6 Ways to Cut Vinyl Flooring | Beginners Guide

What is vinyl flooring?

Vinyl flooring refers to the flooring produced with PVC materials. Specifically, it is produced by taking polyvinyl chloride and its copolymer resin as the main raw material, adding fillers, plasticizers, stabilizers, colorants and other auxiliary materials on sheet continuous substrate through coating process or calendering, extrusion or extrusion process

Also known as “light floor material”, it is a very popular new type of light floor decoration material in the world and widely used, such as houses, hospitals, schools, office buildings, factories, public places, supermarkets, businesses, etc.

Other name: PVC flooring, homogeneous & heterogeneous vinyl flooring.

If you are installing vinyl flooring for the first time knowing how to make the right cuts is a key to a successful installation. A good vinyl flooring cutting will definitely help to make your installation easier. 

In this article we will show you how to make all the cuts that you will need to get it right and the tools that you need to do it. There are 6 ways to cut vinyl flooring; and 4 flooring cutting tips. 

 It’s an in-depth article that takes 15 minutes to read.

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6 Ways to Cut Vinyl Flooring & 4 Vinyl Flooring cutting tips

1) Cutting to length

The cut that you are going to be making the most is cutting a flooring to length, that’s because the side is always smaller than a full length vinyl flooring so an easy way to do that is to go ahead and use a tape measure. Then you can use utility knife to cut it. Please use carpenter square during cutting. The carpenter can help you cut the line straight.

Utility knife is good enough normally. 

Just in case it is rigid core like SPC, you can use handsaw. 

Or circular saw & jigsaw

vinyl flooring cutting with utility knife
Utility knife
hand saw
Hand saw
circular saw
Circular saw
jigsaw
Jigsaw

2) Cutting to width

This is not often to do, but you might need to do it at the beginning of the install or at the end of the installation.

It will be the same as cutting to length. First make the measurement, and then just cut it with utility knife.

cutting on width
Utility knife
circular saw cuttting to width
circular saw

3) Notches on corners

There are always notches on corners during vinyl flooring installation. You will need to be more careful to measure the corner size. Actually the most difficult thing is size measuring. The cutting will be more or less the same as the other cuttings.

Notches on corners
notches on corners 2

4) Notches on sides

Notches on sides will be more complicated than notches on corners. So the most important thing is the same size measuring.

Notches on sides

5) Cutting curves

When you need to install the bathroom vinyl flooring, especially around toilet. Then you will need to cut curves. Basically the size measuring is not that difficult, but you will need to be more careful in cutting.

Cutting curves

6) Cutting holes

Cutting holes are easy. Please take a paper, measure the hole size on paper. Then cut the paper the same size as the hole, and finally cut the flooring following the cut paper.

Cutting holes

Vinyl flooring cutting tips 1: Please buy 10% extra area when you buy the flooring.

Please buy 10% extra area when you buy the flooring.

Cause there will be

Flooring waste in cutting

Flooring waste in cutting mistake

Flooring broken in cutting.

More is always better than not enough. You don’t want to stop installing and then go back to the stores and buy flooring the other day. Which will waste your time.

Vinyl flooring cutting tips 2: Undercut is always better than overcut

Please always do not overcut the vinyl floor, orelse the whole piece will be a waste. If you are not confident about the cutting, please always undercut it, and then step by step to cut the extra piece until it finally fit your area.

This tip is particularly important for sheet vinyl flooring. Cause you don’t want to waste a large piece of vinyl flooring roll. 

Vinyl flooring cutting tips 3: Tools suggestion

Of course the more tools you have, the better. But every tool needs cost.

In order to save cost:

If it is basic DIY, below will be tools you need:

Tape measure

Pencil/marker

Carpenter square

Utility knife

But if the flooring is hard, such as rigid core SPC, you might need hand saw.

If there are lots of cutting of that, you might need jigsaw.

Vinyl flooring cutting tips 4: use paper template

There are so many suggestions on measurement, it might be easy to understand for someone, but it might be complicated for others. After many years installation experience, we found a suggestion that it is easy to understand and easy to do for all the installer, no matter you are experienced or beginner: that is use a piece of paper or paper board.

Mark the installation area size on the paper

Cut the paper according to the installation area

Cut the vinyl floors according to the cut paper

In this case you will at most waste a piece of paper, while the vinyl flooring cutting will be always accurate.

2 videos showing you how to use paper template

This article is written by Longda Flooring (www.longdaflooring.com), the largest vinyl sheet flooring manufacturer from China

Please contact Longda flooring for a free quote on your vinyl flooring needs. We have quick response, efficient communication, quality products, on time delivery, and competitive price.

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