The summary up top
A property manager called me to a turned-over unit where the brand-new luxury vinyl plank was already lifting at the seams and ridging across the living room — three months after it went in. He was sure he’d been sold a bad batch. I pulled one plank and the real problem was underneath. That’s almost always how it goes with vinyl plank: when it fails this early, it’s the prep, the moisture, or the wrong product spec — rarely the plank itself. This one’s for property managers and condo boards turning over units on vinyl plank and wondering why it doesn’t last.
1. The subfloor wasn’t flat, and vinyl telegraphs everything
Luxury vinyl plank is thin and flexible, so it takes the shape of whatever is under it. Every ridge, every proud seam in the plywood, every old adhesive bump eventually shows through as a shiny line or a soft wave you can feel underfoot. At a high spot, the plank rocks, and that constant flex is what wears out the locking edges and pops the seams apart.
Manufacturers spell out a flatness tolerance — usually about 3/16″ over 10 feet, or 1/8″ over 6 feet — and almost nobody checks it. On that unit, the subfloor had a quarter-inch hump right where the planks had lifted. No plank in the world rides over that for long.
The fix is boring and it’s the part that gets skipped: grind down the high spots, fill the lows with leveling compound, and check it with a straightedge before a single plank goes down.
What to look at: lay a long level or a straight board across the floor in a few directions. Daylight under it means high and low spots that will telegraph through any vinyl you lay on top.
2. It wasn’t acclimated, and the expansion gap got skipped
Vinyl moves with temperature more than people expect — it grows when it’s warm and shrinks when it’s cold. Plank that comes off a cold truck in February and gets installed the same afternoon will keep expanding for days as the unit warms up. If there’s nowhere for that movement to go, it peaks at the seams or buckles in the field.
The two things that prevent it are simple. Let the planks sit in the actual room for about 48 hours so they reach room temperature before install. And leave a 1/4″ to 3/8″ expansion gap around the whole perimeter — hidden under the baseboard, not pinched tight against the wall or jammed under a door transition. South-facing units with big windows or patio doors move the most, so they’re the least forgiving of a skipped gap.
What to look at: pop off a section of baseboard or pull a floor vent near a wall. If the plank is crammed right to the wall with no gap, you’re looking at a buckle waiting for the next warm spell.
3. Moisture coming up from below
Ground-floor and basement units sitting on a concrete slab are the ones that bite you. Concrete gives off moisture vapour for a long time — years, on a newer slab — and that vapour has to go somewhere. Glue-down vinyl on a damp slab simply lets go as the adhesive fails. Even a floating floor can trap that moisture underneath and grow mildew you don’t see until there’s a smell.
This is preventable with a moisture test before anything is laid — a calcium chloride test or an RH probe in the slab — and the right vapour barrier or underlay matched to the result. It takes a day and it’s the difference between a floor that lasts and one you’re tearing out next year.
What to look at: if it’s a ground-floor or basement unit on concrete, ask whether anyone actually moisture-tested the slab before the floor went in. If the answer is no, you rolled the dice.
4. Wrong product for the traffic
“Vinyl plank” covers everything from bargain peel-and-stick to commercial-grade rigid core, and the spec that matters most for a rental or common area is the wear layer — the clear protective top, measured in mils. Around 12 mil is fine for a quiet residential bedroom. A rental turnover, a corridor, or a lobby needs 20 to 28 mil, or it scuffs and wears through at the door swings and pivot points within a couple of years.
The core matters too. A rigid SPC core bridges minor subfloor imperfections and handles temperature swings far better than a thin flexible glue-down plank. Putting the cheapest flexible product over a so-so subfloor in a high-traffic unit is how you end up replacing the same floor twice.
What to look at: find the wear-layer rating on the product spec sheet. Under 20 mil in a rental or high-traffic space is a false economy — you’ll pay for it again at the next turnover.
What to do if you’re seeing any of this
If your vinyl plank is lifting, gapping, peaking, or telegraphing the subfloor, the answer is rarely to relay the same boxes and hope. It’s to figure out which of these four it is — prep, acclimation, moisture, or spec — because that decides whether you’re looking at a quick fix or a tear-out. I assess flooring across Ottawa — Kanata, Nepean, Barrhaven, Orleans, Manotick, Stittsville, and Westboro included — and I’ll tell you straight what went wrong and what it’ll take to make the next floor last.
Call us at 613.325.3011 or email yasir@heims.ca before you buy another box.
— Yasir, HEIMS Construction
HEIMS Construction is an Ottawa general contractor founded in 2017, serving property managers, condo boards, and institutional owners across the Ottawa area. We carry $10M general liability insurance and are members of BOMA Ottawa, BOMA Canada, the Ottawa Construction Association, and the CCI Eastern Ontario Chapter.