Press on vinyl tiles for kitchen?

[karliebug]

Has anyone used these? They have some great colors/patterns available at my home depot and it says they have a 10 year warranty. My husband is handy enough to do it himself but we are both afraid that they really won't stick and that they will peel up. Can I put them right on top of my current vinyl floor or do we have to rip that up? Should we put on some sort of extra glue to insure they stay stuck? I love to hear other's experience with these.

 

[Green Tea]

We did this years ago and it worked great. We put it right down on top of the ugly stuff. I recently went back to see the old house and the same floor was in the kitchen. It had been down at least 15 years and wasn't coming up.

 

[WDWHo]

I think these are really bad. They are cheap and look great SHORT TERM. They dont hold up. They lift and break off the edges as they get older. You might want to cost it out. I think there are better options that will last longer. We just bought a home two years ago that had these on the floor and they were 4 years old and look HORRIBLE. We had them replaced with Laminate Pergo and it was worth EVERY penny. Its a care free floor, easy to clean and they are really indestructible. Hope this helps.

 

[ADisneygirl]

I had carpeting in the master bathroom that I wanted to change. I bought these press and stick tiles because they looked pretty and I thought they would be easy enough for even me to install.

They were pretty easy to install, BUT.... I would never recommend them. The edges are not as tight together as a real ceramic with grout or a solid laminate with no edges, hence the dirt and stuff build up all around them. I hired a tile contractor to install a ceramic tile floor in there after 2 years of having the press and stick. He told me that no way was he installing tile on top of it -- too much chance of failure from movement, etc. So I had to peel them all back up again! Then the concrete floor was incredibly gunky and sticky. I tried to clean it with a glue remover, alcohol, soap and water, etc. I kept cleaning and cleaning it, but the next day the "stick" was still there. I ended up tossing around baby powder, then sweeping up. This seemed to do the trick for the last gummy parts.


I'd never do the peel and stick again.

 

[Sleepy]

We paid alot of money to do our kitchen and diningroom with these stick on tiles. Installation was easy and I know we did it right, however once the weather changed we noticed the tiles shifting/sliding. We only lived in the house about 2 years after installation and I do remember thinking "tectonic plate theory". Maybe it is because the subsurface was hardwood?

 

[TenThousandVolts]

I have them in my mud porch/laundry area- put them in about a year ago- and they are fine. I don't expect them to last a long time, we were looking for a quick, cheap fix in there. I don't think I would put them in a 'real' area of my house like the kitchen.

 

[pjlla]

Okay..... my story.....
we were looking for quick inexpensive floor for the new mudroom. We installed the Traffic Master brand of peel and stick floor tiles from Home Depot. They have a LIFETIME warranty in residential settings. I installed it over that really thin plywood type stuff (having a blonde moment... can't remember exact name....veneer maybe??). I used an "adhesive prep" type stuff called 336 Henry Floor Primer (looks like you are painting on very watery white paint), and made sure to lay the tiles while it was VERY COLD in the room. That way when the temp went up and the tiles expanded, the cracks/seams were almost invisible.

It looked so well and lasted well, so a year or so later we installed it in the kitchen over existing sheet vinyl. We used Superglue to adhere down one or two areas where the vinyle was lifting, used a stripper to remove any residue from the vinyl and used the Floor Primer again. We did the same thing with the temperature.... laid the floor in early spring on a cold day, opened the windows. We probably worked in 50° temps all day! But I believe it did help keep the seams tight.

A few things we did right.... even though we kept the temp low, we still really butted the tiles up tight together..... we really cleaned and prepped the subfloor well..... we bought professional grade knee pads, which I would consider a necessity...... we tried to make sure that no two like tiles are touching each other (the tile we bought had a repeat of about 5 or 6.... we gave each tile a name, stacked them together by name, and it was much easier to make sure we ended up with a random, realistic looking "pattern").

Since our tile pattern is made to look like ceramic tile with grout in between, we had to be careful about cut tiles around the edges of doors, etc. And since it is a VERY THICK commercial grade tile, it was difficult to cut..... we ended up with very sore hands! Get some good heavy duty shears if you need to cut thick tile. And when we were done we mixed some caulk the same color as the grey "grout" lines in the tile and did around the edges of the door frames, etc, where the tile didn't exactly meet up snug.

We have had this floor in our kitchen/half bath/laundry room for about 3 years now and in the mudroom for 4 years. We only have one spot in the kitchen the occasionally pops up along one edge. I think we cut the tile too snug there.... I keep meaning to lift the edge of the tile and put down some extra adhesive, but it seems to only bother me when I wash the floor.

BTW, I did the mudroom myself in a day (a loooong day), and DH and I did the kitchen/bathroom area together over a weekend (without the kids!).

I say give it a try if you are willing to spend a bit more on the better tiles. But if you are going to buy the low end, I wouldn't bother. I don't think you would be happy with them in the end. Good luck. PM me if you want any additional info.......................P

 

[LuckyMamaInDE]

We put down the same type of tile as pjlla last year in our entry hall and kitchen. We needed a QUICK fix over incredibly ugly and stained sheet vinyl. The house had been a foreclosure and needed a lot of cosmetic work! We chose to put the money into new carpeting.

The tiles look just fine. DH spent a lot of time (a week before we moved in) prepping the floor and laying the tiles. He even put new quarter-round moulding right over the tiles so there are no gaps along the wall edges. We will eventually (5yr?) put hardwood down as time and budget allow, but this allows us to have a nice looking floor in the meantime. We did buy two extra boxes of tile in case of repairs

 

[tink_n_pooh]

We put these down at work. They have been there for 2-3 years and they still look pretty good. No peeling, no lifting, no cracking. Our building at work is an old worn down house and we are pretty rough on it, always rolling heavy equipment over the floors. Oh and by the way, one of the guys at work did it himself, he never did anything like this before and I still give him credit for doing such a good job.

I don't know if I would want these in my house, but then again the ones my boss picked probably weren't the most attractive ones.

 

[Nicholfamily5]

Hey there!
I'm a Decor and Flooring Specialist at Home Depot, and just wanted to let you know that the advice given above is great!
The most important steps are the prep. The subfloor needs to be EXTREMELY clean, and LEVEL! If there are cracks and lifted pieces in the existing floor, be sure to sand them down and fill in large cracks. You'll also want to use a stripper/ cleaner designed for your existing surface.
A lot of workers@ HD may tell you that stripping the floor isn't needed, but I've installed 5 of these floors personally and it's been my experiance that this insures a tight seal and minimizes the chances of pull up.
You'll also want to go with the best tile you can afford, and realize that the very inexpensive tiles will lose their finish fairly quickly. Follow the traffic advice on the boxes, getting a commercial quality tile for high traffic areas like Kitchens. Also make sure you pad the bottoms of chairs and tables, as you'll find vinyl tiles can be scratched and gouged, and once that happens, dirt will build up and lead to damaged tiles.
You CAN use an additional adhesive, although with the higher quality tiles, it isn't REALLY needed. If the subfloor is properly prepped, the adhesive on the tiles should be sufficiant to keep them well stuck!
Also, you want to do a dry run with the layout before starting, follow the advice above! You want to do as few cuts as possible, so find the area that you can lay the most full tiles, and save the cuts for an area that the eye doesn't travel to. Picking up a Flooring 1-2-3 book at HD will show you how to do this.

Good Luck and if you have ?? just pm me!

~Kristen

 

[chb]

My DH put these down in our kitchen and dining area about 5 years ago. I know he just followed the recommended steps and they are holding up fine. There are just one or 2 in the corners that are peeling up a little bit.

We are hoping to put down hardwood in a year or two, but at the time, we had just moved into our house and were looking for a quick and cheap fix. I think we definatly got our money's worth out of them and they are so much better than what was on the floor.