Luxury vinyl plank (LVP) in West Linn, OR

Yes — stairs and trim are one of our seven services, and in a hillside town like West Linn they come up on most jobs. Treads, risers, nosings and the transition at each landing get quoted as their own line, so you can see what that part of the job actually costs.

Not necessarily, but it should be a decision rather than an accident. In a split-level or daylight-basement home you see two levels at once from the stairs, so color and plank direction want planning together. Carpet on the stairs with hard flooring above and below is a common and good-looking answer, and it is quieter.

The plank is. The floor as a whole depends on the installation and on what is underneath it. Water can still travel through seams and around the perimeter and sit on the subfloor, so a spill wiped up is a non-event while a leak left for a fortnight is not. It handles everyday water far better than laminate or carpet, which is why we put it in kitchens and baths, but it is not a swimming pool.

Sometimes, but we look first. Over a sound, flat, well-bonded surface it can be a good option and it saves the cost of removal. Over old sheet vinyl on swollen particleboard, or anything that is loose or uneven, it just buries a problem that will show through within a year. We tell you which one you have before you decide.

It depends entirely on the house. A quiet couple can be well served by something modest; a family with two dogs and a hallway off the front door should be paying for a thicker one. Rather than quoting a number in the abstract, tell us who lives in the house and how the room is used, and we will point at the right shelf.

Good LVP over a properly flattened subfloor feels solid and is warmer underfoot than tile. The hollow, clicky sound people associate with it almost always comes from a floor floating over dips that were never levelled, or from a missing or unsuitable underlayment. That is an installation problem, not a property of the material.