Shaw Luxury Vinyl Plank Gallery – Floorte Pro Series

Shaw Luxury Vinyl Plank Gallery

The Shaw Luxury Vinyl Plank Gallery, exclusively available at ReallyCheapFloors.com, is an assemblage of SPC vinyl plank floors from Shaw’s Floorte Pro Collections.

If you have read our LVP blog, you have an idea of how confusing it can be to purchase an LVP floor. Thickness, wear layer, composition, and graphics might be important to some, but how about the more important characteristics…..do I like it, and how much does it cost?

What Shaw Floors Offers

What Shaw offers in their Floorte Pro Collection are 4 distinctly different groups of floors, each separated by characteristics such as visuals, thickness, pricing, and attributes that will affect the lifetime of the floor. The single most important goal in our Shaw Resilient Gallery is to educate our customers so that they can select the perfect floor for their home. One that they can be as happy with 20 years from now, just as they are on the day of installation.

First, let’s talk about Shaw. As the accepted leader in American flooring production and sales for more than 50 years, Shaw has been at the forefront in quality and value in carpet, hardwood, and resilient or vinyl floors. We could not imagine a better partner as we introduce our Luxury Vinyl Plank Gallery.

Watch our Floorte Pro Gallery Video

What Does That Mean For You?

Enough about Shaw….let’s talk about our customers! One thing I share with my customers is that I too am a consumer. When I started ReallyCheapFloors.com 9 years ago, I had experienced some changes in my life that made me more value-oriented in my shopping experiences, and I correctly thought there must be others out there with like minds. Just because I am cheap doesn’t mean I wanted to buy junk! Nope….I wanted the good stuff, I just didn’t want to pay much for it. Sound familiar? Oh…and I wanted lots of information about what I was buying. Not the typical sales pitch. No, I wanted to know specifications, and how those specifications would affect my use of the product.

That approach has carried us for the last 9 years, as we have grown considerably, and now have locations in 3 states.
While we have been in the LVP business for a while, the Shaw Resilient Gallery is the first time we have had a program for LVP that encompasses the rules we live by. Cheap and good!
As we talk about the differences between our 4 collections, think about the total cost of your installation. Yes, one floor might be a dollar more each foot, which seems like a lot, but how much more is that on the total job? On a 700 sq ft install, the difference between our Impress collection and the Nobility is about $1000. While that is a considerable amount of money, replacing a floor because it didn’t perform will cost 4-5 times that. Disclaimer….I am neither confirming nor denying that I have regretted buying a product that was a little cheaper, but later proved to not have been what I needed. Hey, live and learn.

Saving Money & Offering Value

Our goal here is to save you money by offering value on multiple levels of quality, not just the cheapest selection.

Thanks to Shaw and their huge distribution network we are able to offer our customers the option of picking their Floorte Pro flooring up at more than 20 locations around the US. Just call us and place your order, and we will begin the process of moving your floor the same day. Expect it to take about 72 hours for your pickup to be ready.

Now let’s go look at the Shaw Resilient Gallery, and find the best floor for you!

Impress Floorte Pro Series 3

Our opening salvo is Shaw’s Floorte Pro Series 3 Impress Plus product. FYI…. you will see the Plus in each of the products that we offer. This tells you that it has the attached pad backing to suppress sound. All of our Gallery products will have this feature. We have Shaw’s Floorte Pro 3 Series Impress at $1.69 without the padded back as well.

The Impress Plus is a good example of specifications not telling the whole story. One of the most shared specs in the LVP business is thickness, both overall and the wear layer. Overall thickness has a bearing on how rigid a floor will be: the more rigid, the lesser the chance of anything in your subfloor telegraphing through.
Residential products will usually have a 6, 8, or 12 mil thick wear layer, while commercial products typically go 20 mils. While a math degree is not required to understand the difference between a 6 and a 12 mil, lets first discuss what a wear layer is. Short version, the wear layer is the clear stuff we touch on the face of the vinyl plank. So, the thicker the wear layer, the more distance there is between our finger and the graphics, or picture. Conventional wisdom, or lack thereof, considers the wear layer on resilient floors to be like an ice cream…. the bigger the better!

Key Features

6 mil Wear Layer
ArmourBead Finish
25 year Residential Warranty
Square Edge Profile
17 Color Options
1 mm Soft Silence Sound-Suppressing Acoustical Pad
$1.59 per Square Foot

Floorte Pro Wear Layer Construction Graphic

Does Wear Layer Thickness Matter Most?

However, experience has taught us that the composition of the wear layer is more important than the thickness. How? Because of abrasive wear. How many floors out there have a difference in appearance in the traffic pattern due to foot traffic, but still look the same where no one walks? This is due to the tiny scratches in the wear layer caused by daily use over time. Did the wear extend through the finish? No, it is topical. That is why the composition of the wear layer is so important. A harder finish, like Shaw’s ArmourBead and ScuffResist Platinum, will keep their wear layers from showing the wear other floors will exhibit.

Polyurethane Wear Layer

So why do most manufacturers just use polyurethane? Two reasons: 1, harder wear layers cost more money, and 2, they aren’t Shaw. As the foremost manufacturer of flooring in the world, they have a reputation to protect. They know you might get duped into buying an inferior product once, but you will be looking for better stuff the next time, and they are waiting on you!

The Impress Plus line features Shaw’s ArmourBead finish. In our stores, we have samples of our Shaw Floorte Pro products as well as floors that use the polyurethane so you can give them a scuff test, and the results are startling. Who knew? Come by one of our locations to see the difference for yourself.

Impress Plus offers 17 great colors, including 2, Weathered Barnwood and Tattered Barnwood, that will surely enter the Flooring Hall of Fame one day. All that, including a 1 mm sound-suppressing attached back, for $1.89. It also has a 25-year residential warranty that says the product will not have any manufacturing defects during that time.

Like all of the products in our Shaw Resilient Gallery, the Impress Plus is waterproof and can be installed above or below grade using the click together installation system.
Now onto the Floorte Pro Beyond product!

Floorte Pro Series 5 – Floorte Pro and Beyond!

Shaw’s Floorte Pro Series 5 Beyond is different from the Impress in that it has a 12 mil wear layer instead of a 6mil. While both floors feature the ArmourBead technology, the thicker Beyond offers realistic embossing and earthy, heavily grained visual. Very few collections will present such radiant looks.

Other features of the Beyond are beveled edges and Shaw’s 1.5 mm sound suppressing back, Soft Silence. At 7” wide and 48” long, the Beyond is large enough to carry the plank-look and run with it. The 30-year warranty and $1.99 price don’t hurt either!

Key Features

12 mil Wear Layer
ArmourBead Finish
30-year Residential Warranty
Micro Bevel Profile
Embossed-in-Register Surface Texture
1.5 mm Soft Silence Sound-Suppressing Acoustical Pad
$1.99 per Square Foot

Floorte Pro Series 6 – Get Ready For Viggy!

Now we can talk about my favorite, Vigorous! His full name is Floorte Pro Series 6 Vigorous, but we call him Viggy. Viggy has a couple of claims to fame. First, Viggy is a 20 mil floor. That’s getting up there in the commercial wear layers. More importantly, this 20 mil wear layer features Shaw’s ScuffResist Platinum technology. What does that mean? I have no idea. But I can tell you that Viggy has an aluminum oxide wear layer.

Key Features

20 mil Wear Layer
Lifetime Warranty
ArmourBead with ScufResist Platinum
Aluminum Oxide Finish
Heavy Wire Brushing Texture
1.5 mm Soft Silence Sound-Suppressing Acoustical Pad
$2.49 per Square Foot

Aluminum Oxide Wear Layer

For those of you that are unfamiliar with aluminum oxide, it is a substance that can be suspended in the finish of a floor. This makes the wear layer extremely hard, and almost impervious to surface scratches. When aluminum oxide was introduced to the hardwood flooring business many years ago it was implemented almost overnight by every manufacturer in the business. Honestly, it would be hard to oversell the importance of aluminum oxide on the performance of a floor, and our Vigorous and Nobility lines are 2 of the very few products on the market today that offer it. Why? Because it is expensive! Expensive to buy the material, and expensive to add the manufacturing capability.

Luxury Vinyl Top Coat Construction

Fold-N-Tap Installation

Another cool feature is the Fold-N-Tap installation system that Shaw introduced with Viggy. With most floors, the installer is required to lock both the sides and ends, which requires a bit of contortion. With the Lock-N-Tap, the end joints drop into place, and a gentle nudge locks the joint. If you have ever installed a laminate floor, or an LVP without this locking system you will understand what a big deal this is. If you haven’t, think 25% less install time. Seriously.

The reason Viggy is my favorite is the visuals. With wide, rustic wire-brushed Oak and Pine looks, it gives a different appearance than most other products on the market. And it has an accent bevel that looks right at home with the wide planks.

The Shaw Floorte Pro Series 6 Vigorous (see why we prefer Viggy) is a bit thicker than our other offerings at 5.5 mm. It also has the 1.5 mm Soft Silence backing, but the warranty bumps up to a lifetime residential, 10-year commercial warranty. At $2.49 sq ft, it is a buck up from the Impress, but it is easy to see why. Is it worth the buck? Don’t ask me….it is your house! I am just telling you what I know.

Shaw Floorte Pro Series 7 – Let’s move now to Nobility.

Or, if you prefer, the Shaw Floorte Pro Series 7 Nobility.

Nobility has the toughest job here. How does one exceed the features of Viggy, and still stay affordable? With Nobility, Shaw did just that.

Nobility has all of the features of Viggy: 20 mil, ScuffResist Platinum, lifetime warranty, Fold-N-Tap installation system, 1.5 mm Soft Silence, and great visuals. I misspoke…. Nobility has great-er visuals, and that is why there is a Nobility.

Nobility has 2 features that make is easily the best-looking floor on the market. The first is new high-definition technology that puts a highly detailed visual on a superior core. That visual exceeds anything else on the market with sharp, detailed looks.

The second feature is the more exciting, Embossed in Register. Doesn’t that just sound exciting?

Key Features

20 mil Wear Layer
Lifetime Warranty
Aluminum Oxide Finish
ArmourBead with ScufResist Platinum
Embossed in Register
6.5 mm Overall Thickness
1.5 mm Soft Silence Sound-Suppressing Acoustical Pad
Fold-N-Tap Installation
$3.99 per Square Foot

Embossed In Register

Ok…bear with me. Almost all LVP floors are textured. This keeps you from planting your bum on a slick floor. Sadly, most textures are the same, and have no correlation with the surface visual of the product, so a tile pattern might have the same visual as a wide pine floor. Maybe it doesn’t matter to you, but to those that it does matter Shaw is offering Embossed in Register. The embossing, or texture, matches up with the register, or graphic. When it was being explained to me my head assumed the Confused-Puppy look. You know…head leaning heavily to one side. Finally, someone explained it on my level…see a knot, feel a knot!

Embossed In Register Close Up Image

Shaw Floorte Pro Series 7

In the picture above you can get an idea of what this feature adds to a floor. In some patterns, especially the knottier wide boards, the embossing makes a huge difference and is certain to grab your pants leg and make you take it home. In other, more conservative patterns, it really isn’t worth the extra money. The only other main competitor that has this similar feature is explained in our COREtec Flooring blog.

Nobility is priced at $3.99. If you want a floor that is sure to garner the highest number of “I thought it was a real hardwood floor” comments, then Nobility is probably the choice for you.

Now I will mention a few more points about our Shaw Resilient Gallery that separates it from the competitors.

Legacy Chemicals & Indoor Air Quality

One of the biggest hot buttons regarding flooring today is the use of chemicals. Specifically, the use of legacy chemicals commonly used in the production of post-consumer recycled content in the LVP market. (I copied that from a Shaw page. Don’t tell anybody).

The interesting part is if you ask each manufacturer their stance, you get the same response. “Nope. Not us. We would never do that.”

Shaw took it a step further and requested that their Floorte Pro products be tested by FloorScore, a third-party certification that tests and measures indoor air quality. A primary concern of indoor air quality is the emission level of specific volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Poor indoor air quality is caused by inadequate ventilation, poor cleaning and/or excessive emissions of VOCs from surfaces and finishes. Products bearing the FloorScore® label meet the stringent indoor air quality emissions criteria.

Breathe Easy Air Quality

So what does this mean to you? It means that our resilient vinyl flooring allows you and your family to breathe easier. Studies show that many of us spend as much as 90% of our time indoors- at home, work or school. If you’re breathing poor quality air, you could be facing a higher risk level for a variety of health problems, including headaches, dizziness, and more serious long-term conditions. So when shopping for resilient vinyl flooring, look for the FloorScore® seal and you’ll know you are making a good choice for your home and your family.

Stone Polymer Core

Another feature of our Shaw Resilient Gallery is that all of the included products are SPCs or Stone Polymer Core. Stone Polymer Core is made using compositions of calcium carbonate. SPC floors tend to be harder and more resistant to denting than WPC. One of the biggest problems in the LVT market is the inability to compare floors between manufacturers. Or even from the same manufacturer. How do we know which floor will dent the least? Last the longest? We don’t. Warranties mean nothing, only that the floor won’t have manufacturing defects. Gee, thanks. If you want a floor that performs, be diligent. Feel the product. In LVP, weight matters. Weight is somewhat relative to how hard the core is. Harder cores last longer.

Let’s make this Easy!

After you buy the inventory from us, we have your flooring moved quickly to the Shaw RDC of your choice for easy pickup.