LVP vs engineered hardwood

LVT is all about surface prep and install. It can look great or it can look like hammered shite. We’ve installed acres of it in commercial buildings and while it’s certainly nicer than VCT I’m still not a fan of it for residential use. There’s just nothing else like a wood floor.

If you are looking for an alternative to wood that will last forever then the new narrow plank ceramic is a better option in my opinion

I have a darker LVT in areas of my house. It's a rich dark brown wood pattern, but nobody is mistaking it for real wood. I think the gray stuff looks pretty terrible universally. It does what I need it to do, which is look nice enough in between weekly (ok, let's be honest, sometimes every two weeks) mops and hold up to multiple kids and dogs. I laid down a bunch of self leveling concrete before I put it in, undercut all of my door frames, and installed quarter round on all my baseboards in rooms with the LVT. It's not as nice or warm as real wood, but my kids walk around the house in frickin cleats like a buncha jackwagons and I think my dumbass labradoodle spills his water bowl in the living room like 2x a day.

Had to have our LVP replaced a year after putting down due to no moisture barrier. There was some back and forth on whether it was recommended. It is. And it’s also not a great product for high humidity environments or raised homes in high humidity environments. The composite in tongue and groove of the type we had was very brittle and with a little flex they snapped off causing the floors to lift. PITA to deal with one year in.

We put down some in part of our home and its fine. It was replacing 50 year old carpet when we bought the house and we needed something hardy and inexpensive until we could eventually put something better down. We have a 100 pound golden retriever so we figured this was the most indesstructible that didn't look like shite. No one is mistaking it for wood floors but it does its job.

What floors are people going with that have large dogs/don't want to worry about treating the floor super carefully? We are going to be renovating a significant portion of our home in the next 5 years and haven't even thought about which directions to go. Brick? White oak hardwood? Tile?

What are the prices like comparing LVT, engineered hardwood, and ceramic?

LVP

LVP can look pretty good and be very functional, especially for high-traffic or areas where moisture might be an issue. Quality engineered hardwood flooring definitely looks better, can be pretty tough, but is generally much harder to install. I've installed several thousand square feet of both over the last several years and much rather work with LVP, but if the time, location, and budget allow I'd go with engineered wood. Both types can have an aluminum-oxide wear layer, makes them pretty scratch resistant but LVP will be more impact resistant. Bit of advice if using a miter or table saw to work with either, invest in dedicated PCD-tipped saw blades, they last far longer than even good carbide-tipped saw blades. Don't try to cheap out with PCD hardi-board blades, they don't cut flooring well.

If you get LVP, get the thickest you can find. We did a remodel and we ended up with the thinnest, 4 inch I think, and it has had to be replaced already once, and now again many pieces have chipped or are needing to be replaced. My home is raised, with no moisture barrier, so that is a factor as well, but again get the thickest you can find.