The thickness of the wear layer is measured in mils, and wear layers are typically 6, 12 or 20 mils thick. As you may have guessed, the thicker the wear layer, the tougher the flooring will be. In fact, the 20-mil thickness can even stand up to commercial settings. If you’re choosing flooring for a high-traffic entryway into your home, go with the middle or higher wear layer. If your room in question isn’t likely to see much action in terms of foot traffic, a lesser thickness will work just fine.

Wearlayers come in a variety of thicknesses depending on the flooring manufacturer and the intended use of the tiles. Wearlayers on LVT for commercial environments will be thicker – and therefore more hard-wearing – than on LVT used in residential settings.

Wearlayers are measured in mil (one thousandth of an inch). Flooring manufacturers offer LVT flooring with wearlayers in a wide range of thicknesses, from 8 mil to 28 mil – and even up to 40 mil in rare cases. Different thickness wearlayers are suited to different environments, for example:

• 8 mil – for residential use only.
• 12 mil – for residential and light commercial use.
• 20 mil – for commercial areas with low-to-medium levels of foot traffic, such as administrative offices or break rooms.
• 28 mil – for commercial areas with high levels of foot traffic and rolled traffic (like trolleys or delivery carts), such as school or hospital corridors and building lobbies and entrances.
• 40 mil – best suited to storage areas with high levels of heavy traffic such as forklifts and other machinery, rather than in a commercial environment.

For busy commercial, education or hospitality environments, 28 mil wearlayers will offer better protection against damage than 20 mil ones. While thicker is usually better when it comes to wearlayers, once you get past 28 mil thickness you also begin to lose clarity of the print film layer underneath, which will compromise the aesthetics.

If you want durable, long-lasting luxury vinyl tiles, prioritize tiles with the appropriate wearlayer thickness.