How to Install Nordikka LVT: The Complete Gluedown Installation Guide

Gluedown LVT is the most refined way to fit a vinyl floor — every plank is permanently bonded to the subfloor, giving you a seamless finish that doesn’t shift, bounce or gap. It’s also the most demanding format to install correctly. Subfloor preparation, moisture control and adhesive selection matter more than the fitting itself, and the single biggest cause of failed LVT installations isn’t poor laying technique — it’s skipping the preparation.

This guide covers the gluedown installation method used for Nordikka Living, Nordikka Original, the gluedown format of Nordikka Select, and Tromso Herringbone LVT. If you’re fitting Nordikka Click SPC, the method is entirely different — see our Nordikka Click SPC installation guide instead. For Bodo Herringbone SPC, see our Bodo herringbone fitting guide.

A quick note before we start: gluedown LVT is genuinely better installed by a professional fitter for anything beyond a small room. The adhesive has an open time that catches first-time fitters out, and a 68kg articulated floor roller is not optional. This guide is written to help you understand what a good installation looks like — whether you’re fitting it yourself with prior experience, or briefing the fitter you’ve hired.

Before You Start: What You Need

The tools and materials for a gluedown Nordikka LVT installation are specific. Don’t improvise — the wrong adhesive or the wrong trowel will cost you the floor.

Materials: Nordikka LVT planks or tiles (with 10% wastage added for pattern matching and cuts), an approved LVT adhesive recommended by your supplier, a suitable smoothing compound for your subfloor type (minimum 3mm), and primer if the smoothing compound manufacturer specifies it.

Tools: A notched trowel of the size specified by the adhesive manufacturer (this is not a guess — get it right), a 68kg articulated floor roller (available to hire), a sharp utility knife with spare blades, a straight edge, a tape measure, a pencil, a chalk line for setting out, a hygrometer for moisture testing, and a vacuum cleaner.

Check on arrival: The planks should all be from the same batch — batch variation in LVT is subtle but visible once the floor is down. Check colours against your order, confirm quantities, and inspect for damage. For design floors or herringbone, identify each component before you begin. If anything’s wrong, don’t open the boxes — return them.

Subfloor Preparation: The Part That Matters Most

The surface you’re fitting onto must be clean, dry, level and structurally sound. Any contamination — oil, paint, old adhesive residue, preservative treatments, permanent marker — has to come off before the new adhesive goes down. Surface regularity must not deviate by more than 5mm over a 2m straight edge for standard plank installations. For intricate patterns like Tromso herringbone, the tolerance tightens to 3mm over 2m.

That 2mm difference between standard and herringbone sounds trivial. It isn’t. On a herringbone pattern, any subfloor dip telegraphs visually because the pattern meets at angles rather than straight joints.

Concrete and screed (BS 8204): Must have an effective damp-proof membrane. If there’s no DPM or the existing one is damaged, apply a surface DPM before anything else. A minimum 3mm smoothing compound is required before the LVT goes down. Power-floated concrete is deceptively smooth — adhesive struggles to bond to it, so shot-blast the surface first to remove the glazed top layer, then apply the smoothing compound. Curing agents and surface hardeners must not be used on power-floated concrete destined for LVT.

Gypsum, anhydrite and calcium sulphate screeds: These need special care. They require a specific primer before smoothing compound, and they’re prone to laitance on the surface that must be mechanically abraded off. If you’re not sure what type of screed you have, ask your adhesive supplier before committing — installation failures on these screeds typically happen below the vinyl and aren’t covered under warranty.

Timber subfloors: Existing floorboards should be sanded flat, loose boards nailed down, and the whole area overlaid with a minimum 5.5mm flooring-grade plywood conforming to EN 636-3 and EN 314-2 Class 3. Fix the plywood with staggered joints, 100mm centres along edges, 150mm centres across the field, and never more than 18mm from board edges. Let the plywood condition in the room for at least three days before fitting. Ventilation under suspended timber floors is critical — without airflow, the vinyl traps moisture and dry rot can develop beneath.

Ceramic tiles or terrazzo: Remove loose material, clean the surface thoroughly, fill cracks with resin-bonded cement/sand mix, and apply a 3mm smoothing compound over the top. Some terrazzo surfaces need mechanical abrasion first to give the smoothing compound something to key to.

Existing floor coverings: Don’t fit over them. Lift the old floor, remove as much of the old adhesive as possible, then apply smoothing compound. Failure to remove enough old adhesive causes the new smoothing compound to fail later. If the old floor was fitted before the 1990s, check for asbestos before disturbing it.

Moisture Testing — Non-Negotiable

Moisture is the most common cause of LVT installation failure. A floor that looks dry on the surface can be releasing moisture from below, which breaks down the adhesive and causes the planks to debond, bubble or shift months after installation.

Test every subfloor with a hygrometer over a 72-hour period. Relative humidity must be 75% or lower before you install. If it reads above 75%, apply a surface DPM before going any further.

For new concrete or screed, the rough rule of thumb is one month of drying per 25mm of thickness for the first 50mm, with proportionally more time for greater depths. A 150mm slab drying from one face can take up to twelve months. This is the main reason LVT installations on new-build floors fail: the screed simply isn’t dry yet.

Acclimating the Planks

Most installation failures aren’t caused by the fitting — they’re caused by skipping acclimation. Nordikka planks, any plywood overlay, and the adhesive itself all need to sit in the room they’ll be installed in for at least 24 hours before fitting begins, so they stabilise to the room’s temperature and humidity.

Room temperature should be between 18°C and 27°C, and — more importantly — constant. Don’t acclimate in a room that drops 10°C overnight. If the planks were delivered or stored below 10°C, extend the acclimation period to at least 48 hours.

Boxes should be stacked no more than five high during acclimation, and the planks themselves removed from their boxes 30 minutes before fitting. In rooms with south-facing windows, patio doors, bi-fold doors or conservatories, shade or cover the glazing during acclimation, installation, and for 24 hours afterwards. The temperature swing from direct sunlight through glass is enough to distort acclimated planks.

Installing Over Underfloor Heating

Nordikka LVT is compatible with underfloor heating, but the installation sequence is specific and getting it wrong voids the warranty. These rules apply to both water-based and electric UFH systems:

Before installation: The UFH system must be fully commissioned and tested before the flooring goes down. Switch it off and let it fully cool for at least 48 hours before installation begins.

During installation: The UFH system stays off and fully cooled throughout the install, and for a minimum of 48 hours afterwards. Don’t be tempted to “just turn it on low” to dry the adhesive — this is the single fastest way to cause the floor to fail.

After installation: Bring the system back up to working temperature gradually over several days — small incremental increases rather than straight to full heat. Maximum subfloor temperature at the adhesive line must never exceed 27°C, regardless of how cold the room feels.

Adhesive selection for UFH: Only specialist high-temperature or epoxy adhesives should be used with underfloor heating. The same applies to rooms with direct sunlight or high solar gain. Standard LVT adhesives soften at sustained higher temperatures and lose their grip — the floor shifts, gaps appear, and the warranty is void. Ask your adhesive supplier for a UFH-rated product before you buy.

Fitting Tromso Herringbone LVT

Tromso Herringbone LVT is gluedown herringbone — a pattern format that gives you the most refined parquet finish but demands more attention than a straight plank layout. The subfloor tolerance tightens to 3mm over 2m (not 5mm), and the starting point is not the same as for standard planks.

Herringbone is laid off a centre line rather than from the longest wall. Establish the centre of the room, snap a chalk line, and dry-lay a few rows along that line before committing to the adhesive. Check that the pattern meets cleanly at the margins and that the tile directions are consistent throughout.

Some herringbone tiles have directional arrows on the reverse — if yours do, every tile must be laid in the correct orientation, or the pattern will visibly go off at intervals. This is where professional installation becomes genuinely valuable. A fitter who’s done herringbone before will spot misalignments that a first-time installer won’t see until the adhesive is cured.

For a detailed overview of how Tromso compares to its click-SPC sister Bodo Herringbone SPC, see our Nordikka herringbone flooring guide.

Setting Out and Laying the Floor

Start by preparing the work area. All other trades should be finished and their equipment removed. Vacuum the subfloor thoroughly — any grit trapped in the adhesive will telegraph as bumps through the floor. Stone or power-grind any ridges or nibs from cementitious subfloors. Record your moisture reading as a best-practice installation record.

Traditionally, tiling starts from the centre of the room, but if the room is an irregular shape, you may need to square up from the longest wall or a prominent feature like a kitchen island. Dry-lay a section first to confirm the pattern reads correctly and to make sure the end cuts at either side will be an acceptable size — never fit a room where the final row would be less than 150mm wide.

For planks (Living, Original, Select gluedown), you can begin from an end wall rather than the centre, but plank ends must be staggered to avoid a repeating pattern — never align end joints closer than 150mm apart in adjacent rows. Minimum plank cut length is also 150mm; shorter cuts look untidy and behave badly.

Spread the adhesive with the correct notch-size trowel, working in sections sized so the adhesive stays within its open time. Don’t be tempted to spread ahead of where you’re laying — if the adhesive skins over before the plank goes on, the bond fails. If you’re using a pressure-sensitive adhesive, flatten the notch ridges with a lambswool roller pre-wetted with adhesive to prevent “grin-through” where the trowel pattern telegraphs through the finished floor.

When a section is laid, roll it thoroughly in both directions with a 68kg articulated floor roller. This isn’t cosmetic — the roller presses the planks into the adhesive bed and expels air. Skipping this step produces a floor that looks fine on day one and lifts at the edges a month later.

Leave the last full plank and perimeter cuts unglued until you’ve sized them, then glue, lay and roll them as a final step.

After Installation

Don’t put furniture back immediately. Gluedown adhesive needs time to cure — typically 24 to 48 hours depending on the product — before the floor can take full load. Follow the adhesive manufacturer’s instructions rather than guessing.

Before the floor sees daily use, read our Nordikka flooring aftercare guide for what to do (and what to avoid) in the first few weeks. Using the wrong cleaning product in the first month can dull the finish permanently. Retain three spare planks from your installation batch for warranty purposes, and keep your purchase receipt and installation records together.

Why We Recommend Professional Installation

Nordikka Living, Original and Select gluedown are all realistically fittable by a confident DIYer on a small, well-prepared floor. Larger rooms, poor subfloors, underfloor heating, or herringbone patterns all push the difficulty up sharply. Tromso herringbone specifically — where getting the pattern right matters more than the adhesive — is a job we always recommend giving to a professional fitter.

If you’d prefer the whole job handled for you, Grosvenor Flooring offers a full supply and fit service across Cheshire and South Manchester, including Nordikka installations.

Shop Nordikka and Order Free Samples

As an approved UK online retailer for Nordikka, we stock the complete Nordikka flooring collection with full online pricing and direct checkout. Every product page shows a clear price per square metre — no quote requests, no calls required.

Before you commit, order up to 5 free samples from the website and we’ll post them to you at no cost. Compare colours, textures and plank formats in your own space before buying. If you’d like to see the full range at scale, our Altrincham showroom displays the complete Nordikka collection — it operates on a 24/7 smart-lock system, so you can visit whenever suits you, including evenings and weekends.

For more on Nordikka specifications, see our Nordikka ranges explained guide. If you’re still weighing Nordikka against premium alternatives, read our Nordikka vs Amtico vs Karndean comparison. For a candid product assessment, our Nordikka flooring review covers durability, design and value. And to find your nearest stockist with transparent online pricing, see where to buy Nordikka flooring.