What click lock means
A click lock floor is not fixed to the subfloor at all. Each plank has a machined edge that engages with the next, and once the floor is assembled it behaves as a single sheet resting on whatever is underneath. That is what floating means, and it is the reason this kind of floor goes down quickly and comes up again without destroying either itself or the surface below. The same mechanism is sold under several names: click vinyl flooring, snap together vinyl flooring and drop lock all describe an edge profile that engages without adhesive.
The practical consequence is that the subfloor no longer has to accept a bond. A click lock floor can go over old vinyl, over tile, over plywood and over concrete, provided the surface is flat and dry. It is also why a floating floor needs a gap at the walls: the whole assembly expands and contracts as one piece, and it needs somewhere to do that.
The rigid core
Rigid core, not flexible vinyl is what most of this collection is built on. The core is the dense layer under the print, and its job is dimensional stability: it resists the small movements that make a thin plank telegraph every bump in the subfloor, and it stops the floor growing and shrinking noticeably as a room heats and cools.
That stability is what makes a rigid board more forgiving over an imperfect subfloor and firmer underfoot than a flexible plank of the same thickness. Rigid core boards in this collection run from around 5 mm through 6.5 mm to 9 mm, and the thicker boards are the ones that span a wavy floor without showing it.
Radiant heat
Almost every floor on this page is specified as suitable over radiant heat, which is unusual enough to be the reason to choose the category, not a footnote to it. Underfloor heating cycles a floor through a temperature range every day, and a floor that moves with each cycle will gap at the joints, cup, or push itself against the baseboard over a season.
A rigid core board barely moves through that cycle, which is why it belongs over a heated slab where a flexible plank or a wide solid board would be a risk. Each floor carries its own maximum surface temperature and its own commissioning sequence, and those figures come from the manufacturer, not from a category page.
What waterproof covers
Nearly every plank in the collection is waterproof through the body: the plank itself will not swell, stain or delaminate if water sits on it. That is what puts vinyl into kitchens, laundries, bathrooms and below grade rooms where engineered wood should not go.
What waterproof describes is the plank, not the room. A floating floor has joints, and water that gets through them sits on the subfloor where nobody can see it. In a bathroom or a laundry, that distinction is the one worth understanding before the floor is chosen, and it is a question about the room rather than about the plank.
Wear layer, and the honest spread
The wear layer is the clear film over the print and the single most useful number for guessing how a floor will look in ten years. The spread across these floors is wide: the largest groups sit at 20 mil and 12 mil, with smaller groups at 30 and 22 mil and a handful at 6 mil.
Twenty mil and above suits a hallway, a kitchen and any floor a household actually walks on. Twelve mil is comfortable in bedrooms and lighter rooms. Six mil is a light duty specification instead of a bargain. Wear layer and total thickness are separate numbers and a thick plank with a thin wear layer is a common and expensive misunderstanding; the luxury vinyl plank overview sets out how the two relate.
Click lock planks and tiles
Most of this collection is wood look planks in 7 by 48 and 9 by 60 formats, but a smaller group is click lock tile: 12 by 24 and 18 by 36 pieces in marble and stone looks that go down the same way. For a bathroom floor that should read as stone without a tiler, grout or a wet trade, that group is the answer and it is easy to miss on a page dominated by planks.
Color runs across the range rather than clustering: brown, beige and blonde and gray are all represented in click lock construction.
Click lock or glue down
Click lock is faster, reversible, forgiving of a subfloor that is not perfectly bonded, and it is what most households want. Glue down is the steadier choice in three situations: a very large open floor where a floating field would move too much as one piece, a room with heavy rolling loads, and a space with wide temperature swings such as a sunroom. Rigid core collects the firmest boards in the floating category.
