Karndean looselay vinyl planks - any good?

I've had my kardean vinyl planks down a year now & no-one person has come into my house & known the floor was vinyl. some people thought it was bamboo. I had tiles & laminated flooring & nothing is as good as this. I told my builder I needed a smooth slab but it didn't matter as after all the trades come in I had chips in it. I had a levelling compound applied which was about $900 but the guy laying the floor told me he almost always has to use it. when its not smooth it shows up in the vinyl after they apply the adhesive. why would you skimp on it & ruin the look of your floor.

I think the important to question to ask is do they use a levelling agent! We would have happily paid for it but it was never mentioned! Ours is pretty level so not too bad but I think it would have been improved by having the slab levelled before laying!

Exactly, I asked for an all up price as they knew we had issues last time with the quality of the planks (ive mentioned before they've been taken off the market since then because of wear issues, but they never admitted this to us or even had the decency to come out and inspect - this WASN'T a Karndean product).
With our current floor I would have happily paid the extra $1000 for the laying compound like we had to last time but I was told we didn't need it. Our slab was also checked by the selling company prior to laying and deemed fine for going ahead, no levelling compound was ever mentioned and it was never checked with a spirit level or whatever other tools they could use to do so. I didn't worry and was confident it would be fine because we didn't have a problem with a 'wavy' slab before, just the quality of the planks was questionable.

I think communication between the manufacturer and the selling agent should be better and a uniform approach of how these planks are installed be implemented. Shame on them really because it would save a lot of grief afterward.
I'm absolutely foul that our slab is so all over the place but there's nothing I can do now. I'm also foul with the layer for not stopping when they got to the really bad parts to say 'hey we've got a problem here' which needs addressing with the builder. In the end we've only got ourselves to blame for not being more 'ana!' about checking anything and everything prior to these planks going down, but by then we were over the whole built anyhow.

Fmac how's your floor going?

SB i feel the same as you. even more so as we did it through the builder so paid a premium and they didn't even think anything was wrong! it took us calling the flooring company who agreed it was bad and did fix it but even asking them they swore that no levelling was needed, cant tell you how many people i have spoken to since who said they should always level even if the slab looks ok!

It looks much better now but there are a few *dips* in the floor. You can't see them but sometimes when I walk I can feel it and I'm still not 100% with some of the joins but as I've not seen it laid anywhere else it is hard to tell if it is normal or not.

Everyone who comes in is impressed and many people think it is real wood or laminate.

We have recently noticed some scratches, not even in high traffic areas but I'm not sure if it is excess glue on the plank that has the scratch or the plank itself. I spent a long time on Saturday with a damp cloth and my finger nail scratching off excess glue! I'm starting to think they used extra glue to try and level things out!

How about you?

Hm, so you're the same as us really.
We've had Karndean agree to replace some planks, strip and seal others and we've asked the builder to fix the really bad part of the slab in the kitchen. However they won't agree to anything until the planks are up and they can see how bad it is underneath. To Karndeans credit they are fine with leaving all this until our 6 month maintenance is due with the builder as I just cannot deal with anymore upheaval in my life right now. Sooo over the next 3 months I will enjoy our new home and sit back a little. Then in February we will shift all the furniture and have the main living area seen to. I have no clue how long the planks will be off in the kitchen though, as that part depends in the builder.

I agree all slabs should have a compulsory levelling compound applied.
(They tried to tell me this would cost well over $5000 - yeah right, I guess that's easy to say afterward to put the customer off)

Ps: when I'm wearing socks I can feel the many 'dips' a lot so I try to wear shoes now so I don't get annoyed and reminded too often haha.

Good idea to enjoy your home for now. Ours aren't small ones rather then waves I noticed when stepping from fridge to pantry the other day I dipped down a little. Generally it is actually quite nice and smooth to walk on.

We have a nice list of issues I will be emailing our CL tonight that we have noticed since we have moved in. And will wait for the 'you should have notified us sooner' or 'you should have raised them at PCI or before handover' at least if they say that I can raise the fact our SS said our floor was fine and then we have since had it taken up and relaid!

Yes we have a list too fmac but nothing new since handover so that's good.
Still have sh!tty paintwork and noisy fans but neither will be a 6 month thing but rather just a do it yourself project.
I shudder when I look at our doors/frames

Hey - can I ask if anyone has tried to lay the looselay themselves? If so - how hard was it? Considering trying to do it ourselves....

Any other users of looselay want to relay their experience?

Anyone?

Hi dexx
I was very keen on the Karndean looselay at first and am still convinced its a great product and I know there was someone who put this down recently or at least was planning to but I cannot for the life of me remember who it was.
If I were to go for the product I would still glue it down and also use more than just the glue. Your floor needs levelling unless you've got the perfect slab. If you're picky like me you would feel the dips and hollows.
The colour I liked was country oak or summer oak, I can't quite remember. It was multicoloured and I thought if scratched it would be hardly noticeable. However the colour wasn't quite right for us in the end and we reluctantly went for the Van Gogh. Now that we have a more solid colour (walnut) the scratches are very easily noticed. LeanneR said she only sees the scratches with the sun coming through the window and maybe if you don't have a lot of direct sunlight it would be ok regardless of which colour you go for. Our house has windows east, north and north west in the living room alone, so I just can't win here I'm afraid haha.

We have used Karndean glue-downs in the entries of our physio clinics. They have been down for 8 years in one and 6 years in the other. No signs of wear at all which is why we are considering a vinyl plank throughout our upcoming KDR.

We like the looselay planks though as the extra thickness (4mm up to 7mm) makes them slightly softer underfoot whilst still retaining a hard wearing layer.

All of the different reps we have spoken to swear that it is just the same as glue down except that it is easier to replace a damaged plank in the future. And they say that if it laid properly then water still won't get down the joins.

Would like to hear from anyone who has done looselay already, otherwise I'll let you know in 12-18 months how it all went

We did looselay throughout our house.
Love it. Easy to clean, doesn't really mark. Was laid using glue. So far so good!

Hey Leanne, do you mind sharing where you got your great quote from?

Yes it was WA Carpet Supermarket

So reading online, there seems to be a lot of people that recommend that once Karndean is installed, that it get stripped back with the solution, and then 2 coats of Dim Glow be applied.

What is the reason for this? Surely it is ready to go out of the box? Who has done/hasn't done this and what are their thoughts?

Our flooring place did not mention this at all.

Never again ! Large dogs and vinyl floor do not mix. Expensive mistake twice in a row. Stripped and resealed, worse than ever. Mad as!

Actually no, not mad anymore, just so disappointed and upset that we will need to find money to start again

I could have told you that before you laid the floor. Large dogs are very hard on nearly any floor - vinyl in particular.

Stewie