Single vs. Multiple Board Plank Vinyl Flooring
When buying plank vinyl flooring, you will find two distinctly different products. Be careful, so that you're buying the right thing:
- Single Board - A wide vinyl plank that reproduces the look of a single board on that plank. Example: the vinyl plank is 6" x 36" and replicates a board of the same dimensions.
- Multiple Boards - A wide vinyl plank that reproduces the look of multiple, smaller boards on that plank. Example: the vinyl plank is 6" x 36" and replicates the look of 6-8 boards that are 3" wide by various lengths.
What is Plank Wood Flooring?
To begin, let's look at real wood plank flooring. After all, we need to know what we're trying to replicate in the first place.- Six Inch Width – Wood plank flooring is wide. Exactly how wide is debatable, but generally you can say six inches or more defines plank flooring.
- Planks Are Long – Again, length is flexible. Some plank flooring manufacturers sell wide plank in 1-2' lengths. My take on the matter is that you need at least 6 foot lengths to call it plank. I would even go another step and say that real wood plank flooring should be around 8, 10, and 12 feet long.
- Distressed, Antiqued – Completely optional, but you'll find that much of the wide plank flooring out there also has a heavily antiqued or distressed look--hand-scraped, dinged, scratched, and peppered with nail holes. My description does not do the product justice: good distressed wide plank flooring looks fantastic.
- Costly – Kellogg Hardwoods, one of the few suppliers of authentic wood plank flooring, reports that prices of wide plank flooring range from $4.00 to $12.00 per square foot.
- Hard to Install – Solid wood is difficult enough for the inexperienced DIY remodeler to installer, and increasing the length and width of the boards makes the job even harder.
