Saturday, January 17, 2009

Konecto Floating Vinyl Plank Floors: The lastest fad.


The hottest flooring on the market.
Has come to town.

Konecto was introduced to the flooring market in 2006 and has taken it by force.
The simplistic install nature has appealed to the masses and the top quality wearablity has confounded the doubters.


We were introduced to Konecto on hot steamy summer afternoon.My rep was passing by our home office location in Jeffersonville Indiana, he was there to bring updated samples to our racks.

While in conversation he mentioned this new stuff as if by chance, it was a floating vinyl plank.

Floating Vinyl plank....I thought...... how will that work..... I had seen the concept pushed by Chinese companies with emails from them over the past year and was a sceptic.

My 27 years in the trade (26 of them installing) had taught me to be wary of new product and tune out product designed for the Do-it-yourselfer as that could lead to a decline in business.


He laid the piece of Konecto on my worktable and the bells started going off.

It had solid feel, it looked like real wood and had colors similar to another product we we carried called Karndean.

(Karndean is the stuff you see while walking into most Walmarts, a very durable vinyl plank but it was difficult to install and the glue was very messy.)


My first question was the glue, would it hold up. He confirmed the glue was a high grade pressure sensitive epoxy.(Pressure sensitive mean the bond will grow stronger as more pressure is applied.)

He took the piece that had been laying open out of the box in his trunk, grabbed a utility knife off my worktable and scored the top of the plank then snapped it over.... it was that easy to cut....more bells....

He then took and stuck the two pieces together and handed it to me. I could barely separate them !

I was sold!

But.... now I knew, I would start losing a portion of my business to the guy that was interested in doing it himself.


While this can impact any business I was thankful the time had to come to start offering something more back to the market I was proud to be a part of; the consumer base.


We had been selling the Schluter Systems Shower Kits and the Ditra Tile Underlayment through http://www.indianafloorsllc.com/ for some time so we had a solid Do-It-Yourself base. What happened from here is the stuff you hear about in blogs like this.


The first job out I had to install it myself so I would know what we were dealing with. If I was to be the Tech Support for the website I better know what I am talking about.

The job was a large basement in Lexington Kentucky with some moisture issues,while the customer wanted wood it was not an option due to the damp environment.

We delivered the floor a week prior to allow for proper acclimation... the floors were so heavy and carried such a density that I almost broke an axle in a 1 ton van getting it there. (The average density of Konecto is about 96.50LPI compared to wood at about 1/2 that.)


The color she chose was; Sunrise in the Prestige Collection this offered an aluminum oxide wearlayer found only on hardwood flooring. This wearlayer is designed to resist scratching, very much like getting glasses with a scratch coat, the glasses will work just fine without it but they will last longer with a scratch guard.


With my 26yrs of background in installation procedures I wanted the best solution ,we had my 150 LB roller with us. I had thought that some 3 lb steel hand rollers would come in handy as well. We used them often on vinyl seams and it (seemed) like a good idea.

We found out later that year that Konecto had started advising the 3 lb roller for the immediate install process. We like to think that our input on a national basis influenced them to adopt this install suggestion.

These are available on my website for purchasing with any Konecto project.

We also offer them included in a Install and Cleaning Kit, free with any purchase over 1500ft.



Stay tuned to this blog for the next insert explaining the full install process.

Thank you

Hugh Scott