What is the best and inexpensive kitchen flooring?
 

I have to replace our tenants kitchen floor and I want the most durable floor at the lowest cost.

I don't think we can't afford wood or ceramic and some of the inlay tear, so give me some of your great suggestions and some of your horror stories.

Thanks!

The cheapest is probably linoleum. The peel and stick squares can be quite cheap.

I am also a fan of rubber floors. It is an industrial product so it's durable but it also has a really neat contemporary feel.

I've been a flooring & remodeling contractor for 20 years, that said...linoleum hasnt been manufactured in a very long time, you may be thinking of sheet vinyl or the self sticking 12"x 12" sguares also vinyl with a composite backing. Basically you get what you pay for, as with most things. You can throw in some cheap vinyl and thats what you'll get, it'll wear fast and look terrible quick. The most expensive is ceramic, which you probably wouldnt put in a rental, but it lasts forever. I dont care for it, its just to cold in the winter, unless you have a radiant heat system installed under it. If this is a high traffic area and most kitchens are, look for a vinyl with a matte finish, the smooth finishes show scratches easily. Look at the edge of the vinyl, whether its sheet or squares and see howthick the vinyl actually is. Some products are just a very thin piece od vinyl, like a 1/32 of an inch with a whole lot of backing, either felt or composite. The thicker the vinyl the better the product. You can also find solid vinyl products, but of course they are more expensive. Avoid wood, cork or laminates in a kitchen, I have installed them there, but I dont recommend it. Water and wood,or cork, or particle board never mix. I hope this helps.......

Wow! Thank you for the great information, Dave.

Yes, you are right. It's vinyl flooring.

Concrete?
Durable. Low cost. Low maintenance. Not attractive? Thrown down a couple of throw rugs. Just call it minimalistic decor.

My vote would go to commercial vinyl which is a fairly easy do-it-yourself project. If you could afford the extra bucks ceramic tile would be more permanant and still fairly inexpensive.

DaveMatrix, if you were on a budget what would you put down?

Vinyl sheet flooring is your best bet. The peel&stick tiles are just asking for trouble. The more seams you have in a vinyl installation, the more likely one of those seams will get crap in it and start peeling up. With the tiles, you're putting seams every 12 inches. Very bad idea, especially in a wet area.

Armstrong sheet vinyl with the toughgard is pretty impressive stuff. It looks about as nice as you're gonna get with vinyl, and it's very hardy.

You can get some very inexpensive tile - a buck a foot - if you aren't real picky about what it looks like. Rent a wet saw and it's also pretty easy to install in a kitchen although a bathroom or shower are a little more complicated with the water all around. YOu have to know what to do! But, a normal floor or entrance is pretty basic. It will sure last a lot longer and amortize better than any vinyl if you plan on keeping the apartment.

If I were on a budget, I'd pick a midgrade, matte finish 12x12 vinyl square. You could make it a two tone, alternating two different colors. The edges will not curl up as one poster said, that usually only happens with sheet vinyl at a seam that hasnt been properly sealed. I have seen cheaper tiles peel back but that was a manufacturing defect, and its not the norm. I take it you're going to install this yourself, this takes the least amount of tools, and is the easiest to work with. Sheet vinyl can be tricky to work with, especially if the layout is not a nice square. Kitchens often have alot of offsets and sheet vinyl tears easily, so I'd go with the vinyl squares. Make it easy on yourself and plan the layout, make as few cuts as possible, if theres a longest wall use full tiles down that wall, then work your way towards the cabinets and make your cuts there. You should have shoe mould around the room or at least around the cabinets, so remove it, then replace when you're done. Your cuts dont need to be perfect if the shoe mould covers the edge. This is a rental so I wouldnt worry about undercutting the door jambs, just cut as close as possible and caulk any gap if you wish. You can cut these with a razor knife, just use a straight edge, like a framing square, to score it from the vinyl side, the cut again, you dont have to make the whole cut in the first pass and you dont have to cut all the way through. Once you've cut the vinyl just bend the tile and it'll break the rest of the way. For a 90 degree cut inside a tile, you'll have to cut more because you obviously cant bend that one. Plan your layout, take your time, and be careful when working with razor knives.....you can use a chalk line to help you get started with the layout...hope this helps...*Dave*

Dave, do know anything about concrete? I've read how durable it is, don't know about price?

Oh, about 20 to 30 times more expensive than vinyl.....very labor intensive, time consuming...but it does last a very long time. They basically take concrete and make it look like a ceramic floor....its a long involved process, which I understand but havent installed myself.

I've done a concrete floor (and a laminate, and a hardwood, and a hardwood laminate and a number of tile floors). I've never actually bought or installed vinyl.

Granted labour costs are my own time, but the cost of the concrete floor was about $7-8 a square foot, including finish and acid etching and more waste than we should have had. I can't imagine getting vinyl for 30 cents.

Vinyl is cheap, but as DaveMatrix mentioned, the cheaper stuff is a pretty thin layer ontop of another medium. Once you get into midgrade+, I think you would be better off with another product.

Consider a plastic laminate. The finish is stronger than most hardwoods and marble, certainly much better than any vinyl. Somewhat easy to install, and are just fine in a kitchen.

Have you pulled the current flooring already? What's underneath? That'd affect what I put over the top. Especially for rental kitchen/baths, if the subfloor can rot you want as few (strategically placed) seams as possible: roll vinyl.

mohawk
 

I wanted to recommend a flooring by mohawk.. its a floating floor.. I had my kitchen redone and had wood floors but was tired of it so my contrator recommended this and i love it.. looks like slate kinda and they lock together.. if i get tired of it I can pull it up and go back to wood unharmed.. Its very easy to clean durable and I just love it..