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Maintaining LVT within Schools?

Maintaining LVT within schools is easy to do and is low cost with NeverStrip Vinyl Seal™, a NeverStrip Micron Coating.

NeverStrip Floor Coatings (“NeverStrip”) recently interviewed an architect, who asked the question, is LVT the Right Choice for Schools?

The Architect wishes to be unnamed, concerning her recent experiences with newly installed LVT (luxury vinyl tiles) at K-12 schools.

She said:

“Our firm is heavily involved with K-12 education. She asked, "Is LVT the right choice for schools?"

Clients have been running into issues with LVT and its maintenance. I am not sure what to do.

I am questioning the suitability of LVT within education, and if possible, I am trying to get away from it.”

When asked if her concerns were with any specific LVT manufacturer, she said, “Across the board.”

She said, “LVT is not holding up in the hallways and classrooms. The hallways with foot traffic always look dirty. The LVT seems to hold dirt. The classrooms are quickly scratched from the chairs.”

She went on to say, “Schools are familiar with VCT (vinyl composite tile) with the maintenance of a thick layer of wax. The wax took the abuse and then got stripped, recoated and buffed each summer. LVT is harder than wax. What happens when the LVT gets scratched or abused? How does one refresh LVT after it has been abused?”

NeverStrip Floor Coatings Perspectives

Maintaining LVT within schools is a great choice with NeverStrip Vinyl Seal.

The concerns expressed by the architect are similar and not uncommon to what NeverStrip hears from its 200+ North American Authorized Dealers and their education, retail, property management, hospitality, and healthcare customers. Her question, "Is maintaining LVT within schools a good choice" is worthy of discussion. NeverStrip believes maintaining LVT within schools is a good choice for schools with a proper ongoing maintenance product such as NeverStrip Vinyl Seal™or NeverStrip Gloss™, Satin™or Matte™water-based urethane coatings, respectively.

NeverStrip believes LVT, VCT, Linoleum, and Rubber within demanding commercial settings benefit from the use of a refresh-able, maintain-able, field-applied high-performance floor coatings. LVT often has a factory-applied PU floor coating, which may not be refresh-able. Conventional floor finish or wax with its high life cycle cost is universally viewed as an unacceptable approach for LVT and other resilient flooring, even VCT, in ever greater frequency.

Is LVT a No Maintenance Floor? No, LVT needs “protection” from soil, traffic and abuse; it needs to be “Refreshable” consistent with the facilities demands and maintenance protocols in order to retain its inherent style and beauty. The maintenance process must not detract or interfere with the floor's aesthetics, traction, and other desired attributes. This is where our top-rated floor coatings for many different types of flooring comes in.

Wax is a 50-year-old technology being used for VCT maintenance. It is being replaced by newer technologies, like NeverStrip Micron Coatings, and certainly is not for LVT. Facility and maintenance professionals across the world are, with increasing frequency, searching for floor maintenance solutions to replace wax on VCT. NeverStrip has never once heard someone suggest wax is a desired LVT maintenance solution due to its high labor/lifecycle cost and “plastic like” appearance.

So, is maintaining LVT within schools a good choice? Absolutely!

But, let’s agree, there is no such thing as a “No Maintenance Floor.”

LVT needs protection from improper chair glides and demands of commercial facilities. A high-performance, field-applied, refresh-able floor coating protecting the LVT factory-applied PU or PVC wear layer is an attractive, low cost maintenance approach for LVT.

NeverStrip LVT Solutions

NeverStrip has proven, field-applied, refresh-able, low maintenance floor coating systems for LVT in schools and other demanding commercial facilities:

NeverStrip Gloss™, NeverStrip Satin™ or NeverStrip Matte™

These products are two-part, aliphatic, water-based urethane coatings with 10+ years of proven performance in K-12 schools. Schools have had outstanding experience protecting the flooring, keeping them clean with a low cost of maintenance process without burnishing or ongoing stripping. NeverStrip Gloss, Satin or Mate are floor coating products well suited for maintaining LVT in schools.

NeverStrip Vinyl Seal™

Vinyl Seal is part of NeverStrip Micron Family of inorganic, micron-thin coatings. Vinyl Seal is similar to wax in terms of application and maintenance procedures (minus the elimination of all ongoing stripping) but with 30% to 70% less maintenance activity/labor hours. Lower maintenance cost combined with a thinner, more durable and attractive appearance makes Vinyl Seal a winner for LVT floors at schools, retail stores, hospitals, etc. Vinyl Seal is a perfect product for maintaining LVT floors within schools.

NeverStrip Instant Film™

Instant Film is similar to NeverStrip two-part urethane floor coatings in terms of performance and maintenance procedures. These floor coatings fully cure in 3 seconds with the use of high-intensity UV light equipment. Performance is the best in the market where instant availability is critical. Instant Film is typically too high-priced a floor coating to be used for maintaining LVT within schools.

For more information on NeverStrip Vinyl Seal go to: https://www.neverstrip.com/micron-systems/

For more information on NeverStrip go to: https://www.neverstrip.com/home/exceptional-floor-coatings/