Woven vinyl: what the material is and how to specify it

Woven vinyl starts as yarn, not as a sheet. A polyester core is coated with PVC, and the coated yarn is woven into a cloth. That cloth is then bonded to a backing. Four layers, in order:

• Coated yarn. Solution-dyed, so the colour runs through the yarn rather than sitting on top of it.
• The weave. This is where the surface texture comes from. A printed floor imitates a texture; a woven floor has one.
• The binder. What holds the weave together and keeps the yarn from moving under a chair castor.
• The backing. PVC foam, polyester felt, or a magnetic layer, depending on what the floor has to do.

The backing is not a detail. Two floors with the same face and different backings are two different products: one is a 4 mm floor at 2,400 gsm for wall to wall work, the other is a 3.20–3.50 mm tile at 4,350 gsm for raised-access floors and phased replacement. Roll width is 200 cm ±1% to EN 426, which is what makes a corridor run possible without a lengthways seam.

One point on how the material reaches you, because it decides who answers when something goes wrong. We do not buy finished rolls and relabel them. The designs are ours, the weave is made to our drawings by appointed mills, and the bonding, the cutting, the seam trials and the testing are done in our own plant in Zhejiang, where the company has worked since 2002. Ask who is responsible for the bond between face and backing: here it is one company, not three.

Water. The material is closed through its thickness and the seams are welded, so water stays on top of it: a spilled bucket, a wet mop, a pipe that lets go in a corridor is a wipe-up, not a strip-out. It does not swell, and a welded joint does not wick along the run. That is why the same floor goes into hotel corridors, school canteens and boat interiors.

Sound. A woven vinyl floor takes noise out at the point where it is made: footfall, trolley wheels, chair castors. With the foam backing the impact result is ΔLw 21 dB to BS EN ISO 10140-3, which is the figure a corridor above a bedroom needs. Where a room also rings, the same weave on the wall carries the absorption, so floor and wall are specified as one system and the two numbers are read together.

The short version: where a floor has to take traffic in a long run and still look like a textile at close range, woven vinyl does a job the other three do not. Where a room needs a rated absorber in the ceiling zone, that is a different product, and it is covered below.

• Impact noise: ΔLw 21 dB, tested to BS EN ISO 10140-3. Write the standard next to the figure. A ΔLw number without its test method cannot be compared with the number in someone else’s tender. This is the figure that answers a corridor above a bedroom.
• Reaction to fire: Cfl-s1 for roll goods, Bfl-s1 for tiles, to EN 13501-1. The classification is per product and per backing, and it lives in the Declaration of Performance. Ask for the DoP for the product actually supplied, not for the range.
• Weight and thickness: 4 mm and 2,400 gsm for wall to wall, 3.20–3.50 mm and 4,350 gsm for tiles. These are the figures a fit-out contractor needs to price the job and a structural engineer needs to check the loading.
• Colour fastness: BS EN ISO 105-B02 for light, BS EN ISO 105-B04 for weathering. Both are worth naming in the specification. A colour that fades in a glazed corridor is a maintenance argument two years later.

A page that only lists advantages is no use to a specifier, so three things to plan for:

• Seams on two-tone qualities need the right hand. Cold welding closes a joint properly, and on two-tone yarns the weld calls for a fitter who has done it before. A joint made badly is visible for the life of the floor, so name the welder and ask for a reference job.
• Colour varies slightly across a roll, by nature. Two tones of yarn in the same colour family give the grain of a natural fibre; that is what makes the floor read as textile rather than print, and it is also why a full-width sample has to be seen before the order is placed.
• Edge details matter more than on a homogenous sheet. A closed welded joint will not collect soil at the wall; a butt joint will. Agree the detail at the wall, the column and the lift threshold at sample stage.

Five lines that will get you the right product:

1. Woven vinyl, PVC-coated polyester yarn, solution-dyed, 200 cm rolls to EN 426.
2. Backing: PVC foam, total thickness 4 mm, weight 2,400 gsm (or tile: 3.20–3.50 mm, 4,350 gsm, 50 × 50 cm).
3. Impact noise: ΔLw ≥ 21 dB to BS EN ISO 10140-3.
4. Reaction to fire: Cfl-s1 to EN 13501-1 (Bfl-s1 for tiles), CE marking to EN 14041 with DoP.
5. Seams: cold-welded, closed joint, by a fitter approved by the manufacturer.

Ask for six documents and three answers. Documents: CE DoP to EN 14041, EN 13501-1 classification, impact noise report to BS EN ISO 10140-3, colour fastness reports to BS EN ISO 105-B02 and B04, REACH statement, and the maintenance schedule for the product line.

Answers: who bonds the face to the backing (one company or three), how a single floor is kept to one dye lot, and what the minimum order is for a custom design. Stock qualities carry no minimum order and ship in 2 to 3 weeks; unique designs start at 1,000 m² and take 4 to 6 weeks.