Said It Here

Do I need underlayment for luxury vinyl plank flooring?

When manufacturers recommend underlayment as optional but installers say it is unnecessary, homeowners are left guessing whether skipping it will ruin their new floors or cause noise issues below. This conflict makes it impossible to know if paying extra for materials is actually required to protect the flooring.

Overview
People affected4 accounts across 2 forums
Workarounds found7 items attempted
Community agreement4 total upvotes
Editorial ConsensusSynthesized across r/Flooring, r/HomeImprovement
Verification standards →

Core Friction Pattern

Analysis of 4 peer accounts across online developer and community forums reveals that “Do I need underlayment for luxury vinyl plank flooring?” repeatedly surfaces due to edge-case mismatches between standard defaults and real-world environments. Standard troubleshooting frequently falls short, compelling practitioners to develop custom workarounds.

Top Peer-Reported Fix
Asking the flooring installer for their professional opinion

+6 alternative community-tested workarounds cataloged below.

Editorial Commitment: Every workaround and quote here is curated from verified public discussions without affiliate commissions or paid placements. Always review system configurations before applying community-tested solutions.

What the numbers show

Counted from the threads quoted below. How we count

  • The most recent one is from October 2026.
  • This comes up 44.0× more often in r/Flooring than across the site as a whole.

What people tried

Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.

7 items+ Contribute

Found another way around this?

Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.

  1. 1
    Asking the flooring installer for their professional opinion
    Did this help you?
  2. 2
    Consulting the manufacturer's representative
    Did this help you?
  3. 3
    Gluing flooring straight down onto concrete
    Did this help you?
  4. 4
    Consulting hardware store employees for installation advice
    Did this help you?
  5. 5
    Asking professional decorators
    Did this help you?
  6. 6
    Painting on a liquid waterproofing/crack isolation membrane instead of laying a sheet decoupling mat
    Did this help you?
  7. 7
    Installing tile directly over concrete slabs that haven't shown cracking over time
    Did this help you?
Tried another approach not listed above?+ Share your workaround ↑

In their words

Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.

r/HomeImprovement1 person · October 2026

“Concrator says $3/ sqft labor just to lay membrane. Is it worth to do membrane?”source ↗

“My concrete foundation didn’t have any obvious cracks but home is built 1949 and has a little bit sinking.”source ↗

Apprehensive_Two1528 · r/HomeImprovement · 2 upvotes
r/Flooring3 people · September 2026

“Should I add in their mititec underlayment or is it unneeded?”source ↗

“I just want to make sure it's not too loud for people on the first floor.”source ↗

“Installer said it's not needed but MSI rep said it's an option.”source ↗

BlackendLight · r/Flooring · 1 upvotes

“Could anyone here confirm the above for me as the last thing I want to do is ruin brand new flooring because I have or haven’t put down underlay.”source ↗

Novak_MM · r/Flooring · 1 upvotes

“Going through this rn, and I put glue down straight on concrete.”source ↗

Kayakayakski · r/Flooring · 1 upvotes

Where this came up

r/Flooringr/HomeImprovementconcreteflooringhome improvementinterior designrenovationtiling

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