Luxury vinyl plank flooring (LVP) is one of the most popular flooring choices for homes and rentals in Lexington, KY and throughout Central Kentucky because it offers durability, waterproof performance, and lower installation costs than many traditional floors.Β
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Some hollow sound underfoot after LVP installation is normal, particularly over areas where the plank isn't in full contact with the subfloor. A small amount of ambient sound in a floating floor is inherent to how the installation system works. What's not normal is a pronounced hollow or drum-like sound concentrated in specific spots, clicking or movement underfoot, or hollow sounds that develop weeks after installation when none existed initially. Those patterns point to specific installation or subfloor issues that need to be identified and addressed rather than accepted as normal floor behavior.
Floating floor installations produce more ambient sound than glued or nailed floors because the planks aren't mechanically attached to the subfloor. The entire floor assembly moves slightly as a unit when walked on, and that movement generates some sound transmission. On a wood subfloor with a quality pre-attached underlayment the sound is typically minimal and most homeowners adapt to it quickly without finding it objectionable. On a concrete subfloor with a thin underlayment the sound transmission is more direct and the hollow character more pronounced because concrete doesn't absorb sound the way wood does.
Localized hollow spots that sound significantly worse than the surrounding floor almost always indicate a subfloor issue directly beneath that area. A low spot in the subfloor means the plank spanning it has no support underneath and resonates like a drum when walked on. A debonded tile in an over-tile installation creates the same effect. High spots that force the plank to bridge adjacent areas also create hollow-sounding sections on either side of the high point. In all of these cases the hollow sound is a symptom of a subfloor condition that existed before installation and wasn't caught during prep. Filling low spots and addressing high spots before installation eliminates these localized hollow areas entirely.
Clicking sounds that accompany the hollow feel indicate locking joint movement, which is a more serious condition than ambient hollow sound alone. A click underfoot means the joint between two planks is opening and closing with foot traffic rather than staying locked. This happens when the subfloor variation beneath the joint is significant enough to allow plank movement that the locking system wasn't designed to handle, when the expansion gaps at the perimeter were insufficient and the floor has nowhere to expand, or when the underlayment beneath the floor is too thick and soft, introducing excess movement into the locking system. Clicking joints don't resolve on their own. They indicate a condition that will worsen with continued traffic.
The most common mistake is accepting hollow sound as an unavoidable characteristic of LVP and living with it rather than diagnosing whether it indicates an actual problem. Some ambient sound is normal. Pronounced localized hollow spots and clicking joints are not. Homeowners who dismiss clicking and hollow sounds as just how LVP sounds are often sitting on a developing subfloor or installation issue that gets more expensive to fix the longer it goes unaddressed. If the hollow sound is localized, inconsistent across the floor, or accompanied by any movement or clicking underfoot, it's worth investigating before writing it off as normal.
Hollow sound questions come in regularly at WarehouseDirect.US, usually from customers who installed their floor and are second-guessing whether what they're hearing is normal. The first question we ask is always where on the floor is the sound coming from. If it's consistent and ambient across the whole floor the answer is usually that it's within normal range for a floating installation and the underlayment and subfloor type are contributing to the character of the sound. If it's concentrated in specific spots or accompanied by clicking the answer is different and points toward a subfloor issue that needs attention.
The most preventable version of this problem is the one that starts with subfloor prep. A floor that was installed over a properly prepped, flat subfloor with appropriate underlayment for the subfloor type rarely generates hollow sound complaints beyond the normal ambient level. Flatness is one of the biggest factors in a quality installation, and hollow sound is one of the clearest signals that the flatness requirement wasn't met before the floor went in. Come into WarehouseDirect.US before your installation and we'll make sure the subfloor conversation happens before the flooring goes down, not after you're standing on a hollow-sounding floor wondering what went wrong.