What else to buy with a vinyl floor: adhesive, primer and skirting

The flooring itself is roughly 60 % of the budget. The rest goes on consumables — the ones people remember at the last minute, once the material has already been delivered. Here is the full list, with consumption per square metre.

Adhesive

Which one you need

Vinyl floor coverings are laid with a water-based dispersion adhesive formulated specifically for PVC. General-purpose construction adhesives, "liquid nails" and tile adhesive will not do: they have a different elasticity and behave differently under load.

The main types:

In Valencia that last line is not theoretical: in a room with large south-facing glazing the floor reaches 45–50 °C in summer, and an ordinary dispersion adhesive is not designed for that regime.

How much you need

Consumption depends on the trowel notch size stated in the adhesive's data sheet:

A worked example. A 90 m² flat at 0.35 kg/m² → 31.5 kg. Buy a 20 kg tub plus a 14 kg tub, leaving a small margin.

An opened container does not keep well, so there is no point over-ordering "just in case".

Open time

The key parameter, and the one most often responsible for a ruined installation. It is the interval between spreading the adhesive and the moment the covering has to go down.

Lay too early, into wet adhesive, and the covering will slide and the adhesive will squeeze up through the seams. Lay too late, into skinned-over adhesive, and there will be no bond.

Data sheets usually give 10–20 minutes at 20 °C. In hot weather that time halves. The test is simple: the adhesive should string out behind your finger without staining it.

When vinyl goes down in a van or campervan rather than a home, vibration and temperature swings add to the open-time challenge — see which adhesive holds vinyl flooring in a van under heat and vibration.

Primer

Always mandatory. The type is chosen to suit the subfloor:

The primer does two jobs: it binds dust and creates a surface the adhesive can key into. On ceramic tiles, skip it and the floor will go down looking fine and lift within six months — the most expensive saving in the whole project.

Levelling compounds

Needed if the subfloor fails the flatness check (tolerance: 2 mm under a two-metre straightedge).

Calculation: 90 m² at 2 mm → 90 × 2 × 1.6 ≈ 288 kg, i.e. 12 bags of 25 kg.

Skirting

What to choose

For bathrooms and kitchens: PVC or duropolymer. For living rooms and bedrooms: MDF or duropolymer. For commercial premises with wet processes: coved skirting only.

The rule that is broken most often

Skirting is fixed to the wall, not to the floor. Screwed down into the covering, it pins the material and causes it to buckle.

How much to allow

The room perimeter minus the width of the door openings, plus 10 % for cuts and corners.

For a 90 m² flat the perimeter usually works out at around 75 linear metres.

Profiles and thresholds

At a covering thickness of 2 mm they are rarely needed, but there are three cases where they are:

• transition to a different floor covering — a flat joint profile;
• door openings between rooms with different decors — optional, not technically required;
• the edge of a step or platform — an L-shaped profile with an anti-slip insert.

Welding rod

Sheet vinyl only. Mandatory in kitchens, washrooms, healthcare and warehouse premises.

Calculation: the length of all seams + the perimeter. With a 2 m wide roll, a 100 m² hall works out at roughly 50 linear metres of seam.

The welding rod is matched to the colour of the covering — welded carefully, the seam is all but invisible. Price 0.99 €/linear m, 90 m coil.

Acoustic underlay

A separate word on the "insulation under vinyl flooring" question.

Conventional underlay is not laid beneath a glue-down floor. The whole point of glue-down installation is that the covering is rigidly bonded to the subfloor; an underlay destroys that.

There are dedicated acoustic underlays for glue-down systems, 1–2 mm thick, which are bonded to the subfloor with the covering then bonded on top of them. They cut impact noise by 10–15 dB and are used in apartment blocks and open-plan offices. They cost appreciably more than ordinary underlay and require a compatible adhesive.

Thermal insulation under vinyl flooring is rarely needed in Spain, and over underfloor heating it is actively harmful: it reduces heat transfer.

Full shopping list: a 90 m² flat

Tools to hire: 50–68 kg pressure roller, moisture meter, industrial vacuum cleaner.

Where to buy it

We supply the floor covering and the welding rod. Buy the adhesive, primer and levelling compounds from a construction chemicals supplier — what matters is that the product is matched to your subfloor type and to the temperature regime of the room, rather than being "universal for everything".

If you need a full material take-off for your project, send us the area and the subfloor type and we will work it out.

Browse the catalogue: glue-down LVT, sheet vinyl, welding rod.

FAQ

What adhesive should I use for vinyl flooring? A dispersion adhesive for PVC floor coverings, selected to suit the subfloor. For sun-exposed rooms and underfloor heating, choose a grade with higher thermal resistance.

How much adhesive per square metre? 0.3–0.4 kg/m² with the standard A3/B1 trowel notch.

Can I use liquid nails? No. Construction adhesives have a different elasticity: the covering deforms and lifts.

Is primer really mandatory? Yes, always. On ceramic tiles the covering will lift within a year without it.

Which skirting for a bathroom? PVC or duropolymer. MDF swells in a damp room.

Does glue-down vinyl need an underlay? No. The exception is a dedicated acoustic underlay for glue-down systems, where impact noise has to be dealt with.

By the way, these materials (adhesive, primer, skirting) come into play during the installation itself — the step-by-step process is covered in this installation guide.