New bathroom - new floor - cat urine?

Cmdr_Bond

In a couple of weeks time I'm renovating my bathroom.

The bath, basin, WC, and all associated taps, wastes, vanity units etc... have all been ordered.

We have chosen, but not purchased, the wall tiles.

But are a little undecided on the floor.

We have 3 cats and the occasional miss of the litter tray.

The current bathroom floor is carpeted (hate this, but that was the previous owners choice).

As I see it there are 3 main choices...

1. Tile - I have discounted this already due to costs, permanency of instating and its severity (cold and hard), of which only the temperature can be modified with underfloor heating. But not without a significant increase in height once you have taken all the layers (backing boards, insulation, heating element, adhesive and tile) into account.
2. Vinyl sheet - the cheap and nasty option. Slightly more awkward to lay, and one wrong cut or tear will ruin the entire sheet, but it's only about £30.00 for the amount we need (ignoring any floor prep).
3. Luxury Vinyl Tile - my preferred option. No where near as cheap as vinyl sheet (~£180.00 for our needs excluding floor prep similar to that of vinyl sheet). There are more options here:
   1. Glue down - I would rather avoid this due to it's permanency.
   2. Interlocking ("click") - again, this is my preferred choice, even though slightly more expensive than glue down, due to it's ease of installation and replacement.

My worry is how damaging cat urine is to LVT. With sheet vinyl, at £30 a time, I can just throw it away and replace it. Due to the price of LVT I would not want to have to replace it.

Does anyone know if LVT can withstand vat urine? I don't plan on just leaving it if I see it, but if the cat has an accident after we've gone to bed or could be 8 hours before it gets noticed.

As far as brands go, ice looked at Carpet Right's "Tegola", Karndean Palio Clic, Polyfloor Camaro Loc and Moduleo, of which Moduleo is currently the front runner.

SplanK

We have sheet vinyl laid in our ensuite (which also replaced carpet!). As long as you pick the right product and laid correctly, it looks good.


It's cheap, in my case I got a fitter to lay it for me as I didn't have the time, and it was a bit of an pain of a layout. Fitters did a great job and was worth it. I will be replacing the floors in our main bathroom and downstairs WC soon with sheet vinyl but doing it myself as the layout is more square in the near future!


Main thing for me is there is no joins which means its fairly water resistant, and cost was a close 2nd consideration. Having 2 boys, both who like to splash a lot as well as the inevitable toilet training and 'general misses'.


I did consider stick down vinyl tiles. Some people report, including the MIL unless the floor the tiles go on is perfect, adhesion can sometimes be a little tricky, and gaps could open up over time...and more expensive!


How either would cope with long exposure to urine I cant answer, I think most are best would be water resistant to a point but could be damaged with long term exposure

Johnnytwostep

tile all the way, vinyl is cheap and nasty, and i am sure that 'luxury' vinyl is not much better.

phoenix_w

Cmdr_Bond wrote: »

My worry is how damaging cat urine is to LVT. With sheet vinyl, at £30 a time, I can just throw it away and replace it. Due to the price of LVT I would not want to have to replace it.

I'd be wary of vinyl tiles as there will be minute gaps for the wee to seep through and maybe alter the colour or smell of the tile. Why not just buy a small piece of vinyl to cover the area where the cats do their biznezz?

Also: you need to use a bigger litter box. We have both gigantic ones and a high sided one, and never had any mis-aims.

cattie

I'd go for the luxury vinyl as many of the better quality ones are really so realistic & very hard wearing. After years of choosing to have bathroom floors tiled in my various homes over the years, this time round I opted for a good quality vinyl due to it being so much warmer underfoot & is just so much easier to keep clean. (Tiled floors in a bathroom seem to act as a dust magnet I found).

I had mine laid professionally & was glued down & people are very surprised to find that it's a vinyl & not a porcelain or ceramic tiled floor. I've not regretted my choice for one moment.

Cmdr_Bond

Johnnytwostep wrote: »

tile all the way, vinyl is cheap and nasty, and i am sure that 'luxury' vinyl is not much better.

As you obviously haven't seen LVT I suggest you broaden your horizons before issuing advice.

LVT is very nice. I've seen it installed and it looks great. Although regular cheap and nasty vinyl is getting better too.

As for laying, the click systems I'm looking at are "floating".

Johnnytwostep

Cmdr_Bond wrote: »

As you obviously haven't seen LVT I suggest you broaden your horizons before issuing advice.

LVT is very nice. I've seen it installed and it looks great. Although regular cheap and nasty vinyl is getting better too.

As for laying, the click systems I'm looking at are "floating".

I have quite broad horizons thanks, but they probably start a bit higher than others.

happy35

Karndean definitely will, haven't seen the others, mine has been down 15ish years in utility room.black slate effect and is like new even though dog sleeps in there and years of football boots and bikes have been all over it. Dog wee not a problem here but can't see why cat wee would have a effect on it

Fen1

A large offcut of plastic under the litter tray to stop accidents getting to the floor?

Cmdr_Bond

happy35 wrote: »

Karndean definitely will, haven't seen the others, mine has been down 15ish years in utility room.black slate effect and is like new even though dog sleeps in there and years of football boots and bikes have been all over it. Dog wee not a problem here but can't see why cat wee would have a effect on it

Cat urine is quite potent, and causes much more damage than dog urine does.

That said, it's looking promising.

Is your Karndean glued down or click?