Carpet vs Luxury Vinyl, Which Do You Prefer?

Long before luxury vinyl flooring appeared on the market and gained popularity, carpeting was considered to be the go-to flooring solution. Today, however, luxury vinyl flooring is surpassing the demand for carpet, and there are many reasons why.

While each flooring option offers its own set of obvious benefits, the comparison between vinyl vs. carpet is surprisingly closer than you might think. Both are available in different formats. For carpet, there are broadloom and carpet tiles and for vinyl, there are tile, plank, and resilient sheets. Both have a lot of design versatility. And both are capable of helping you achieve a comfortable aesthetic when applied to almost any interior environment. However, there are certain aspects that set each flooring solution apart from one another. The following will help you decide which flooring solution is best for you and your space.

Look & Style

Both carpet and luxury vinyl allows for unlimited design versatility. Whether you like patterns or favor abstracts, both flooring solutions can help you achieve your desired style. With carpets, you either have lots of color choices, but fewer patterns to choose from, or more pattern options, but fewer color choices due to the dying and tufting technology. On the other hand, the 3D printing technology used in luxury vinyl can easily replicate the natural look of wood or stone thus allowing for virtually unlimited design choices without having to sacrifice color or patterns.

For those that love the feel and look of a woven texture, the use of area rugs on top of luxury vinyl allows for the ease of cleaning and the ability to add textured elements for greater visual effects.

Cleanability & Durability

When it comes to dirt, carpets work more like a filter, allowing dirt and dust to be vacuumed up. However, spills on carpets not only attract more dirt to the area but depending on the dye method used, stains can easily set in. Specifically, with broadloom carpets, moisture can pass through which causes mold to grow below the surface.

Carpet is prone to crushing and matting over time, not to mention the increased visibility of dirt and wear in high-traffic areas. Carpet manufacturers are doing their best to mitigate this problem by creating products like carpet tiles which come with a backing system to allow an end-user to pull up the afflicted areas and either clean or replace them.

Luxury vinyl does not absorb spills as it is a non-porous material that keeps moisture and other harmful substances (or bacteria) from penetrating through like they would in carpet, or other flooring surfaces like concrete or the grout of ceramics. Also, luxury vinyl flooring has a wear layer with a polyurethane topcoat. This layer provides luxury vinyl with a natural resistance to moisture, staining, and scratching. Its overall ease of maintenance from spills to disinfecting is unsurpassed, especially when following a typical two-bucket cleaning system. Thanks to its superior design versatility, luxury vinyl can visually hide traffic lanes and hold up to the foot traffic, whereas a carpet crushes and matts. Overall, luxury vinyl offers peace of mind like no other flooring material can.

Applications

As mentioned earlier, carpet is still very much a popular flooring solution, especially in bedrooms. But now we are seeing a huge shift in favor of luxury vinyl in the residential and commercial space. Other industries that have begun to rely on luxury vinyl flooring include hospitality, healthcare, and retail spaces. Large commercial retailers have begun to install vinyl in their fitting rooms, and some are even using it as the main flooring surface in place of carpet. Pairing luxury vinyl with an accent area rug allows for easy maintenance and durability which is why hotels, large and small, have also begun replacing carpet with luxury vinyl flooring and using area rugs for an accent versus using installed carpet. 

Sound

Noise is a factor to consider when weighing carpet vs. vinyl flooring. While carpet is ideal for noise reduction, luxury vinyl flooring has similar sound reduction abilities when the right construction is selected, or when an underlayment is applied to the subfloor.

Cost

Cost is comparable when comparing vinyl vs. carpet. The average cost for carpet is $3-7 per square foot, excluding installation. Luxury vinyl can be priced from $2-$7 per square foot including the cost of installation. However, when factoring in long-term maintenance costs of both flooring solutions, the lifetime cost of luxury vinyl flooring is less.

We know that there are many flooring options to choose from and that it can get a bit overwhelming. Hopefully, this carpet vs luxury vinyl flooring overview has been helpful to you to make a decision on which way to go. At West Coast Floor Company in Napa and Vallejo, we offer all types of flooring plus expert installation and hope to be able to help you with your flooring needs. Feel free to call us for a design consultation if you are still unsure what is the best solution for your needs.