Wood look tile is very realistic these days. Zero emissions.

Florida usually calls for tile. If you want zero (or near zero) emissions then tile would normally fit the bill. There are very few vinyls that do not 'look' or sound like plastic.

Do you have photos? Do you have a budget? What is on the floors right now?

There are DOZENS of Houzz threads with LVP or LVT in the title. Go ahead and search it in the Houzz search bar. There are HORDES of these discussions.

The single issue we see = vinyl hates direct sunlight AND hates heat. Heat comes in through windows. If the windows have a decent UV protection (75% UV block or better) you will be fine.

If you are unsure as to how hot the floors will get in direct sunlight, you need to put an outdoor thermometer on the floor - in a pool of sunlight (preferably in the summer time) and see how hot that spot gets. If it gets ABOVE 85F....then you will have a problem. Not *might....WILL have a problem.

Heat (direct sunlight pooling on a floor and heating up beyond 85F) is vinyl's kryptonite.

Thanks for educating me. We presently have tile and are planning to put more windows in the family room, though our exposure doesn't seem to affect our floors in that room - no direct sunlight. Not as concerned with budget, just want the right material. What about cork and bamboo? We were hoping to go with something softer than tile as we both have aging creaky bodies as well as a high end stereo that would likely be better with a softer material. Appreciate your help greatly!

I'm a cork flooring expert so I'm Biased ;-). Cork fades and fades HEAVILY. I love it when it turns 'Silver Fox' in sunlight...but most people WAIL about the fading...and how no one told them! And why isn't it a 'warranty issue' and why didn't anyone tell them...etc.

Cork is fantastic. I acts like a solid surface (because it is) but it works like a carpet-replacement item...because it is.

If you don't care that today's warm cork oak yellow will turn to silver coloured drift wood in a few years...then go for it. You are the right type of person to own cork.

We owned a place that had cork, definitely had mold when we removed those cork floors. We are in coastal FL and wish to avoid mold, swelling floorboards. Seems like we can choose tile or vinyl 100% waterproof. I do not like grout lines. I will ask about the windows if they are high UV block. Thanks so much.

Cork or vinyl...either one needs a VAPOUR BARRIER. A cork floating floor without a vapour barrier will turn into cork soup inside of a few years. It isn't the cork...it is the high water table in Florida. All floating floors require a plastic vapour barrier underneath. There is no way around that.

And the installation instructions for EVERY vinyl floor clearly state that vinyl may be water proof from SURFACE SPILLS they are NOT WATER PROOF regarding water emissions coming through cement slabs.

Just a little FYI.

Is it really that much harder on your body to have tile/stained concrete vs. hardwood flooring? Also, is real hardwood flooring good or not good in Florida? No direct sunlight in our home. Thank you so much for your kind responses.

When you say 'real' hardwood, do you mean 'solid' hardwood? Or do you mean engineered hardwood? Or both?

Wood in Florida *can work....but it can go HORRIBLY wrong when done improperly. To do things properly in a situation such as yours it can get very very expensive (like double your original budget). Many homes in Florida are 'slab on grade' which means the concrete slab is sitting IN the ground and you enter the home at ground level.

We don't know what type of home you have...just that you are considering different flooring options. A bit more about what type of home you have would REALLY help us out.

Slab on grade I believe. And yes, would consider either or both, depending upon "green-ness."

The age of the slab will determine whether or not you can *easily put down a permanent floor. Many of these homes were built BEFORE plastic sheets were put UNDERNEATH the slab. In the 1990's the plastic became common. In the 80's it was hit or miss. The 70's you had almost no chance to find a vapour barrier underneath the slab.

What does that mean...well concrete is porous. It is SOOOOOO porous the Floridian water table can ruin pretty much any permanent floor you install. That means glue down hardwood is out. Many ceramic tiles are out. Porcelain tile is possible but the chance of it *eventually failing.

Of course, if you throw enough money at the slab or an older home, you will (eventually) get to the point where the slab is considered 'sealed' and you can put down whatever you want. For many that takes $5/sf to achieve.

In reality, assuming you have a home built before the mid-80's, you will be limited to a floating floor. It is possible to purchase floating wood floors...but you are probably limited to engineered hardwood. There are solid hardwood floors that are allowed to be floated....but they are very few and very far between and they are more expensive than most other wood floors.

The 'greenest' option is going to be solid wood NAILED TO WOOD subfloors. But you don't have the 'wood subfloor' requirement. That means we start looking at adhesives. But your location might mean you are looking at the 'nastiest of the nasties' to get a wood to glue in place.

So we now start plumbing the very shallow depths of solid hardwood floors that are floated (normally means glue is used on the edges to hold them together). The adhesive can be much 'greener'...but you will have hundreds of linear feet of glue added to your home. The COST of these types of wood floors could knock them out of your budget...If you have $10/sf to spend then you will be just fine...if not we move on.

OK...now we are into engineered hardwood. They are almost always allowed to be floated. Excellent. Now we have a vast pool of products. A 'nice' engineered hardwood with decent CARB II tests will cost $7-$9/sf. Again the adhesive needed to float them has to be added into the total costs (can add $0.50/sf) but can be Zero VOC.

Right. Now we are into the a slightly better 'green' option called cork floating floors. The European sourced products are very very low VOC. They click together easily = does NOT need glue. Costs are $3 - $12/sf. The cost of install can be as much as $3/sf.

Vinyl gets us into another layer of chemicals. The VOC isn't what you look at, it is the phthalates. It is a different category of chemicals and are not detectible in the standard VOC test (they are NOT organic compounds therefore you cannot find them on a 'volatile ORGANIC compounds' test).

Whew. The REALLY AWESOME VOC/phthalate free products are higher priced. They can and will be more expensive than decent cork floating flooring. I've seen CoreTec Plus+ priced at $8.99/sf USD.

A European Grade Laminate will have the same level of VOCs as cork...but will cost $3-$6/sf (or so). I've seen some really nice products sit around $5/sf.