I would like to get feedback on the Supercore Basics line. I am looking at Solitude for around 1,000 sf. I have an old wood subfloor that I am going to need to do a lot of leveling on. Where do you draw the line for telling someone that a 4.5mm floor is not for them? I know I only get a 12mil wear layer, but the fact that it is still Aluminum Oxide and has a stone composite core makes me feel it will be ok. Is there any difference in the locking system? The lock does not seem as hefty on the samples for the basics line. I get concerned that with an old pier and beam supported floor that has settled, even if I level the floor, will the less hardy locking system fail if I get slight movement with any further settling?

Since most of the SPC and WPC products are made or manufactured in China, it is SUPER difficult to get a special order from anyone. There are some manufacturers that I know of in Portugal who have some visuals a FLOORING COMPANY can choose from and then special order in 2-4 CONTAINERS (300,000sf of flooring) of flooring to start a "line" that no one else has...but other than that, the plastic industry doesn't have a way to customize a vinyl floor. Companies/manufacturers such as Torlys, Wicanders, Lico, CorkArt, etc have the ability to develop a product because they have access to industrial size printers which would reproduce any PHOTOGRAPH in the world (yes....it is possible you could pay $1.5M to have a family photo made into a vinyl floor....but who would want to). If you have access to one of the MANUFACTURERS (not a flooring store but a COMPANY store...where they have a regional head office attached and the manager has a relationship with the manufacturing facility in China, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, etc) you could browse some of their 'up and coming' floor finishes. If you pay 30% up-charge on product + 30% non-refundable deposit + a MINIMUM order of (I'm guessing) 3 pallets (roughly 3000sf) you could order in a floor made for you. And then you wait 3-8 months to get it to your home....(China delays are coming in around 3-6 months because of tariff wars with USA/Canada)...it is possible. But most homeowners shy away from a floor that has all of these contingencies placed on it. Of course if you don't like the floor there is NO recourse. Your special order is your special purchase - no returns; no refunds. We tried this ONCE in the cork industry at my former employer....it worked for ONE person...but then again they were a design/build company that could 'eat' the extra costs. If their existing client didn't like it, they would just use it in another spec. build later on in the year. No harm; no foul.

In our new home build, we chose Armstrong empower rigid core which is an RMC or rigid mineral core. The RMC is one step after WPC or SPC and has a stronger barrier to indention. As I said the flooring was installed by the home builder, in mid to late October, November 2021. We had options of a hardwood, laminate and this line of Armstrong. I didn't want to deal with hardwood floors or laminates with dogs so I went with the LVP. We've been living on it for 2 years and we have not seen any bowing, cupping, edging, issues with the digital printing or bevel. We have the flooring throughout our whole home except the bathrooms and laundry. I've never had hard floors in a bedroom, but we mitigated the stiffness with a rug. At first it was noisy because it's on a crawl space but it has a lot more give than tile which is what we're used to and I like the feel now. Were two adults and two dachshunds. Our wear is minimal but we have a lot of heavy furniture which is all padded or has coasters. I think I've might have found one or two indentions after heavy objects have fallen. I've dropped plates and cups, and they haven't broken unlike tile, but they haven't left an indention. https://www.floorcoveringweekly.com/main/topnews/what-can-rigid-core-flooring-offer-your-consumer-33969 

Hi Beth, I have seen your super helpful comments on other topics as well and thank you so much for responding so quickly with ideas, I loved them all!! The last photo you attached is exactly what I contracted a contractor for in mat but that didn't work out, see below. You were spot on with your suggestions as a "poured" polished floor was my original plan but the contractor I used - who btw is the technician at a large German concrete company so I trusted him - completely messed up my floor. He was supposed to do a terrazzo floor based on the sample he made me which looked great (photo attached) but it turned into a disaster and he offered to pay my money back but I'm now left with an unpolished floor that has stones in only half of the area and the rea with the stones looks like fly poo..(photo attached). This is the link to the material used: MC Top Floor. I didn't want to go into these details in my original post to spare the readers of this drama but that is the situation I'm in unfortunately. I cannot add a lot more weight and height to my floors so I wanted to continue with the polished concrete type options, BUT the quotes I am getting are horrible, around 4,5k GBP. It's insane and NOONE will do it with a warranty as they say the floor has been messed up by someone else. The best quote I got so far was 2,3k GBP for which they would polish, correct uneven areas and add two layers of coloured polyurethane lacquer which will come out as an even colour of my choice without cloudiness. But there is no guarantee that it will look good so I'm terrified to risk more. I also live in an old building so polishing with those huge machines for longer periods might cause damage. I'm in Budapest and the flooring business is horrific over here, most contractors rip people off and it's a super tight community, they all know each other and quote ridiculous prices. I'm not sure what to do to make it the most cost-effective but still good looking and most importantly usable. Sample terrazzo that was in our contract: And this is how it came out, which is unacceptable, so the guy polished it up and poured a second layer with almost no stones in it. Now it looks like a white subfloor.