What Is Vinyl Flooring? Types, Pros, Cons and Where It Works

Vinyl flooring is a thin, flexible floor made mostly from PVC, with a printed timber or stone design sealed under a clear wear layer. Most of what Australians buy now is luxury vinyl plank or tile, between 2.5mm and about 5mm thick, either glued down or loose laid over a flat subfloor. It costs less than most hard floors and adds almost no height. The catch is that it needs a very flat base.

Below is what it is made of, the ways it goes down, how it compares with hybrid and where it earns its place. The specs come from the vinyl ranges we sell, so every figure can be checked on the product pages.

What vinyl flooring is made of

Modern vinyl plank and tile is built in layers, a bit like laminate but with no wood fibre in it at all. Our Alpine Artisan tiles list their type as heterogeneous PVC. That simply means several bonded layers rather than one solid sheet of colour.

When you compare products, look at the wear layer before the overall thickness. It is the part that takes the wear, so it tells you more about how long the surface will last than the total millimetres do.

Plank, tile and sheet vinyl

Vinyl comes in three formats. Each one suits a different look and a different kind of room.

• Luxury vinyl plank (LVP). Board shaped to imitate timber. Olympus Neo planks are 1219 x 184mm, while Ornato and Alpine planks are about 178 x 1219mm.
• Luxury vinyl tile (LVT). Squares that imitate stone, concrete or timber. Olympus Stone tiles are 457mm square and Alpine Artisan tiles are 500 x 500mm.
• Sheet vinyl. One continuous piece off a roll, common in older kitchens and laundries. It has fewer joins, but one damaged spot usually means patching or replacing a large section.

Every vinyl range on our site is plank or tile. We do not list sheet vinyl online.

The word luxury in LVP and LVT is more marketing than specification. It generally signals a thicker product with a photographic print and a textured surface, as opposed to older flat sheet goods. Olympus Neo and Olympus Stone both have a matte embossed surface with a micro bevel on each edge.

The three ways vinyl is laid

How the floor is held down matters as much as what it is made of. It decides how the floor feels, how much preparation it needs and whether a single plank can be swapped later.

1. Direct stick (glue down). Each plank or tile is glued to the subfloor. Olympus Neo and Olympus Stone are laid this way. Once bonded it is silent underfoot, with no hollow click, no bounce and no expansion gaps to hide behind the skirting.
2. Looselay. Heavy planks that stay in place through weight, friction and a tight squared edge, with no locking joint. Ornato is a 5.3mm looselay plank, laid glueless with minimal adhesive across large open areas. A damaged board can be lifted out and replaced in about five minutes.
3. Click. Planks lock together and float over an underlay. Thin click vinyl does exist, but the rigid core version is what is now sold as hybrid, explained in our guide to what hybrid flooring is.

Vinyl vs hybrid flooring

This is the comparison most people are really making. Hybrid still has a vinyl wear layer and printed film on top, but it sits on a rigid core, usually SPC (stone plastic composite), often with an underlay already attached. It clicks together and floats instead of being glued.

Put simply, vinyl wins where floor height and cost matter most. Hybrid wins where the subfloor is less than perfect or you want something that feels more like timber.

Pros and cons of vinyl flooring

The strengths, taken from the specs of ranges we stock:

• Thin. At 2.5mm, Olympus Neo is the thinnest floor we carry, so doors, kickboards and the joins to tile or carpet usually stay as they are.
• Tough for its size. Olympus Neo has Group T abrasion, the top class for vinyl, plus a Commercial 33 rating and residual indentation of only 0.03mm. Furniture legs do not leave permanent dents.
• Slip rated. Olympus Stone is rated P3 under AS 4586, which the range lists as suitable for kitchens. Ornato and Alpine Artisan are rated R10.
• Easy repairs. On a looselay floor, a scorched or gouged board is a quick swap.
• Price. Vinyl has the lowest top end of any hard floor range on our FAQ page.

The trade-offs worth knowing before you buy:

• The subfloor must be flat, dry and properly prepared. The Olympus Neo and Olympus Stone pages both call it essential.
• A glued floor takes more work to lift later than a floating one.
• Dark tones show dust and footprints. Our Granite Stone page says this plainly and points to Pewter Stone as a lighter option.
• Looselay is moisture resistant, not a waterproofing system. Talk to us before putting Ornato in a bathroom or laundry.

Why floor preparation decides how vinyl looks

Because vinyl is so thin, whatever sits underneath ends up on show. A ridge in old boards, a lip where two slab pours meet or a dried blob of paint can all read through a 2.5mm plank once light hits it from the side.

So a vinyl job often spends more time on the subfloor than on laying the floor. As a general rule, low spots get levelling compound, joins get filled and the surface is cleaned back before any adhesive goes down. Our post on floor preparation goes through it step by step.

Whether your existing floor can stay underneath is a question for measure day. Our regular installers check the subfloor at the free measure, and any preparation it needs is listed on the written quote.

Where vinyl flooring works best

• Renovations over an existing floor, where 3mm or less avoids trimming doors and rebuilding thresholds.
• Kitchens, using a slip rated product such as Olympus Stone at P3.
• Offices, shops and cafes. Alpine Artisan is rated class 33 for heavy commercial use, and a looselay floor can be lifted and relaid when a tenancy changes.
• Rooms with underfloor heating, if the range allows it. Ornato is listed as suitable; check each product before choosing.
• Bedrooms and upstairs rooms where footfall noise matters. Glued vinyl has no hollow click, and Ornato is listed as insulating well against sound and heat.

Vinyl is a weaker choice over an uneven timber subfloor that cannot be levelled, or where you want the solid feel of real wood. Hybrid or engineered timber suit those jobs better.

What vinyl flooring costs

Our FAQ page lists vinyl at $25 to $45 per m2. Treat that as the supply price for the flooring itself. For comparison, hybrid and laminate sit at $25 to $65 per m2, and engineered timber at $69 to $129 per m2.

Installation is quoted separately after the measure, because the labour on a vinyl job depends mostly on the subfloor. A clean, flat slab is quick to cover. Old tiles, timber boards that need levelling, stairs and removing the old floor all add time, and each one is itemised.

Browse the full vinyl flooring range, or book a free measure and quote anywhere in Sydney.