Question about that 'paint roller trick' for smoothing LVP seams

Saw a guy on a jobsite in Phoenix roll a paint roller over the planks after locking them, said it helped seat the tongue. Tried it on a 500 sq ft glue-down job last week and it actually eliminated a few high spots I was fighting. Anyone else use this method or is it just asking for trouble?

3 comments

3 Comments

simonl863d ago

Hot take: Roller beats mallet every time. Saw a crew doing the mallet and block thing on a big box store job last year. They were there forever, tapping each seam like they were trying to wake it up gently. The roller method just seems like the grown-up version of that. You get even pressure across the whole plank instead of just little spots. It's faster and you're less likely to mess up the locking system by hitting it wrong. For glue-down stuff especially, it just makes sense to press everything down flat.

blairwhite23d ago

Ever see those guys use a rubber mallet and a block instead? Watched a crew do that on a big commercial job once. They would tap the long seam after clicking it in. Seemed to work but looked slow. I guess the roller is just a faster version of the same idea.

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the_kim23d ago

Always thought rollers were the only way but @blairwhite you're right, that mallet trick gets the job done too.