Past and present life of button SPC floor

There are many names on the market of snap plastic flooring. Some people call it stone plastic flooring, high-tech fiberglass waterproof flooring, waterproof wood flooring, zero formaldehyde waterproof flooring, more powerful diamond waterproof flooring, top waterproof flooring, but it is actually an evolution of plastic flooring.

Because there is a problem with the traditional glued plastic floor, it is easy to cause the joint to become larger (also known as the seam peeling) due to heat expansion and cold shrinkage after a long time of use. In order to solve the problem, the plastic floor sent people to look around and see that there was a senior who was very experienced. Yes, the senior was the super wear-resistant floor. The first snap patent for super wear-resistant was born in Belgium in 1996. The construction is convenient without gluing. This technology also led the European super wear-resistant floor to sweep the global market. As for the plastic floor, we hope to solve the problem of seam slippage with the buckle.

However, the plastic floor itself is very soft, and it needs higher hardness to make a tight connection. Therefore, stone powder is added in the base layer of the plastic floor to increase the hardness of the base material, so this kind of snap-on floor is also called stone plastic floor.

Well, the next few years, the snap-on plastic flooring has evolved very rapidly, and almost a year, new species have emerged. Because there are too many brands and there are some differences, Grandma and I can't remember those past ups and downs in the later stage, so I can be divided into two groups: LVT and SPC flooring.

Type of buckle floor

The LVT sheet type is the first generation of snap products, and the base composition is the same as that of the glued plastic floor, so it has all the characteristics written before, but the thickness of the glued type is mostly 2~3mm, and the snap type is 4~5.5mm. The snap assembly is simple, and it can also be DIY. The market is known as the snap floor that can be cut at one time with an art knife, which is LVT.

SPC is a later improved product. The base material composition is similar but the manufacturing process is different. In short, it is a hot-press version, so the firmness between the base layers is better. The master said that it can also be cut by art, but it will take several times to break.

One advantage of buckle type LVT and SPC is that the shrinkage rate is small. Some people will ask, why should we care about the shrinkage rate? The main reason is that about 3mm natural joints can be reserved for expansion joints. The expansion joint is the joint between the floor and the wall. It may be big or small, but for the design, the smaller the joint is, the better the edge is. But the smaller the joint is, the more dangerous the plate will be due to extrusion. So when the aesthetic feeling is tangled with not having to run again due to the expansion, the buckle plastic floor provides a redemption opportunity.

The biggest difference from LVT is that the base material of SPC is IXPE with a layer thickness of 0.7~1mm. The material is soft Q, and the tread feeling is better than LVT (the base material of LVT is hard, only one layer of paper thickness). IXPE is a kind of foam. According to the information found, it is non-toxic, odorless, drug-resistant, oil-resistant, acid-resistant, and can also be used for heat insulation, sound absorption and shock absorption. However, the SPC floor is only 1mm thick. I am not sure how effective the heat insulation, sound absorption and shock absorption is, but at least there is no need to lay a layer of silent mat, which can save some costs.