Coming back to bump this!

While we wait.....

I have Coretec in my Florida home. In this house, hardwood was not an option. I did not want tiles as they hard on my joints. Some use carpet in the main areas but this a big no for me.

That left LVP. We are very pleased. Honestly they say you can't drag furniture across it, but we have. No scratches.

The fig runs all over it as well.

I love it especially in the kitchen.

Note, the variation is not as strong in person, hard to get an accurate photo.

Personally, Inwoukd go with a known brand.

Yes, some stores re-brand the floors. They do it so you can't price compare. Lots of folks look at the thickness of the top layer of LVP. Is is 12MM or 30MM? I'm not a pro but in my experience looking at the floors, the less expensive brands have a 12mm top layer. The other thing to care about is the way the boards lock together, and what the layers are (solid and thick or bendy and thin). I don't recall all the terminology, honestly, at this point.

I don't really understand why you are limited to just one store. Has there been a great explanation that makes a lot of sense to you? Please go shop around to lots of stores, hear what the salespeople at the stores say about qualities of LVP, and then make an educated choice for your budget.

I just clicked on your link. 8mm? That's a pretty thin top layer if you ask me. You haven't stated how you will live in your basement, whether you are hard on your floors or what. Does your budget limit you to $3.99/sf? In your shoes, I would mentally calculate the cost of the floors and then the cost of installation, however you can break it down. Where I live, install costs as much as the materials, if not more. What that means is that for only a fraction more $$, it is possible to step up to a better quality material. Those are decisions only you can make.

One more thing. I would not patronize a store that didn't have excellent reviews for customer service and standing behind its products. Go to Yelp, Nextdoor, Facebook, BBB, and do your research. Excellent stores will sell products they know, trust and are willing to stand behind. The "warranties" attached to floors are particularly difficult to enforce from the consumer standpoint, and in my opinion after reading so many of those unhappy storiess on these forums, is that if you are worried about quality, then you better worry more about the quality of the store you are purchasing it from.

@Mrs. S Thank you so much, this was very helpful! I didn't realize 8mm was thin for a top layer. We are not limited to one store. It's just where our contractor suggested we go. I think this place is easy for him to work with, but the flooring material appears in our contract as an "allowance" and can be from wherever we want. We aren't limited to 3.99/sf -- actually our contract has a $5/sf allowance for the materials and I'd happily spend a little more for quality. We're only putting down about 500 square feet here so an extra dollar or two per sf is not really a concern against the overall cost of this project or value of the house. Two years ago we dropped 14k to run site-finished white oak through the upper two floors, so while i am budget conscious I am not a cheapskate about flooring :)

Our basement will contain a rec/tv/play room, laundry and guest space. It won't see heavy traffic the way our kitchen would, for example, and we are a no-shoes house (normal in our region, guests always remove shoes without being asked) and don't have pets, but our small child(ren) will do rambunctious things down there for years to come. We've got radiant hydronic heating in the slab.

I suspect not all the brands available in the US are available in Canada, or some might be available here under different brand names (this turned out to be the case with our bathroom tile, for example -- turns out the tile we fell for in a local show room is the super-popular Cloe tile, rebranded in Canada). This flooring business is well-reviewed and popular (tonnes of customers in the show room when we went) and friends have bought their flooring through here as well, so it's not a random sketchy spot -- one of the top flooring businesses in the city, I think. But I realize that doesn't mean this specific product is much good.

What are some of the top high-quality brands you'd recommend hunting for? Is Coretec (mentioned by eld6161) a good one to look for?

@CeeWhy thanks so much for catching that mil/mm mix-up! The sales rep told me this was their thickest and most durable product and offered good quality for value, but obviously he was trying to make a sale so I have to take that with a grain of salt. I'll look up the facebook group. Note that all the pricing I'm quoting here is in Canadian dollars so CAD 3.99 = USD 3.19 and things are always more expensive in Canada than the US, so the pricing on this is pretty comparable to the Flooret product you mentioned.

When I look up flooring show rooms here many don't list the products they offer, or if they do I don't recognize any brand names from the ones i've seen discussed on this site. Like i've found one that offers Aqua Plus, Biyork, Canfloor, Elandura, Lifestepp, Sono and Vantett -- anyone ever heard of any of those?

Thanks CeeWhy for clearing that up. Denkyem, I would go travel out to those stores. You really cannot choose flooring without seeing it in person. I would certainly choose Coretec, or a brand from a major well-known company like Karndean, Flooret, and there are so many others, honestly. But you see, you won't know unless you GO to the flooring store. A reputable flooring store will educate you about the brands they sell. Any misinformation can be balanced against information from a different reputable store.

edited to add: I haven't shopped for floors in some time. I don't know what the bigger brands are around you. I'd choose something that has been sold for a few years at a reputable store. That's what I'd do. A reputable store.

Hi folks, coming back to bump this. The store I went to previously is in fact one of the best in my city but the product we chose back in March is out of stock now we need it so we’re starting from scratch and trying some other stores this morning. Does anyone within Canada have advice on brands available here, since a lot of the brands referenced by Americans don’t seem to be sold here?

Hi, im in Canada as well and might jump on home depot life proof brand if i cannot figure out the canadian brands, at least lifeproof has reviews

@Guillaume D I've ended up with Korlok by Karndean.