Cement board and vinyl click flooring install - advice needed! 28 February at 9:08PM edited 28 February at 9:09PM in In my home (includes DIY) MoneySaving 8 replies 222 views

niceguyed

Hi everyone, novice diyer here. Just scoping out whether I can do a job myself, also had conflicting advice from trades so wanted to ask the excellent hive brain on this forum!

Currently renovating the bathroom. Tiling all done and shower tray and bath installed.

I want to install vinyl click flooring. It's an old house so has traditional 20mm floorboards. My plan is to install a 6mm cement board subfloor. But I have a few questions I need help with.

Plumber says it needs a flexible rapid set tile adhesive (S1) first and then screw in the cement board with 25mm screws.

Had a flooring chap round this eve for the rest of the house and asked him to quote me anyway for the bathroom flooring with labour only. He said no need for tile adhesive with vinyl click and to screw it in directly to the floor. I've installed laminate myself easily enough over floorboards and only ever needed a floating woodfibre underlay so it made some sense to me.

So what I need to know is who is right?

If I did do this myself, assuming I didn't need rapid set, I've read the Turbo Gold wood screws are good for cement board. Would that be a 3.5 20mm size? If not which screws would you recommend?

Thanks in advance.

plumb1_2

For a proper job go with the plumber’s recommendation 

MikeJXE

plumb1_2 said:

For a proper job go with the plumber’s recommendation 

The plumber is right in a sense but that sort of process is more for tilled floors where you don't want any spring in the board, not so important with click flooring 

FreeBear

Got vinyl click flooring down in my kitchen. Half is on solid concrete (an extension), the other over a suspended timber floor. All I did was put down woodfibre laminate underlay followed by the click tiles. No movement in ~6 years or any other problem to report.

plumb1_2

Kitchens and bathrooms are different environments. Plus it’s future proof if the op decides to swop to ceramic flooring etc at a later date. And wouldn’t advise using a fibre based underlay in a bathroom.
If it’s due to budget then 6mm ply. Most LVT has a thin layer of underlay attached.
But personally I prefer glued down ( solvent based adhesive) vinyl planking, as I’ve seen a couple of lvt floors damaged due to objects being dropped on them in kitchens.

benson1980

I’ve used 6mm hardiebacker and the adhesive method but prior to laying porcelain tiles. No reason why it wouldn’t work though for click vinyl and presumably is the belt and braces approach…..

in our bathrooms I’ve got for glue down as suggested above on 6mm marine ply and skimmed over with karndean smoothing compound. Both methods are much of a muchness in terms of difficulty (as in not difficult).

re: screws, hardie backer have their own flooring ones to go with their boards. I’m sure there are cheaper ones you can use but in the grand scheme of things it’s minimal extra cost. Their ones are 25mm and topps tiles usually have the boards and screws in stock.

danrv

I’ve got Malmo Marta Rigid Core click flooring from Topps Tiles for my bathroom. Underlay built in and they’re going straight onto new chipboard subfloor.
Loose lay so no glue.
https://malmoflooring.com/order-a-sample/marta/

Gavin83

There's no reason to overboard with cement board if you're going with LVT. Just overboard with 6mm ply.

LVT is fussy regarding how level the floor is. You can use a levelling compound to ensure it's flat. If it's already perfectly flat then you can probably get away with skipping this step.

niceguyed

Thanks for the replies everyone all feedback has been helpful. I've been told 6mm ply would not have the same performance as 6mm cement board so I'd need to go thicker which I don't want. 

Sounds like the consensus is adhesive. I've decided to wait a while as I want the new heating install completed and pressure tested to avoid the aggro of a ripping it all up if there's a leak!