@Janelle - that scares me! This is what we have. We have only installed in part of the house so far. Currently no issues but not walking around without shoes and not in direct sunlight. The rest of the install will get more sunlight. Hopefully we don’t have issues. So far we love it.

I paid almost 5.00 per square foot. I called the flooring company today. They are referring my issue to the manufacturer. This is an expensive mistake. I love mine at first also.

I was first introduced to vinyl flooring when doing a remodel in my log home. We found and used the Mannington plank and I so loved it! I had complements on it all the time and most people could not tell what kind of "wood flooring" it was. We sold the house and built our new home and put Coretec LVF in the whole house...... I Hate It!!!!! We also paid a lot of money over $10,000.00 for this flooring and do not know what to do. Please let me know who to contact and how it goes. We are a log home/ home builder and I would not recommend this flooring to anyone under the circumstances.

I have a similar story. I highly recommend water resistant laminate over lvp. More scratch resistant as well.

I am so glad that I revisited Houzz this morning! I had made up my mind to replace the flooring in my entire home except 3 bathrooms with Cortec vinyl plank flooring. Currently I have more than 2K sq ft of 18-inch neutral tiles, but the previous installer did a terrible job laying it. That cost me more than $11K ten years ago. He blamed the Italian-made tiles but in reality I think he just eyeballed the grout, some wide, some narrow lines! He came recommended by the store where I purchased the tile. I should never have paid him! So now, after a decade of looking at his horrible job, I'm going to replace it. It's going to be messy, for sure.

My contractors have recommended Cortec LVP flooring. They use it all the time. It's more expensive to purchase than plank porcelain tiles, but the labor is much less. I have a concrete subfloor & will be replacing carpet in bedrooms & tearing up the tile in other rooms. All in all, it's more than 3K sq. ft.

I'm sure the contractors love to lay this rather expensive product. I just saw an almost $2M house on the beachside that is using this product. It looks beautiful, but the owners have yet to move into the home. I don't think that the contractors have had such negative feedback; but after reading this, they surely will!

So, thank you to all of the Houzz posters. You have saved me a bundle of $$$. I think that I will go with the porcelain plank tiles throughout. I know it's harder on the feet, but I could never live with paw prints, shoeless sock prints & the like. Again, thank you for taking the time to post here. I am so grateful!

tsmit103

You would save a bunch of money with Supercore, it is a superior built product as well.

Big difference is that you buy Supercore brand direct, so no middle man saves you tons $$$ - not all LVP or SPC is built the same. Compare the construction - you will see what I mean.

This thread addresses issues with the finish on Coretec (Smartcore) all of which is made by Shaw. Shaw has a finish process that has been suffering for a few years now. My own past experience runs right along with most posters on this thread.

I flip houses, so I searched and found Supercore brand and have used it in a couple of projects now. The heavy duty 30 mil commercial wear layer that is hot pressed into the stone core, just ticks all the boxes for easy cleaning, durability, and scratch resistance. I don't know how they do it, but it performs amazingly.

I bought mine at weshipfloors, they appear to keep adding more and more colors and sizes. I have had my Supercore for 3 years now. I love it and highly recommend it!

@realestateproject27 Thank you so much for your timely response to my post. I, too, have flipped houses & have always installed tile on the subfloors. On one of my newly remodeled homes, I had a hose let go under the coffee bar sink, and the only plank laminate floor that I ever installed was completely ruined, as was the carpet. I had to replace them all & lucky that all of the cabinetry & baseboards did not have to be replaced. I installed new porcelain 36" plank flooring & it was beautiful.

I had settled on the Cortec flooring as it was recommended by the contractors. Also, I now find difficult to walk on my tile floors without shoes as it is hard on my legs these days. So, Cortec, with its cork core, seemed to be the perfect solution. Also I have a pool which is accessible from family room, living room, pool bath & master bedroom, and I like the idea of a continuous floor with no threshold barriers to break the eye. A waterproof vinyl seemed to be the overall solution until I read this thread!

I will check out your suggestion. Although the material per sq ft for the lvp flooring is more than similar porcelain tile, an advantage is that installation is quick compared to the porcelain tiles. Either way, my original poorly laid tiles all need to be pulled up & the subfloor scraped. It's a messy, messy job & I will have to live elsewhere while all that is being done!

Thanks again for your post. Good luck with flipping houses. I love the remodeling/design work & I've done six projects. Great satisfaction to take something virtually unlivable & make it beautiful.

Wondering if anyone has found a solution that works? I purchased a home with Brazilian teak hardwood floors and they show every smudge, paw print and foot print. It’s not super noticeable until the light hits the floor and then... it looks awful. I have had the floor refinished twice in an attempt to correct the issue... to no avail... it’s like there is a filmy residue that gets tracked. The floors were refinished just last week and a day later same issue so I don’t think it is a “cleaning product“ issue. Last night we put a cleaner that the hardwood supplier and installer recommended and buffed the floors... and now, it looks worse!!! Crikey, I’m so over it I’m about to rip out a very expensive floor!! Has anyone found a solution ? Thanks!

I have coretec Madrid oak and it has a slight haze although not bad. BUT I have a bigger

issue. It tears up my sons pants and scrapes his feet within a minute of him playing with his toy cars. My store is filing a claim with Coretec. im so upset 10k later and my toddler son can’t play on the main level. I love the color but what the heck

After 40 seconds of “rubbing or scooting“ cotton pants on a plank.

I'm hoping someone knows what to do with dog prints on hardwood floors. We bought the house a couple of years ago & have hardwood coated with polyurethane (I believe), Whatever it's treated with it bead up like car wax when you use any cleaner. The floors are beautiful except for my son's labradoodle paw prints which will not come off with anything. I even tried straight vinegar and nothing. There's got to be something that will handle these prints. They're not scratches just paw prints.

Just installed a few weeks ago my new Core Tec Vinyl Flooring and have the same issue with smudges. Vacuum and mop daily and they still look awful after anyone walks on them, even with just socks On! I wish I had known this before I purchased them. Maybe there needs to be a class action lawsuit against this company! My advice to everyone having an issue is to contact the Better Business Bureau. This is false advertisement on the part of Coretec.

My wife and I have dark Vinyl flooring, they had already been installed when we moved in, but I've definitely given up on daily cleaning. Especially having a dog who is always in and out. We use a product from a commercial provider called Citra Sol from ACS which does help a bit and is a neutral pH citrus cleaner, so it doesn't harm the vinyl finish. However, this product DOES work wonders on my parent's oak wood floors. No streaks and shines for days, even with two large dogs.

I don't know if they ship it everywhere, but you can also get it in a spray bottle (6x32oz) so, it lasts a while.

If I were ever to redo the flooring, solid wood (as expensive as it sounds) would be my choice. :) *dreaming

My husband and I just put the Coretec (Biscayne Oak) in and from day one smudge marks from our dog. We have tried everything to keep the smudge marks away but within minutes of our dog walking on the floors they come right back. I called Coretec and they said we have to file a claim with our flooring company first. Has anyone had any luck getting anything back or having them help replace the flooring? This is definately false adveristing (pet proof) and not sure how they can stand behind this product and still continue to sell it and pretend they have no idea what your talking about when you call them. Spoke to Lynn with Coretec who says she has been with the company for 23 years and has never heard of this (CHA!). She claimed that we are cleaning it wrong or to clean it in very small patches. Not sure how that would help?? Hoping someone in this string of emails has had luck getting the flooring replaced with the help of Coretec.

I was told by shaw to file a claim as well. Also told I was cleaning wrong. In my 60s and on my hands and knees with microfiber cloths and towels. Drying it right away helps a bit.

We are currently waiting to hear back from our flooring company to file the claim. If this just get's pushed to we are not cleaning it right, I plan to take this to a higher level and expose them with our local news and perhaps take them to court. End of the day this is just not right.

Love it. The whole industry should be sued. My entire brand new house is covered with this. A very pricey upgrade too.

I have had Coretec for abt 3 years. Tried different cleaners and approaches. Nothing works, still smudges and scratches. Maybe a class action lawsuit is an approach we can consider.

I've already been reading about how to start a class action lawsuit. I will keep everyone updated on what we find out. It's sad to read all the comments above and no one really has had any luck. Clearly something is wrong with the flooring if the smudges etc. keep happening. Who would purchase flooring you have to clean everyday several times a day. Just flat out wrong they keep selling it.

Yes. Thanks

Yes. Please update me. The floor cleaner that was recommended by the manufacturer, helps for a day, but the smudges are right back again.

I look forward to hearing how this moves forward...so wrong!I have over 10K in just material not including the Labor to install!!!

Ugh. We were all set to go with Coretec, but these issues were too concerning. We went laminate instead, it's getting installed on Aug 2. Good luck to all, it's wrong to spend this much on flooring and get jerked around like this. 😞

I had cortec floors installed a few months ago . It wasnt making any sense to me that the floors looked pretty much perfect, at first , even after 2 full days of install and 2 full days of workers and the family constantly walking on them . A big also was the fact that the flooring store I had used multiple times for other rooms over the years had this exact flooring laid in the main traffic area right in front of their customer service desk , for at least 5 years prior to ny purchase . Other than spots where heavy equipment had done the occasional damage in spots , I saw nothing with footprinting in sunlight , like I’m seeing in my home with it now . And the foot prints have been getting progressively worse . It’s to the point now like the footprint situation is on hair trigger compared to the first month when I was doing absolutey nothing to them other than running the vaccum over them to pick up any dirt sediment .

THEN

I remembered the situation I initially had with the dark cherry wood floors underneath that came with the house from the pervious owner . Always hopelessly hazy and showing every foot step . It turned out that the ”recommended “ cleaners were still leaving a residue .Some were better than others but apparently there was a micro thin residue build up all the same . I ended up having to take Krud Cutter degreaser and methodically going plank by plank to remove the build up till the white rags started coming clean, ( but dont use krud Cutter on lvt ) . After I finished . I started using Bona Hard Wood cleaner on the floor and the problem totally stopped .

FAST FORWARD TO NOW …..

I just finished a test section of the 3 month old LVT in my house . By now it’s been cleaned with Bona Hard Surface cleaner about 6 times over the last two months . The last time being this morning ( foot prints in sunlight as usual ) . I recleaned the entire light filled foyer with the Bona cleaner and let it dry . Then I took a bucket of plain hot water and scrubbed a five foot section of the foyer with white rags like i was trying to strip whatever may be on it . The rags were coming away looking clean but the rinse water in the bucket was developing a milky white layer floating on top . I was scrubbing hard with a clean wet rag in one hand , immediately follwed by a clean dry rag in my other hand to help absorb any potential residue left behind in the moisture by the wet rag . Then I let the floor dry for an hour

RESULTS SO FAR:

I put on my sneakers and jumped around on the floor in both the sections of floor cleaned with Bona and the section I started trying to strip with plain hot water . Looking at it in the tell tale direct sunlight blasting across it right now , The foot prints from my basketball stepping are barely noticeable, ( if it all ) , in the section I hard scrubbed with hot water , while the foot printing in the sections cleaned and left to dry with the Bona Hard Surface are noticeable ten fold on either side of the water scrubbed section .

I’m going to continue the process of scrubbing down the rest of the floor with plain hot water from here to see if the footprint situation returns to the way it was originally, ( barely any ) , before I started using “ recommended cleaner ” on it .

UPDATE : After painstaikingly going over the majority of the foyer floor , which was just cleaned with a hard surface product , on hands and knees with rags , and ONLY hot water , I deliberately left a narrow strip of the area untouched , ( illustrated by the shadow in the thick red circle in the photo ) . The entire floor looked perfectly clean except for fresh shoe prints . The shadow of residue in that circle is starting to show me the why behind the progressly worse / instantaneous shoe print issues . I I Just finished putting on ny tennis shoes and bouncing around on the rest of the dried floor that I scrubbed with hot water. It appears the instantaneous foot printing is now lessened ten times to completely gone for now . Wish me luck repeating tge process on the rest of my entire first floor . Only going to use plain water for now and test small areas to see which cleaner doesnt end up leaving an undetectable haze .

I contacted the manufacturer and they recommended using “Encore” by Coretec. I have been using it for a few months. Right after cleaning the floor looks better. Unfortunately, by the next day the dog has walked through and the prints are back. I have about 1500 sq feet of the product. I have been on my hands and knees so much trying to remove the smudges. I am just over it. This is a terrible product.

I agree with HU I only clean with water on a microfiber mop The floor is way better than it was All the cleaners I have tried leave a slight residue that allows prints to be imprinted on the surface I highly recommend plain water to clean them

Me too!!!

This is exa my issue! It is awful! My husband and I felt like we’d done adequate research and NO SALESPERSON ever mentioned this issue!

It sounds awful, and I feel for you guys. Dumb question, have you tried swiffer multi-surface cleaner wet jet? I know that evaporates quickly, and while I have laminate, not vinyl, it's not leaving Any residue.

Not a dumb question….but yes, I’ve tied it and alot of different mop heads!🥺

🥺

We had Flooret Modin in the color Arbor installed a little over a year ago and I’m really disappointed. The haze issue is so bad and like everyone else, I can never get them to look clean. I’m actually thinking about replacing them at some point with another brand, so reading all these comments on brands to avoid, has been so helpful.

I am looking at Provenza and Supercore right now.

After reading the comments here, I went over my floors with hot water and a microfiber cloth on my hands and knees. I changed my water about every 2'x6' section. Today it still looks good and it normally would already have foot prints and smudges

I decided on Supercore and I am really happy with how easy it is to clean. I just use warm water and vinegar. I heard that due to the 40mil wear layer on Flooret products, the design clarity gets compromised. I noticed this when comparing samples with Supercore.

I have provenza in the uptown chic collection. I have the same problem with it akways looking hazy no matter what. I started off cleaning with the recommended floor cleaner which was awful. I have since been cleaning with only water for months. Its better, but it just doesnt look super clean, like I cant quite get it perfect. I thankfully dont have the problem with just regular foot prints or dog prints showing. However, you can see shoe prints, doggy drool, and water marks. I take my shoes off, but my other family members dont and you can see the tracked in dirt everywhere they walked. For the most part its easy to clean, but Dog drool is really hard to get up. I really dont recommend this floor at all if you have pets or kids who go in and out all day. It actually is a pretty floor and looks nice for the most part after cleaning, but it only looks like that for a day. The maintenance is unreal. However, I think the Provenza Moda collection in the lighter colors seem to be much better and more popular. I see it all over instagram and on blogs with high praise. I wish we would have gone with one of those or went back to laminate.

I've been using water also. But I add a bit of isopropyl alcohol . Seems to be a little better.

Thanks! I will try it. I also agree that drying it right away with a different microfiber cloth does help a bit with the haze and streaking.

I’m having the exact same issue with the new Lifeproof Vinyl flooring. I initially thought it was because I chose a very light color but after seeing these posts I am starting to believe it is because it is vinyl flooring. Looks great and as intended immediately after cleaning but only lasts for a day and the maintenance is unbelievable. It is 100% false advertising. It is absolutely NOT “life proof”. Is Coretec Lowe’s version of this? This is from Home Depot…

As I'm reading the comments I see I'm not the only one going through the same problems. I just built my house and already sick of these floors!!

Way up thread, someone mentioned using one of those buffer machines you can rent. Has anyone recently done this? Just to clean and shine? If so, what was the cleaning pad you bought? I would think you'd need to be careful not to scratch the patterns so you don't want to get something heavy duty like you'd use on grout.

We had ours ( Coretec) installed a month ago and am just beginning to see some of the spots. I have found that most but not all do seem to go away with just water and a microfiber cloth.

I might try that encore product but otherwise am very hesitant to try anything more.

FWIW it mostly seems to be where our dog drools and then it dries. Thankfully don't see any scratches from him or anything else. ( he is a 70 lb pooch).

There are a few spots that I noticed early on that I just decided to stop focusing on.

Still overall very pleased.

We just installed Cortec LVP and I love the look but they don’t come clean! I called the manufacturer and they sent me care instructions. I have tried 2 of the cleaners they recommended without much success. Our dog drools! I try to catch all the spots as she does with rubbing alcohol followed by a damp microfiber cloth per the customer service reps recommendation. When I wash the floors and all the spots show up but seem to go away when the floors dry. Next floor washing they are all there again. It seems to me if they show up when wet they are damaging the finish on the floors! So disappointed.

It will only get worse. Our floors are 3 years old and they look spotty all the time. It is so disappointing. The core tech cleaner helps a bit.

I read on another discussion board that dog saliva is acidic and doesnt get taken up by the ph nuetral floor cleaners that are made for vinyl flooring. Ive had luck spraying the spots with dilluted apple cider vinegar when I can see them better when the floor is wet. I dont use it all the time tho as to not damage the floors. It def drives me crazy tho. I never saw spots like this before when we had our laminate, so im not sure why vinyl is so different and shows everything. I think it has to do with the matte finish. The gloss of hardwood and laminate hides more.

I have the exact same problem, it is sickening, my floors always look horrible even right after I work so hard cleaning them, shows every footprint

I have the exact same problem, I should be proud of my new floors but I hate them, showing everything and every footprint

@Sandy what floor is that? It looks just like mine. ( Coretec Red River Hickory)

@HU-357628503 are you using a specific floor cleaner? When I did that I would see footprints and pawprints all over them because they all leave residue even if they say no rinse. Using only warm water helps a lot with that. I still see prints if coming from outside and bringing in dirt. Unfortunately the color of my floors shows all dirt. Plus anything shiny like skin oils and dog drool leaves marks ugh. But definitely try cleaning with water if your seeing actual footprints.

stephanie, I totally agree that warm water with a microfiber cloth is the best solution.

Yes, I agree about the water and cloth. I have not used anything else as I am so afraid whatever it is will be too harsh. I have used a cloth and warm water ( and gone over it a few times) and the spot goes away.

I have also used a sponge mop where I wrap the sponge with a t-shirt like cloth or a towel, somewhat damp, and go over the whole floor. It does seem to work.

The color of my floors is similar ( perhaps the same as Sandy's above, so the spots or dirt really don't show up except in certain lighting.