by the final wear lay­er made of plastic. It is pos­sible to integ­rate fur­ther lay­ers, for example for impact sound insu­la­tion.

Many types of “design floor­ing” con­sist of a vinyl under­lay­er and a wear lay­er made of poly­ureth­ane, an extremely hard plastic mater­i­al. There are also types that fully con­sist of vinyl (sol­id vinyl floor­ing). In addi­tion, vari­ants made of oth­er syn­thet­ic mater­i­als are avail­able. What all types of “design floor­ing” have in com­mon is that they are extremely hard-wear­ing and dur­able. Industry experts recom­mend a wear lay­er thick­ness of 0.4 to 0.55 mil­li­meters for areas sub­ject to high wear and tear like kit­chens.