Glue Down vs. Loose Lay Vinyl

Glue-Down Vinyl

• Glue-down vinyl flooring comes in individual panels or large sheets. You can purchase this material yourself or hire a flooring installation service to procure and install it for you. These sheets or panels fit directly onto the underlayer of your floor and attach with glue or a liquid adhesive. Sheets of vinyl offer greater leak protection than tiles because they possess fewer seams through which liquids may leak. Glue-down vinyl comes in two basic types, that with a releasable adhesive and that with a permanent adhesive.

Loose-Lay Vinyl

• Loose-lay vinyl flooring only comes in sheets – you cannot purchase loose-lay tiles. The underside of loose-lay vinyl exhibits a pattern designed to help the material stay in place without the use of glues or liquid adhesives. This material requires no binding material to stay in place. Though loose-lay vinyl requires neither glue nor adhesives, installation requires the use of double-sided tape. This tape reinforces the positioning of loose-lay flooring.

Installation

• All sheet vinyl, loose-lay or glue-down, installs in the same basic way – you purchase large sheets, cut them to fit the size of the floor and lay them in place. Glue-down vinyl panels install differently than sheet vinyl – one at a time, until they cover an entire floor. According to Joe Truini, author of “Installing Floors,” loose-lay vinyl is easier to install than glue-down in any form, likening the process to rolling out a throw rug on a floor.

Material

• A few key material differences exist between loose-lay and glue-down vinyl. Glue-down vinyl can ostensibly exhibit any type of underside because the glue or adhesive used binds this underside to the underlayer of the floor. Loose-lay vinyl, on the other hand, must possess a textured underside designed keep the material in place regardless of the strain placed upon it. Vinyl flooring designed for loose-lay installation may also contain material such as fiberglass to make it softer underfoot, since no barrier exists between the floor and underlayer. The glue used with glue-down vinyl creates a soft layer of binding material between the floor and underlayer.