Luxury vinyl flooring - what's so Luxury about it? :D

[wau5]

I always chuckle when someone just says that name, seriously what's so ''luxury'' about it?
Vinyl flooring has been the cheapest junk you can get for god knows how long.
Now someone makes it in smaller/easier to lay format and calls it "'luxury'' and everyone spends insane amounts of $ on it.

clever Marketing trick which has created a completely new market where people are happy to have plastic nasty vinyl on their floor and be proud of it?
& Yes I'm aware that it's good in places with loads of traffic (shops) because it's rather durable, but since when did it become a Luxury Product?

 

[Ian H]

Yeah, but, you can tell your neighbours it cost £££££ and have the receipt to prove it!!

 

[Gerrydelasel]

Luxury stuff is usually thicker with more cusion behind it, unique (manufacturer-specific) designs, thicker wear layer, and embossing/texturing. But yes, there's nothing to prevent a schyster from applying the word to a junk product too.

TBH though, the industry has come so far these days that even cheap stuff is miles better than the old stuff from your childhood that used to crack.

 

[Mottie]

Just like luxury houses and heavy duty batteries. Where can you buy standard ones these days?

 

[EFLImpudence]

Or maybe they started by selling 'crap' and 'luxury' options and stopped selling the 'crap'.

 

[Alec_t]

and stopped selling the 'crap'.

No. That's the stuff they now sell as 'luxury' .

 

[DaveHerns]

No worse than boasting you have laminate on your floors !

 

[securespark]

Nowadays, it would seem that many products are Heavy Duty. It's just that some are more HD than others!

I have been looking for security chains. Many are labelled Thatcham Approved etc, but that does not mean they are Sold Secure Gold or even Silver Standard. And of those that are SSG or SSS standard, there are some that are way more HD than others.

 

[woodbine]

The landlord of my local seemed to think that ripping out the carpets in the bars and putting down wood effect vinyl (more like vinyl effect vinyl) would be an improvement. Wasn't too impressed when I called it lino. Well, it is really -just in strips, rather than on a roll. And because the carpet absorbed noise, you now have to shout to make yourself heard when the pub is busy.

Bit of a backwards step though. Years ago people binned their lino for carpet - now going back the other way. Or even that dreadful laminate.

Calling ordinary things 'luxury' is all marketing hype. I always laugh when I go into somewhere like KFC and ask for small chips. They automatically serve up their 'medium' size chips, which are the smallest they do. They only have 'medium' and large, so surely with no option of a small size, they should be honest and have small and large on the menu.

 

[blightymam]

I must confess - never having had lino in my own home before, I bought an end of roll piece to cover the awful tiles on our kitchen floor a year or so ago, to tide us over. Going by the kitchen bench we replaced last week, they're at least 20 years old and look it. And why to people put diarrhea coloured tiles anywhere? Yuck!!
I am sorely tempted to put lino down again when we gut and sort out the kitchen once and for all in a year or so - it's easy to clean, no grout to bleach & scrub, it's reasonably cheap and it's warmer underfoot in a room without a radiator. Not to mention more things bounce when dropped, unlike tiles where absolutely everything smashes.

 

[DaveHerns]

Isn't proper lino (linoleum) real quality stuff with hessian (?) woven into it? Worlds apart from sheet vinyl flooring.
Something I looked at today was labelled "European Quality" - is that good or bad?