# Miller's Wholesale Flooring — full article library > Every guide and blog post from https://millerswholesaleflooring.com in > plain text. Business facts, hours, and the page index live in > https://millerswholesaleflooring.com/llms.txt. Each article below is headed by its canonical URL. --- # Floor Cleaning Tips and Products URL: https://millerswholesaleflooring.com/floorcleaningtips ## Cleaning hardwood Floor cleaning tips that keep your hardwood beautiful for years! Hardwood Flooring can bring an authentic warm beauty and value to your home. Follow these recommendations to enhance the performance of your hardwood floor! This will prolong the lifetime of your materials and ultimately protect your investment. It is durable and with the right care, it can last for decades! Proper Maintenance is essential, and can be quick and easy! ### Step one: eliminate debris Before we get your floor to shine as it did when it was brand new, we have to be sure the flooring is completely clear of any dirt, dust, and debris that has accumulated over time. This routine cleaning involves sweeping, dust mopping, or vacuuming using the bare floor setting. How often you do this will be dependent on how trafficked the area is or if you have pets or children in the home! Typically it is best to do this at least once a week! ### Step two: deep clean Once your area is dust free you are ready to remove all the buildup and grime that has settled. It's best to use a cleaner made specifically for the finish on the floor. Most hardwood manufactures recommend Bona® Hardwood Floor Cleaner. When using a cleaning product for hardwood always be sure to refer to the directions on how to use, so that you do not damage the finish on your flooring! The old vinegar and baking soda will also do the trick! After you have your cleaning solution ready it's time to get down and dirty! Dip a hand sponge or sponge mop into the cleaner and ring it out thoroughly to eliminate any excess water! The goal is the get the mop damp rather than wet. Continue to mop and rinse until the water becomes clear again. Sometimes light scratching can turn into a deep cavity. If this is the case you can use wood putty rather than just a stain pen. This play-dough like substance can be used to fill the hole as if it was never there. We recommend wood putty for deep scratches, nail holes, and imperfections in the flooring. These products can be found at local hardware stores as well as through big box stores such as Lowe's and Home Depot. ### Step three: polish it off Now that everything is mopped, you must be sure to take a clean towel and dry up any areas that have excess moisture or liquid so that it does not damage the integrity of the flooring. The next step is dependent to what type of finish your hardwood flooring has. If you have a floor with a matte finish, you are finished after you dry the area with the clean towel! For floors that have a high gloss or sheen you may want to use a wood polish for a deep shine and follow the manufacturer's instructions for use. Some people also like to use boiling water with two tea bags. The tannic acid in the tea reacts with your hardwood to create a beautiful natural shine. ### Hardwood tips + tricks Although hardwood can be everlasting when taken care of properly, it can still endure dings, dents and scratches over time. This can be frustrating as well as unappealing to look at. To prevent these things from happening we recommend using door mats to eliminate the amount of dust or moisture tracked in, throw rugs in frequented areas to protect the finish, and floor protectors on furniture to keep from scratching. If you already have some spots in your flooring that bother you, NO FRET! Wood is a raw material that can be easily repaired under the right circumstances. For scratches that show up on the floor we suggest finding a wood stain pen that matches and just coloring the scratch. Most hardwood has a variation of colors in the stain so we suggest finding two that match your color the best so you can use them in the areas necessary and it will look completely natural. ## Cleaning carpet Carpet can add comfort to your home especially in bedrooms, offices, play rooms, storage areas and more! It is also a great way to save on the cost of your flooring as the materials are typically less than any hard surface available. ### Routine cleaning Carpet requires a deep cleaning every 12 to 18 months, however, allowing dust, soil particles, and other debris to sit on your carpet will only cause it to look dull and retain odor. You will want to be sure to follow a routine cleaning to extend the life of your carpet! For a stain, gently clean up as much as you can with a spoon, or a dull knife, then add water and blot, using dish detergent sparingly if needed. Once you have wiped the spot, use a vacuum on the strongest suction setting to clean the area. If the spot remains after cleaning, moisten tufts in the stained area with 3% hydrogen peroxide and let stand for one hour. Blot and repeat until completely clean. If a stain remover is needed, use a product approved by The Carpet and Rug Institute of America. Apply several drops to a clean white cloth and blot the carpet in an inconspicuous area. If you notice a change in the carpet color, consult a professional carpet cleaner. For extensive water damage, consult professional cleaners to dry your carpet from the front to back. If your has a burn, simply remove the singed area with curved fingernail scissors. If the burn is extensive, you may need to patch or replace it. You will want to vacuum your carpet at least once a week to keep things from embedding into the fibers. It could be more often than that if you have children or pets in your home! The type of carpet you have will determine the vacuum setting you want to use. You will use the lowest setting for bare or low pile carpet, a medium setting for plush carpet, and the highest setting for a high pile, shag carpet. While vacuuming, there should be minimal resistance- if it is hard to push and pull change the setting! Use scissors to clip sprouts and snags! Try to refrain from pulling them with your fingers—you might damage the carpet further and it will be more visible. Remove heavy furniture dents by stroking the dented area with the edge of a coin. You can also loosen the fibers by using a hair dryer or a steam iron, but be very careful not to touch the carpet with the iron. ## Vinyl cleaning: sheeting, planks, tiles ### Vinyl sheeting (linoleum) When cleaning vinyl sheeting, use a soft bristle broom to remove loose dirt and then use a damp mop or spray mop such a a Bona or Swiffer to clean any residues that have adhered to the surface. You will want to use a cleaning solution that is meant for vinyl flooring and follow the manufacture's directions to use. It is important to use the correct solution for vinyl as it will be a different ratio than a hardwood, or a ceramic cleaner to prevent leaving a film on the floor. You will want to avoid any wet mopping, or steam cleaning as this can cause the glue underneath to melt and the floor could bubble or start folding around the edges. Since this type of flooring is in one sheet you will want to use furniture pads and floor mats to protect your flooring from scratches and tears. Always be sure to lift furniture completely off of the floor when moving it to refrain from tearing your material. ### Vinyl tiles + planks Similar to cleaning vinyl sheeting, you will want to sweep with a soft bristle broom and then use a damp or spray mop to clean the flooring. The same vinyl cleaner can be used on sheeting, planks, and tiles as they are all the same materials, just manufactured differently! Vinyl Planks and Tiles typically have a thicker wear layer than the sheeting does, so it may clean up easier dependent on what types of textures your flooring may have. Some styles have a bevel which is the place in which you see the planks connect. A concern that is brought up more often than not is if this bevel makes the flooring harder to clean? The answer is NO! Of all the products we have installed in the past with the bevel have never had a complaint. Although this product is durable, we suggest avoiding a vacuum with a beater bar. Vinyl Planks and Tiles are one of the easiest products to clean and upkeep! --- # How to Prepare for Installation Day URL: https://millerswholesaleflooring.com/installationpreparation Whether it be part of a larger remodel, or just a quick update to your space, purchasing new flooring is always exciting. Likely it is an investment you have been wanting to make and the time has finally come to get ready for installation! Home projects can be overwhelming, and properly preparing your home will help calm your stress on installation day. Continue reading to learn the best steps to take to prepare your home for your new flooring installation! ## Lived in homes ### #1 Clear the area If you are redoing the flooring in a particular part of the house and have a place to store your belongings, it is ideal to have everything moved there before your installation date. To set your install crew up for success, it is essential to: - Remove all items from the floor - Remove any breakable items from shelves, or walls - Make prior arrangements to move sizable items Refrigerator, Stove, Washer, Dryer, Pool Table, Piano, ETC. - Cover anything in the home you do not want to get dusty/dirty *Bonus Points if you pull the toilet if you are getting a bathroom done! ### #2 Create a designated workspace Sawdust is inevitable and its likely a cleaning will be necessary after your new flooring is installed, so providing a designated work area helps keep this to a minimum. There will need to be a large enough space to set tools the installers use to resize materials. A garage, empty driveway, or even deck is ideal. By providing a clear workspace you set your installers up for seamless work and less downtime. *Bonus points if you can direct a designated area to store your materials outside of the area where the flooring is being installed! ### #3 Provide furniture pads Once your new flooring is installed you will be eager to move all of your furniture back to where it was and reset the rooms. Whether this be an add on you have asked of your installers, or something you plan to tackle when they are gone, we highly recommend using furniture pads. Furniture pads will protect your beautiful new flooring from any scuffs or scratches! *Bonus points if you already have them attached to your furniture! ### #4 Prepare for the unexpected This step especially applies to anyone who plans to tear out existing floor before installation. Sometimes you run into small issues, like leveling, or small gaps. Other times you run into issues like water damage, mold, or rotting in a subfloor. No matter how big or small the issue may be, it is important to be prepared to tackle them head on so that it doesn't push you back in your installation process. For leveling or gap issues, it is recommended to patch those areas to a smooth surface with Feather Finish. Some installers can handle some subfloor issues, but otherwise you will want to hire a contractor to repair those before your new flooring goes down. *Bonus points if have patience with your contractors during the unexpected! ## New construction ### #5 Complete all other remodeling For new construction or remodeled homes, you will want to complete any other inside finishes before the flooring is installed. By painting and trimming the walls, setting cabinets, and having your other finishing touches completed, you will minimize the possibility of the flooring being damaged before move in. It also will minimize the amount of work crews walking on your new flooring. If everything is mostly done, you should only have your builder or subcontractors being sure all the work is finished. *Bonus points if you make sure all crews come at different times so no one is on top of each other. ### #6 Clean the floor This step is the most time consuming and tedious of the entire flooring process. Typically remodels and new constructions are a mess by the time the flooring crew is set to come in and they have to clean up after everyone. Installers appreciate any prep done before installation day. To ensure seamless installation you will need to: - Use a scraper on the subfloor to remove any surfaced staples or dried up plaster - Use a crow bar to remove any loose nails - Sand down uneven joints - Shop vac the entire area until there is no dust or debris *Bonus points if you do ANY of the following steps before the installers arrive! --- # Do You Need Underlayment Under LVP? URL: https://millerswholesaleflooring.com/blog/2026/8/25/do-you-need-underlayment-under-lvp Published: 2026-08-25 Usually, no. Most luxury vinyl plank sold today already has a pad bonded to the bottom of the plank at the factory, and over a sound wood subfloor that pad is doing the job on its own. Buying a second layer there is nice, not necessary. Over a concrete slab, our answer changes. There we recommend adding underlayment underneath the plank anyway, and we'll explain exactly why below. That's the short version. Here's the longer one, subfloor by subfloor, because this is the question we get asked at the counter in Madisonville more than almost any other question about vinyl plank. ## What does underlayment actually do? Underlayment is a thin roll of foam, felt, or cork that goes down between your subfloor (the structural deck under your finished floor) and the flooring itself. It does four things, and it's worth separating them, because most of the confusion around this question comes from treating them as one: - Cushion. It takes the hardness out of a floor you stand on. - Sound. It absorbs the hollow click a floating floor can make and keeps footsteps from carrying into the room below. - Moisture. A proper underlayment over concrete acts as a barrier between the slab and your floor. - Minor smoothing. It hides very small imperfections in the surface underneath. Nobody notices a quiet floor. That's the point. ## Does LVP come with underlayment already attached? Most of it does. On the vast majority of planks we sell, there's a thin pad, usually cork or foam, glued to the bottom of the plank before it ever reaches us. It's part of the plank, not something you install separately. That attached pad is why the honest answer to "do I need underlayment" is usually no. It already cushions, quiets, and smooths over the small stuff. If you want the whole cross-section of a plank explained layer by layer, including the three pad types we've seen hold up best, we took one apart in What Is LVP Made Of? ## Do you need underlayment for LVP over a wood subfloor? Nice, but not necessary. Over a sound wood subfloor, a plank with an attached pad has what it needs. Adding a layer underneath will make the floor a little softer and a little quieter, and if those things matter to you in a bedroom or an upstairs room, it's a reasonable thing to buy. It is not something we'll tell you that you have to have, and we're not going to add it to your material list and hope you don't ask. ## Do you need underlayment for LVP on a concrete slab? Here, yes. This is the one install where we actively recommend it. Concrete gives off moisture. A slab that looks bone dry can still pass water vapor up through itself for years, and that vapor has to go somewhere once there's a floor sitting on it. An underlayment made for concrete adds a real moisture barrier between the slab and your plank, on top of whatever the plank's attached pad already provides. The other two reasons are comfort ones, and on a slab they matter more than people expect. Concrete is hard and concrete is cold. A floor laid straight onto it feels like what it's laid on. The extra layer adds softness underfoot and takes the echo out of the room, and in a basement or a slab-on-grade house that difference is the difference between a room you use and a room you walk through. Over concrete, we treat underlayment as part of the floor, not an upgrade to it. There is a specific underlayment we use over concrete on our own installs. Ask us about it when you're pricing a slab project and we'll show you the one we mean. ## Does glue-down LVP need underlayment? No, and this one is not a judgment call. Glue-down never gets an underlayment. A glue-down floor is bonded directly to the substrate with adhesive, so by design there is nothing in between. Putting a soft, compressible layer under a floor that is meant to be stuck down works against the whole point of the install. It's worth saying plainly, because underlayment is one of the easier things to buy for the wrong kind of job. Everything else on this page is about floating floors, the click-together kind that rest on the subfloor rather than bond to it. If your floor is going down in adhesive, skip the underlayment line entirely and put the attention into the substrate underneath it. ## Can you put underlayment under LVP that already has a pad? It depends on the plank, and we mean that as a real answer rather than a dodge. Some floors take a thin underlayment underneath without any trouble. On others it's the wrong move, and the reasons come down to the specific product rather than to any rule that covers all vinyl plank. This is one of the places where the advice you find online is confidently wrong in both directions, because whoever wrote it was thinking about one floor and you're buying a different one. Check the spec sheet that comes with your plank. Manufacturers spell out what is allowed underneath their product, and installing against it can affect your warranty. That is not a thing you want to learn the boundaries of after the floor is down. If you bought your plank from us, you don't have to go hunting for the answer. Tell us which floor you're looking at and we'll tell you what belongs under it. ## What underlayment will not fix This is the part worth reading twice, because it's where we see floors fail. Underlayment can quiet a floor and warm it. It cannot flatten it. A click-together plank floor needs a flat surface underneath, and flat is not the same as level. Level is about slope. Flat is about humps and dips. A floating floor bridges a dip instead of filling it, and every step across that bridge works the click joints against each other until they separate, peak, or start making noise. That is the single most common way we see a vinyl plank floor come apart, and it happens with WPC and SPC alike. A quarter inch of foam does not solve a subfloor problem. It hides it for a season. If the slab or the deck under your floor has humps or dips, they get ground down or filled before anything goes on top, and that's true whether you're buying underlayment or not. We wrote up what that prep actually involves in Floor Preparation and Installation. ## What does underlayment cost? Relative to the floor itself, not much. Underlayment is one of the smaller numbers on a flooring quote, and on a concrete slab it's the one we'd argue hardest to keep on the list, because it's buying you a moisture barrier and daily comfort for a fraction of what the plank costs. Over a wood subfloor, it's the opposite conversation. If the budget is tight and the subfloor is sound, this is a line you can cut without hurting the floor. We'd rather you put that money toward a 20 mil wear layer, which is the number that decides how your floor looks in five years, than toward padding a floor that's already padded. If you're still deciding between plank types, WPC vs SPC: Which One Should You Buy? covers that call. ## The short answers - Plank with an attached pad, over a sound wood subfloor? You don't need extra underlayment. Buy it if you want a softer, quieter room. - Any plank, over a concrete slab? Add it. Moisture barrier, warmth, and quiet, and we'll point you at the one we use. - Glue-down install? No underlayment, ever. It bonds straight to the substrate. - Adding one under a plank that already has a pad? Depends on the plank. Check its spec sheet, or tell us which floor it is and we'll tell you. - Uneven subfloor? Underlayment is not the answer. Flatten it first. Bring us the room and the subfloor and we'll tell you which of those you're in, including the times the answer saves you money. Come see the LVP lines we carry and install in the Madisonville showroom, or request a free estimate and we'll come measure and bring samples with us. --- # WPC vs SPC Flooring: Which One Should You Buy? URL: https://millerswholesaleflooring.com/blog/2026/8/12/wpc-vs-spc-flooring-which-one-should-you-buy Published: 2026-08-12 For the home you live in, buy WPC. For a commercial space, a rental, or a flip, SPC is often the smarter check to write. That's the short answer, and it's the same one we give across the counter in Madisonville every week. But this matchup comes up so often at the shop that we've started calling it what it is: a title fight. So before we break down the film, the introductions. Flooring out of the left corner! Coming in from Madisonville, Tennessee by way of box truck. The undisputed LVP champion of the world: WPC! And flooring out of the right corner! Coming in once again from Madisonville, by way of the very same box truck, the challenger: SPC! Both fighters are luxury vinyl plank. Both are waterproof straight through. They train in the same warehouse and they ride to your house on the same truck. The only real difference between them is the core in the middle of the plank, and that one difference decides which floor belongs in which building. Here's the tale of the tape. ## What's the difference between WPC and SPC? Every luxury vinyl plank is a stack: a clear wear layer you walk on, a printed woodgrain under it, a core in the middle, and usually a pad on the bottom. WPC and SPC are identical everywhere except that core, which is why the tape reads so differently on the two of them. - WPC, the champ, stands for wood-plastic composite. The vinyl core is foamed with a wood-flour agent, so the plank fights at a heavier weight: thicker, warmer, quieter, and a little forgiving underfoot. - SPC, the challenger, stands for stone-plastic composite. The vinyl core is loaded with powdered limestone, so the plank is lean and hard: dense, thin, and rigid. [Photo: Tale of the tape comparison of WPC and SPC luxury vinyl plank: two exploded plank stacks over a five-row table comparing feel, sound, core, insulation, and dent resistance, with WPC softer, quieter, thicker, and more insulating, and SPC firmer, denser, and more dent resistant] Neither one contains boards of wood or slabs of stone. Both are engineered vinyl, and both stand up to real household traffic. If you want the full stack explained layer by layer, we took a plank apart in What Is LVP Made Of? ## Which is better for a home, WPC or SPC? WPC, and for us this isn't a split decision. A house is a long fight, and the championship rounds here are East Tennessee's seasons: thick summer humidity into dry winter heat, year after year. Every floor in the region expands and contracts with those swings, and this is where the champ's conditioning shows. A WPC core rides that movement out and stays flat, tight, and quiet into the late rounds. We've watched WPC floors go the distance through Tennessee seasons where SPC struggles, and on a wood subfloor the gap gets wider: WPC will outlast SPC there by a good margin. WPC also wins the rounds you actually live in. It's warmer to bare feet, softer when you're standing at the sink, and quieter when a kid drops something. Those are small points on day one and a wide scorecard in year six. For the home you live in, the champ keeps the belt: WPC, by unanimous decision. ## Is SPC more durable than WPC? This is the challenger's best punch, and it deserves a straight answer. SPC's limestone core is harder, so it resists dents from a dropped pan or a chair leg a little better. SPC is very hard to dent. So is a sidewalk. Whether you want to live on one is a different question. Here's what the punch stats don't show: dents aren't what wears a floor out. Floors lose the fight from the top down, and the number that decides how long the finish survives kids, dogs, and grit is the wear layer, the clear coating on top, measured in mils (thousandths of an inch). A 20 mil wear layer on a WPC plank will outlast a thin wear layer on the hardest SPC ever made. One big punch doesn't win a twelve-round fight. For the home you live in, get at least a 20 mil wear layer and put your attention there. ## When is SPC the right buy? Every good fighter has a weight class where they're dangerous, and we'll be the first to say there are fights the challenger wins clean. - Commercial spaces. This is SPC's home arena. For storefronts and offices we spec SPC installed glue-down, not floating, so rolling loads and all-day traffic land on a floor that's anchored to the slab. In a commercial building, SPC takes the belt. - Rentals and flips. A floating SPC goes down fast, performs well over a flat, level slab, and costs less. We keep 12 mil SPCs in stock for exactly this buyer, because a rental floor needs to be presentable and replaceable, not permanent. - Tight budgets. If the numbers only work with SPC, a floating SPC is an honest floor we'll happily sell you. It beats stretching for a floor that strains the rest of the project. ## Which costs more, WPC or SPC? WPC generally runs more per square foot than SPC, and whether that purse is worth paying depends entirely on whose feet will be on the floor. Flipping a property or outfitting a rental? The math favors SPC, buy the SPC. Flooring the house you'll live in for the next twenty years? The difference disappears into the years you don't spend replacing it, and with our wholesale pricing a 20 mil WPC from us often lands near what a thinner plank costs at a big box store. One more venue where this fight gets decided around here: lake houses. A home sitting on Tellico Lake lives at the humid end of an already humid region, which is exactly the condition the champ trains for. We wrote up the whole reasoning in What's the Best Flooring for a Lake House? The easiest way to score this fight yourself is to stand on both. We keep both fighters on the floor of our LVP lineup at the showroom in Madisonville, and you'll feel the difference in about ten seconds. Bring your room measurements, or request a free estimate and we'll bring the samples to you. Ringside seats are free. --- # What's the Best Flooring for a Lake House? URL: https://millerswholesaleflooring.com/blog/2026/8/11/what-s-the-best-flooring-for-a-lake-house Published: 2026-08-11 The best flooring for a lake house is luxury vinyl plank, and we say that as a shop that has sold and installed every kind of floor since 1970. LVP is waterproof, it shrugs off wet swimsuits and dripping dogs, and it's the most affordable of the floors that can honestly live next to water. We floor lake homes on Tellico Lake all the time, in Tellico Village, Rarity Bay, and Kahite, and LVP is what we put in most of them. Here's the reasoning, and the honest exceptions. ## Why LVP is the best flooring next to water A lake house floor gets treated differently than any other floor, and it should. The whole point of the place is going in and out of the water. Kids come through in wet swimsuits. The dog shakes off at the door. Towels land where they land. A floor that makes you manage all of that isn't serving the house, it's running it. Luxury vinyl plank is 100% waterproof through the plank itself. Not water-resistant, waterproof: the core is vinyl and won't swell, cup, or stain from surface water the way wood and laminate will. You come in off the dock, you drip, you wipe it up whenever you get to it. That's the correct amount of worry for a lake house floor, which is none. If you plan on wearing out a boat or a jet ski, put LVP in the house. ## Does luxury vinyl plank look fake? Not anymore, and this surprises people who remember the vinyl of twenty years ago. The product has evolved to the point where guests will kneel down and touch the floor before they believe it isn't wood. Good planks pair a high-resolution woodgrain print with embossed texture that follows the grain, so it feels like what it shows. There's real thickness underfoot, and vinyl is noticeably warmer to bare feet than tile. Bare feet are most of what a lake house floor sees from May to September. If you want to know exactly what's inside a plank, layer by layer, we wrote the full cross-section up in What Is LVP Made Of? ## What about lake humidity? This is the part most flooring advice skips, and it matters more on the water than anywhere else. East Tennessee already swings from humid summers to dry winter heat, and a house sitting on a lake lives at the humid end of that range. Floors expand and contract with those swings, and a floor that can't move gracefully will gap, peak, or click apart. That's why our pick for lake homes is specifically WPC luxury vinyl plank, the kind built on a wood-plastic composite core. WPC handles seasonal movement much better than its rigid cousin SPC, and we've watched it hold up beautifully through Tennessee seasons where SPC struggles. Pair it with a 20 mil wear layer (the clear coating you walk on; the minimum we recommend for a home) and the floor is ready for sand, claws, and traffic too. ## Where hardwood and carpet still belong in a lake house We've been installing hardwood since 1970 and we love it, so here's the honest boundary: keep it away from the water door. In a lake house, hardwood makes sense in an upstairs, a study, or a bedroom wing where wet traffic never goes. On the main floor, between the kitchen and the dock, it's the wrong tool no matter how good it looks on day one. Carpet still finishes bedrooms right. Warm, quiet, and nobody walks in from the lake wearing flippers. A very common lake-house package for us is WPC through the whole main level and carpet in the bedrooms. ## What does lake house flooring cost? LVP is the most affordable of the floors that genuinely belong next to water. It runs well under hardwood and under tile once you count installation, and with our wholesale pricing, a 20 mil WPC from us often lands near what a thinner plank costs at a big box store. Where the cheap options cut corners is the wear layer, and that's the corner that decides how the floor looks in five years. Pay for the wear layer, not the picture. If you're putting flooring in a lake house anywhere around Tellico Lake, get our price. The showroom is in Madisonville, about 20 minutes from the Village, and the estimate is free. Bring your square footage, or we'll come measure. --- # What Does Wholesale Flooring Actually Mean? The Story Behind Our Name URL: https://millerswholesaleflooring.com/blog/2026/8/10/what-does-wholesale-flooring-actually-mean-the-story-behind-our-name Published: 2026-08-10 Miller's Wholesale Flooring is not a warehouse, and we are not the cheapest floor store in East Tennessee. Both of those are on purpose. The "Wholesale" in our name is a promise about pricing on premium products, and it has been on our sign for generations. If you found us searching for wholesale flooring, here is exactly what that word means when you buy from us, and what it doesn't. ## Why is it called Miller's Wholesale Flooring? Because the name grew up with the business. In 1970, John Miller quit his factory job and started selling carpet out of his garage. By 1973 it was official: John Miller's Carpet Sales. In 1989, John and his son Mitch opened the storefront in Madisonville, Tennessee and put Miller's Wholesale Carpet on the sign. That's the name this community knew us by for decades. In 2019 it changed one last time, to Miller's Wholesale Flooring, because by then the family was selling and installing a lot more than carpet. And yes, the sign on the building still says Miller's Wholesale Carpet. That's the photo up top. Changing it is on the docket, I swear. Today the third generation of Miller craftsmen is learning the trade in that same store. People still ask what the "Wholesale" part means. Honestly, it confuses folks sometimes. Some days it confuses us. But the promise behind it has never changed: premium products at wholesale prices. ## What does wholesale pricing mean at Miller's? Here's how our pricing actually works, and we'll just tell you straight: we put the same flat markup on everything in the store. The big job and the small job. The plank sitting in our warehouse and the custom order we freight in for one room. Nobody gets robbed to subsidize somebody else's deal. That's what "wholesale" means on our sign. One more thing that keeps our pricing honest: nobody here works on sales commission. The person helping you pick a floor doesn't make a dime more by steering you to the expensive one. When we recommend the pricier plank, it's because your project needs it, and when the cheaper one will serve you just as well, we'll say so. What we will not do is sell you a box of junk to win on price. We are a premium floor store. We stock high-end products from brands we trust, the 20 mil and up LVP we recommend for homes, hardwood we'd put in our own houses. The cheapest floor in the building is usually the most expensive one over ten years. Wholesale pricing on premium products: that's the whole idea. ## Can anyone buy from a wholesale flooring store? At Miller's, yes. No contractor's license, no account, no minimum order. Walk in, look at floors, buy floors. We are primarily a retail store and always have been. A true wholesaler sells to other stores, and while that happens here now and then, it's rare. If you can find our showroom on Isbill Road, you can buy at the same honest pricing as anybody else who walks through the door. ## Is Miller's the cheapest flooring store in East Tennessee? No, and we're not trying to be. Somebody in town will always be cheaper on the box, and somebody will always be cheaper on the labor. What we sell is the whole job done right: premium product, priced fair, installed by crews that do this every day, backed by people whose name is on the sign. We are never going to be the cheapest install in town. We are going to be the best one. And if something about your install isn't right, we do what it takes to make it right. That's how Poppy did it, that's how Daddy does it, and it's how all of us here at Miller's do it to this day. If you remember one thing from this article: wholesale is our price, not our quality. If a floor is in your plans, come stand on the real thing in our Madisonville showroom, or request a free estimate and we'll bring the samples to you. Financing is available if that helps the math. --- # What Is LVP Flooring Made Of? Every Layer of Luxury Vinyl Plank, Explained URL: https://millerswholesaleflooring.com/blog/2026/8/10/what-is-lvp-made-of-every-layer-of-luxury-vinyl-plank-explained Published: 2026-08-10 Luxury vinyl plank is built in four layers: a clear wear layer on top, a printed design layer under it, a rigid or flexible vinyl core in the middle, and, on most planks sold today, an attached underlayment pad on the bottom. That's the whole cross-section. Each layer has one job, and once you know what each one does, comparing two planks in a showroom stops being guesswork. That matters because the poster over the display only says "Pet Proof and Waterproof," and nearly every plank sold today can claim both. The four layers are where a floor that lasts separates itself from one that only photographs well. We've sold and installed LVP all over East Tennessee for years, and the questions below are the ones customers actually ask us at the counter in Madisonville. Here's every layer, top to bottom. [Photo: Cutaway diagram of a WPC luxury vinyl plank pulled apart into its four layers: a clear 20 mil wear layer, an oak woodgrain print layer, a thick wood-plastic composite core, and an attached foam pad] ## The wear layer: the part you walk on The wear layer is a clear urethane coating on the very top of the plank, and it's the single most important number on the box. It's measured in mils, which are thousandths of an inch, not millimeters. You'll see planks out there anywhere from 6 mil to 40 mil, and higher is better: this layer is what stands between your floor's finish and the kids, the dogs, and the gravel on somebody's boots. Our own line in the sand for the home you live in: we recommend a 20 mil wear layer or better, just about every time. Decades of installs have taught us that thinner wear layers are where "waterproof, pet-proof" floors quietly fail early. We do stock some 12 mil SPCs for flippers and property managers, where the math is different, but for your own house we'll point you at 20 and up. If two planks look identical and one is cheaper, check this number first. The savings usually live in the wear layer, and so does the regret. If you remember one thing from this article: pay for the wear layer, not the picture. ## The design layer: the picture Under the clear coat sits a high-resolution printed film. This is the layer that makes a vinyl plank look like hickory, oak, or stone. Modern printing is good enough that we regularly have customers kneel down and touch a floor before they believe it isn't wood. Better planks pair the print with embossed texture that follows the grain in the picture, so it feels like what it shows. The design layer is why two planks with identical construction can sit at different prices. Better planks span the print across sixty square feet or more before it repeats, so the floor reads as a real floor once it's laid out instead of showing you the same three boards over and over. ## The core: SPC vs. WPC The core is the thick middle of the plank, and it's where the two big families of LVP split: - WPC (wood-plastic composite): vinyl mixed with a wood-flour foaming agent. Thicker, quieter, warmer, and softer underfoot. In our experience it's also the more forgiving core when the seasons change. - SPC (stone-plastic composite): vinyl mixed with powdered limestone. Dense and rigid, and the right tool for specific jobs. More on that below. Neither core contains actual planks of stone or wood. Both are engineered vinyl composites, both are waterproof through the core, and both stand up to real household traffic. The difference that matters is how they live with your subfloor and your climate. Our recommendation after years of installs in East Tennessee: WPC for homes, just about everywhere. Our climate swings from humid summers to cold snaps, and floors here expand and contract with it. WPC handles that movement much better than SPC. We've watched WPC floors hold up beautifully through Tennessee seasons where SPC struggles. On a wood subfloor especially, a WPC will outlast an SPC by a wide margin, and even over residential concrete we'd still point you to WPC. Where SPC earns its keep is commercial work, and there we'd usually recommend a glue-down SPC rather than a floating floor, so a storefront's rolling loads and traffic have a floor that's anchored, not drifting. We wrote a whole piece on why WPC earns its price: Why buy a WPC? ## When should I get SPC? [Photo: Cutaway diagram of an SPC luxury vinyl plank pulled apart into its four layers: a clear 20 mil wear layer, a gray-brown woodgrain print layer, a dense stone-plastic composite core, and an attached cork pad] As you can probably tell, we're not the biggest fans of SPC for homes, but SPC absolutely has its place and its value. A floating SPC is a great fit for rentals and for tighter budgets: it's generally a more affordable product than WPC, it goes down fast, and on a flat, level slab it really does hold up well. If you're flooring a rental unit on a slab and the numbers matter, a floating SPC is an honest choice we'll happily sell you. And for commercial spaces, as we said above, glue-down SPC is our standard recommendation. ## The attached underlayment: the bottom pad Most LVP sold today comes with a thin pad, usually cork or foam, already glued to the bottom of the plank. It softens footfall, quiets the hollow "click" sound floating floors can make, and smooths over tiny imperfections in the subfloor. The three we've seen hold up best: - iXPE foam — a dense cross-linked foam that quiets footsteps and overlaps at the joints for moisture protection. - Natural cork — what COREtec uses. Warmer and quieter, and naturally mold and mildew resistant. - Action back — a ridged foam that adds stability underfoot. Can you add another underlayment under a plank that already has a pad? That depends on the plank, and we mean that as a real answer rather than a dodge. Some floors take a thin underlayment underneath with no trouble at all. On others it's the wrong move, and the reasons are specific to the product. It isn't a rule you can read off the internet and apply to whatever is in your cart. Where we do consistently recommend one is over concrete. There's an underlayment we use on our own slab installs that adds a real moisture barrier along with warmth and quiet. Ask us about it when you're pricing a concrete-slab project, and tell us which plank you're looking at so we can tell you what belongs under it. ## How is luxury vinyl plank actually made? The layers are made separately and then fused under heat and pressure. The core is extruded first (that's where SPC gets its limestone and WPC gets its foaming agent), then the printed design film is bonded to the top of it, the clear wear layer is applied over the print and cured, and the click-lock edges are milled into the finished plank last. The attached pad goes on at the end. That fusing is why a quality plank doesn't delaminate: it isn't glued like a sandwich, it's bonded into one piece. ## What the layers mean when you're buying When you're standing in front of two boxes at different prices, here's how the layers explain the difference: - Check the wear layer first. A beautiful 6-mil plank is a short-term floor. 20 mil buys years, and it's the minimum we recommend for a home. - Match the core to the job. For a home, any room and any subfloor, we recommend WPC; it rides out East Tennessee's humidity and temperature swings far better. For a commercial space, glue-down SPC. - Look at the print repeat. Lay out three planks in the store. If the pattern obviously repeats, it'll repeat across your whole floor. - Note the pad. Attached underlayment quiets and cushions the floor. On concrete, ask about the extra underlayment we install beneath it. Wear layer for the years, picture for the look, core for your setting, pad for the comfort. Read those four numbers and you'll know more than the poster does. Still weighing whether LVP is right for your rooms? Read the myths worth ignoring, and if you've already narrowed it down to core type, WPC vs SPC: Which One Should You Buy? settles that one. Or come stand on the real thing in our Madisonville showroom and see the LVP lines we carry and install. If you'd like straight answers about your own rooms, request a free estimate and we'll bring samples to you. --- # Metallic Epoxy in a Murphy, NC Warehouse: Why a Commercial Slab Doesn't Have to Look Like One URL: https://millerswholesaleflooring.com/blog/2026/8/9/metallic-epoxy-in-a-murphy-nc-warehouse-why-a-commercial-slab-doesn-t-have-to-look-like-one Published: 2026-08-09 Most warehouse floors get one of two treatments. Either they get sealed and forgotten, or they get a flat gray coating that does its job and asks for nothing else. This one went a different direction. We recently finished a metallic epoxy installation in a warehouse in Murphy, North Carolina: deep emerald green with black marbling running through it, poured across the interior while the space was still being framed out. Bare studs, exposed wiring, plastic still on the walls. And a floor that already looked more finished than most retail spaces. If you're putting office space, a showroom, a shop area, or any customer-facing square footage inside a metal building, this is what's possible on the slab you already have. ## What Is Metallic Epoxy? Metallic epoxy is a two-part resin system with reflective metallic pigment suspended in it. When it's poured and worked on the slab, that pigment separates, pools, and moves, and that movement is what creates the depth. It isn't printed. It isn't stamped. It isn't a stencil. The pattern forms chemically and by hand while the material is still wet, which means no two metallic epoxy floors are the same. You can steer it. You can't duplicate it. The result is a surface that's completely flat and seamless but reads like you're looking down into water. On this Murphy job, the green catches the overhead lighting and the black recedes behind it, so the floor shifts depending on where you're standing in the room. ## Why This Works in a Commercial Building A warehouse slab is usually the largest single surface in the building and the one nobody thinks about. That's a missed opportunity if any part of that building is going to have customers, clients, or employees in it every day. A few reasons metallic epoxy earns its keep in a commercial space: - It's seamless. No grout lines, no seams, no planks. Nothing for dirt, water, or bacteria to get into. - It's chemical resistant. Oil, grease, solvents, cleaners, and salt don't stain it. - It cleans with a dust mop. No stripping, no waxing, no buffing schedule. - It uses the slab you already have. No demo, no subfloor, no waiting on material. - It does marketing work. People take pictures of these floors. That's not nothing. The color choice mattered here too. Green is bolder than the charcoal or gray most people default to, but metallic epoxy rewards commitment: the reflective pigment needs contrast to do anything interesting. A saturated green against black gives the pour something to work with. And in a bright interior with light framing and a lot of overhead lighting, a dark floor anchors the space instead of washing out with it. ## How We Install a Metallic Epoxy Floor The finish gets the attention. The prep decides whether it lasts. - Diamond grinding the slab. Concrete has to be mechanically profiled, ground with diamond tooling, to open the pores and strip any curing compound, sealer, glue, or contamination. Epoxy bonds to a profile, not to a smooth surface. Acid etching is not a substitute, and this step is where most failed epoxy floors were actually lost. - Slab repair. Cracks, spalls, pop-outs, and control joints get addressed first. Metallic epoxy is a thin-film system. It telegraphs whatever is underneath it, and it will not bridge a moving crack. - Moisture testing. Concrete drives vapor upward, and warehouse slabs are frequently poured without a proper vapor barrier underneath. Too much vapor drive and the coating delaminates six months later. If the numbers come back high, a moisture-mitigating primer goes down before anything else. - Base coat. A pigmented base coat is rolled to full coverage. On this floor, that's the black, the color the metallic gets to play against. - The metallic pour. The metallic layer goes down and gets worked while the resin is still wet. This is the artistic part, and it's the part with a clock running on it. Once the material starts to set, the design is locked in. - Clear topcoat. A high-build clear coat seals the system, provides the gloss, and takes the actual wear. Depending on how the space gets used, that's a polyaspartic or urethane topcoat, and slip resistance can be built into it where it's needed. ## One Honest Note About Warehouses Metallic epoxy is a decorative system. It performs well under foot traffic, carts, rolling loads, and normal commercial use. But if you've got forklift lanes, dock plates, steel wheels, or dropped-tool abuse in a specific area, that zone is usually better served by a heavier-build industrial system. Plenty of buildings run both: metallic in the office, showroom, retail floor, and corridors, and a high-build industrial coating in the working bays. We'll tell you which parts of your building want which. We'd rather scope it right than sell you the prettier product for the wrong room. ## Where Else We Install Metallic Epoxy - Garages and shops: resistant to oil, brake fluid, road salt, and hot tire pickup - Retail floors, restaurants, and breweries: seamless and easy to sanitize - Salons, gyms, and showrooms: hard to scuff, easy to clean - Basements: nowhere for moisture to hide - Barndominiums and open-concept residential: kitchens, living areas, hallways - Offices, lobbies, and clinics: a finish that doesn't need replacing every few years ## How Long Does It Last? A properly prepped and topcoated metallic epoxy floor should give you 10 to 20 years, and often longer with a periodic recoat of the clear. Because the system is seamless, maintenance is a dust mop and the occasional damp mop with a pH-neutral cleaner. No wax, no strip, no buffing crew. The failure mode is almost never the epoxy. It's prep that got skipped. ## What Does It Cost? Metallic epoxy runs more per square foot than a solid-color epoxy or a standard flake system, because of the extra pigment layers and the hands-on labor during the pour. Final pricing comes down to: - Total square footage - Slab condition: grinding, patching, joint and crack repair - Whether moisture mitigation is required - Color complexity and topcoat selection We quote after seeing the slab. Not over the phone off a square footage number. The slab tells us what the job actually costs, and we'd rather give you a real number than a low one we have to walk back. ## Serving Murphy, NC and the Surrounding Region Miller's Wholesale Flooring installs metallic epoxy, industrial coatings, and polished concrete throughout western North Carolina and East Tennessee, including Murphy, Andrews, Hayesville, Robbinsville, Marble, and Brasstown across Cherokee and Clay counties, plus our home area around Madisonville, Sweetwater, Athens, Vonore, Tellico Plains, and Maryville, Tennessee. We sell retail, we sell wholesale, and we install everything we sell. The crew standing on your slab works for the same company that sourced the material. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### Can metallic epoxy handle warehouse traffic? It handles foot traffic, carts, and rolling loads well. For forklift lanes, dock areas, or heavy point loads, we typically recommend a higher-build industrial system in those specific zones and metallic in the finished areas. ### Can you coat an existing warehouse slab? Usually yes. The slab has to be structurally sound, and any existing coating, sealer, or adhesive has to be ground off first. We evaluate the slab before committing to it. ### How long before we can use the space? Typically light foot traffic within 24 hours and full cure in roughly 5 to 7 days, depending on product and temperature. Equipment, racking, and heavy loads wait for full cure. ### Is it slippery? Gloss epoxy is slick when wet, the same as polished tile. We can build a slip-resistant additive into the topcoat for entries, wash areas, or anywhere OSHA-conscious. ### Can you match a specific color? We can work toward a color. We can't reproduce an exact pattern. The marbling is created by the material as it cures, which is the whole point of the finish. ### Does it work outdoors? Standard epoxy ambers in UV light. For loading docks, patios, and exterior slabs we use a UV-stable system instead. ## Got a Slab That Deserves Better? Whether it's a warehouse in Murphy, a shop in Andrews, or a showroom back across the line in Tennessee, we'll come look at it and tell you honestly what it needs. Call Miller's Wholesale Flooring at (423) 442-1697 433 Isbill Rd, Madisonville, TN 37354 MillersWholesaleFlooring.com --- # Why buy a WPC? URL: https://millerswholesaleflooring.com/blog/2022/12/19/wpcluxuryvinylplank Published: 2026-01-26 ## What does WPC mean? WPC: Wood Polymer Composite Material Core A WPC core is a preferred specification when it comes to any luxury vinyl planking. These cores are better to use residentially as they are softer, warmer, and more sound absorbent than an SPC core. ## Why does it matter if I have a WPC over SPC? You may wonder why Miller's Wholesale Flooring advocates more for a WPC over and SPC as you may have seen more advertisements for SPC or “Rigid” products. The matter of the fact is…. people make a higher margin on SPC products because they are a cheaper product to make and easier to mark up. We, as a retailer who actually installs the product and generally carry a 12 month installation warranty on our work, are more worried about protecting your investment rather than a profit margin. In business since 1970, with the past 10 years focusing mostly on luxury vinyl planking, we have.. knock on wood.. not had a claim on a WPC product yet! Another benefit of a WPC product is the fact that it is much more flexible than your general SPC flooring. If you do not have a perfect subfloor, whether it be concrete or wood, an SPC is far more likely to separate. Even if there is 1/8” dip in the subfloor, if you step on a plank over that area it will put tension on the locking system and you have a higher possibility of it separating. As for wood subfloors, especially on new construction we do not recommend having an SPC installed. When you build a new construction home with wood subfloor, it is inevitable that the floor will settle over time. It is totally normal! However, when using an SPC for this, it will cause the tension mentioned above and likely you will have plank separation overtime. Since a WPC is much less rigid, and more flexible, when you step on one board, even if there is an imperfection in the subfloor, it will flex the board that is connected and have better performance with your subfloor as it starts to settle. Now you might be asking yourself, “will i feel it move with those imperfections? I don't want a flooring that I can feel bouncing under foot.” The answer is quite simple. NO. If the proper preparation is done, for both WPC and SPC, you will not feel bouncing. However, an SPC can feel more “hollow” than a WPC as they are generally 4mm-6mm thick with a Stone Polymer Core. This can make the room sound like it has an echo, or even feel a little more frigid under foot. A WPC is typically between 6.5mm thick to 8mm thick with certain styles coming all the way up to 15 mm thick! This could end up getting confusing as some believe a thicker floor is better. A thicker flooring does have its perks, but it is certainly a preference! Most people are used to a laminate which is generally 10mm and thicker. A laminate needs this thickness to have any integrity as its core is a fiberboard, so it needs the thickness to have any stability. Since a luxury vinyl plank has a compressed core, you have the comfort and stability without having to have that thick of a plank. Typically the thicker specifications are preferred when there are several imperfections in the subfloor that will still be there even when self-leveled, or they prefer the flooring to feel like a hardwood under foot. A WPC product does not only offer flexibility and stability, but also warmth. Whether you have concrete or a crawl space, the material that the WPC is made up of is able to absorb some of the colder temperatures, allowing it to be a warmer product to walk on than your general SPC or ceramic tile. We find that the 8mm products offer a greater warmth than a 6.5mm product, with the higher the MM the more it will absorb. If you have a concrete slab, and want to have optimum warmth with your LVP during the winter we recommend anything between a 8mm to 15mm thick product as it will absorb more of those frigid temperatures than the thinner WPC products. You can guarantee an SPC product to be cold no matter what the thickness as the core absorbs the temperature and you can certainly feel it.. It would be like if you touched a rock outside when it is cold. On top of the temperature absorption of a WPC, you also have sound absorption! If you are in a cinder block basement on a concrete subfloor, the last thing you want to hear is your foot steps or voice echoing. The WPC products will be more acoustically sound with up to 70%-90% of absorption. Now don't get us wrong here! If you are doing some kind of space for music, or a church, or somewhere there will be loud noises, carpet and a quiet sound pad are going to be your best options, however, when looking for a durable, easy to clean, waterproof product that you don't want to sound “echo-y,” you certainly want to go with a WPC product. ### Choosing flooring is an investment you don't want to have to make on the regular! We like to think the general rule of thumb is that an SPC product is going to be more of your 5-8 year product (depending how well the area is prepped and the maintenance after installation) and a WPC product a 10+year to lifetime product. The better the floor preparation and regular maintenance the longer life you will get from your investment. Always pay attention to your flooring specifications and user guides when choosing your flooring, and for the love of all things Holy……… Do NOT set cabinets on any floating floor at any cost! Setting cabinets on a floating floor, whether it be SPC or WPC, or possibly even a laminate, IT WILL VOID YOUR MANUFACTURING WARRANTY. As always, we are here to help you find the best options for your investment and if you are local feel free to stop in our storefront for more technical information and selections! To keep up with the latest flooring information, trends, and how to's, be sure to follow us on social! --- # Gluing VS Stapling Hardwood URL: https://millerswholesaleflooring.com/blog/2022/12/19/gluingvsstaplinghardwood Published: 2025-11-17 ## How should I install my hardwood flooring? Hardwood installation can be a DIY…. If you are up for a challenge! Typically, a solid hardwood is going to be 2 1/4” or 3 1/4” wide. This matters because during installation of these products a 2” 15 1/2 Gauge staple is used, leaving less room for movement. There are very limited selections of a solid hardwood any wider than those options, but when you have them installed 4” or wider it is suggested to do an S or a Z pattern of glue on the back. Our trained and professional installers like to add the glue with the staples for more security and stability over time as it allows for less air movement, popping, squeaking and cracking. We refer to this as a sausage tube glue and you will see why below. We use a different brand than what is shown, but these can generally be ordered at your local box stores, hardware stores, or flooring retailers. If you are local to us, feel free to stop in and we can grab some for you if you need it for install! Engineered hardwood has not only wider widths, but also different thicknesses, so you have to figure your specifications before planning for its installation. Most engineered hardwood advertises that it can be stapled, glued, or floated. When deciding your installation method you want to consider how long you want it to last, the traffic in your home, and the install areas. Over the years, the wider planks have gained popularity, so to keep the stability in hardwood, and prevent wider gaps during expansion and contraction, many flooring manufactures turned to engineered wood on planks 4” and wider. If you would like to learn more on why you can check out our Engineered VS Solid Hardwood blog. With these planks you will find the construction to be anywhere from 3/8” thick to 3/4” thick. Once you know the thickness you are dealing with, then you can determine the length of the staple needed for installation if you are following the staple method. If you intend to staple your engineered hardwood, we would suggest installation being like that of solid hardwood with the staple and the glue assist. Again, the length of your staple will be determined by the thickness of your flooring! Most flooring will come with a specification sheet that will give recommendations on installation methods. Keep in mind, usually these recommendations are for those who do not install flooring everyday, so if you hire a professional, and they follow a method that is not listed on the spec sheet… it is likely because they have found a better way to install that certain spec. Although the engineered hardwood has a ply system that makes it less likely to expand and contract, it still is a real wood veneer so it still will have SOME of that expansion and contraction. Since we carry and installation warranty on any job we perform, we like to do a full spread glue down method, and don't even use staples. Many of the planks that our clients prefer are 7”-10” wide. Our installers don't want to leave any room for popping, squeaking, or cracking. Those sounds are typically from air bubbles moving underneath your hardwood planks, so by having a full spread glue your flooring is adhered directly to the subfloor where there is no room for air to get under your planks whatsoever. If you have installed with a full spread adhesive and can still hear those popping, squeaking, or cracking sounds, it is likely the subfloor that needs to be secured to a joist. There are many hardwood glues that you can choose from. Our installers move efficiently, and typically have crews of 2-4 people, so we prefer a certain glue that cures quickly that can allow for walking within 24 hours. The glue we choose to stock in our storefront and find the best performance out of is an alcohol based glue that as it dries, the alcohol evaporates and the glue dries as a rubbery substance and acts as the moisture barrier underneath the engineered flooring. ### Floating your engineered wood This is a method that is not used often, but is what a lot of DIYers choose to do as it does not require many special tools other than a table saw and tape measurer. If you intend to float your engineered wood, just keep in mind that higher traffic areas are more likely to separate as there is nothing securing the planks together. You may also notice that the planks slightly move, as they are only a tongue and groove so can easily scoot if not installed properly next to the walls and base. Since this method has no security to your actual subfloor, you may feel it bounce, or have several pops, squeaks, and cracks. This method can be followed if it is more temporary, and you may even be able to reuse the wood if you pull up to reinstall in the same area or a different area. To keep up with the latest flooring information, trends, and how to's, be sure to follow us on social! --- # How to Prepare for Flooring Installation URL: https://millerswholesaleflooring.com/blog/2022/12/19/floorpreparationandinstallation Published: 2025-10-29 ## How should I prepare for flooring installation? Planning for a flooring project can feel hectic, but we are here to tell you steps to take to insure a proper installation can happen, and your investment will last for years to come. Floor preparation can differ between projects, but all of it boils down to the same steps once you have your “clean slate” to start installation. Our in-house installers typically handle everything from furniture moving to demolition of old flooring if the project space is lived in. We usually have clients move small items like shoes from closets, picture frames from tables, trinkets from china cabinets, and items that could fall while moving and shifting furniture around. If you are hiring an installer you will want to ask them if they can handle moving furniture for you, or if you need to hire a 3rd party to do those things. Do not wait until last minute to mention these things or your installation date could be pushed off! Typically, in a new construction home there would not be much to move, unless other materials are on the site. Most workers do not like to handle materials that belong to another crew, so if you have a covered porch, or garage those items could be stored in, it would be best to go ahead and have those things out of the way for the installer. ### Remodel and lived in floor preparation recommendations As mentioned above, you always want to be clear about the scope of your project with the installer you have hired to understand what expectations they have for you. Of course, it is easiest with no furniture and items in the areas of install, but it's not impossible to work if there is. To ease your headache of completely removing everything from the home, most of the time, you will be able to shift the furniture.. This way the installer can work his way from one side of the room to another. If you have floor that needs to be taken up before install, these requirements could change. For instance, carpet can be cut into strips, so it is still likely you could shift furniture from one side to another. Same with a floating floor or laminate. Hardwood demolition could make this a little trickier since a crow bar is typically used to remove it. You wouldn't want to have your new flooring installed up to the old and then it accidentally get damaged as they continue to demo. This would be an instance you may want to move all the furniture from one room to another and have the flooring installed in “phases”, or room by room. What will typically happen for these instances would be furniture will just be moved from one room to another, then once the new flooring is installed, the furniture will be moved back into its place on the new flooring. Do not think just because the old flooring is up, you can start installing the new flooring right away! There are steps to take before every install once you are finally at the “clean slate” phase, which is when you are ALMOST ready to install! ### Clean slate, new construction flooring preparation Now that we can see subfloor, we are ready to truly prep for the installation of your new flooring! No matter if you are doing sheet vinyl, luxury vinyl plank, laminate, hardwood, or engineered hardwood you want your subfloor to be completely clean and free of all debris! It is good to sweep up all of the dust, then after it is swept, hit it with a shop vac all throughout the install areas. If it seems that there are bumpy areas of leftover glue, staples, or drywall, go through it with a floor scraper. If any debris is left under the flooring you will either feel it, it will cause movement, or it will damage the integrity of the flooring itself. Another thing you may want to check for is wavy or uneven areas in the subfloor. If it seems the joints are not even you will want to sand those down, and possibly feather finish or level any wavy areas. If you lay flooring over a subfloor that is not level you may feel movement, or hear popping and squeaking. Typically anything 1/8” or smaller is not noticeable, but anything else you may want to check further into. ## Floor prep steps Now that we have touched base on all the steps for floor preparation, lets recap! ### Step one: floor demolition Move furniture and items out of the way and remove the old flooring completely from the project space ### Step two: clean slate Sweep, scrape, and vacuum with a shop vac to remove any and all debris from the install areas. Be sure to get up against the walls and everywhere the flooring is to be installed! You do not want to leave any debris at all on the subfloor when installing new floor ### Step three: level the area Now that we have a clean slate we can see how off level anything is, or any high joints. Use a palm sander or commercial grade sander to sand down any joints that are not even. If you have any waves in the subfloor or slopes larger than 1/8”, use a feather finish or self leveling agent to bring your subfloor to level. Repeat step two. Once you have performed all of these steps you are ready to install your new flooring! Remember! Always be sure the installer knows the scope of the project to understand what their expectations of you will be. To keep up with the latest flooring information, trends, and how to's, be sure to follow us on social! --- # How Much Flooring Should I Order? URL: https://millerswholesaleflooring.com/blog/2022/12/19/howmuchflooringtoorder Published: 2025-10-28 When ordering flooring, you always want to be sure you have enough so that you can avoid having to make last minute runs to the store to grab more for your installer because they are running short. Worst case scenario- and it happens often- you have purchased a $deal$ and the retailer either no longer can get what you need, or has to order it, and you will be waiting a week or longer for it to arrive. So how can you avoid this headache from happening? What you need to know ## First things first: if you are using your own installer, find out how much waste they account for during install All installers typically have a method to their madness. Depending on what type of material they are installing they will have a general percentage they count as an overage. If you think you are going to go in and purchase your material at the exact square footage that was measured and it will get the job done, you might want to think again. Overages are typically accounted for for patterns, mis milled product, bad boards, and any specific custom requests you may have. ### How much overage for LVP and LVT? Again, it all depends on your installer. Our general rule of thumb here with our installers is 7%, but we use every single bit of flooring that we can. Most will account for 10%-15%, and some even 20%. If you are looking for areas with custom borders, or running the flooring on a 45 degree angle, or even have a cut up floor plan with several rooms or 45 degree angle hallways more overage is needed. Always be sure to mention any custom requests before getting estimates or your order is placed as these sometimes can change not only the amount of material needed, but the cost of labor. Luxury Vinyl Planks are slightly different than Luxury Vinyl Tiles, because the locking system can be compromised with different cuts on a tile, and waste can not be used the same as it can be for a plank. Typically for any Luxury Vinyl Tile, an installer will account for around 15% of waste rather than the 7-10% of waste. ### How much overage for hardwood and engineered wood? Similar to LVP, many cuts of wood can be used as “starters” and “finishers”, so you can account for the standard 7%-10% waste. However, it does still go back to any custom requests, layouts, and installer needs! With wood, you also want to be sure you are getting a good quality rather than a “great value” brand. You are more likely to need 15%-25% of waste for a “great value” brand, as they typically will have more mis milled and bad boards within the box. Another thing to consider with wood, whether it be engineered or solid, is that the variation is higher than that of luxury vinyl planks. If you are choosing a wood that you know you will want to take out those super dark, super light, or extremely characterized boards, you may want to account for more like 25% of excess. Some clients do choose to do this, but our best suggestion to keep you from having too much material leftover would be to use these unwanted pieces in closets, or areas that aren't typically seen so that they don't bother you. At most flooring retailers, solid and engineered wood are going to be a special order product, and you will likely not be able to return these excess materials, but it is always good to have 2 or more boxes laying around for any future repairs that may be necessary. When we do our measurements for our clients, we typically try to account for enough to leave them at least one box of material to store away for this reason. ### How much overage for ceramic and porcelain tiles? Tiles are a bit trickier. To calculate your tile overage the first thing you will need to do is discuss the layout of whatever project you have in mind with your installer. Once the installer has an idea of your layout you will want to either show them the exact tile, or an inspiration picture of the tile you are looking to use so they can see the shape. Now that the installer has a general idea of your project, they will be able to more accurately count your overage. Since tile is typically installed in different patterns, and comes in several different shapes, the lowest overage we would recommend would be around 10%-15%. That overage is for general layouts with a brick or staggered pattern in a square area. If you are looking for a herringbone pattern or any custom layouts you are likely going to need closer to 20%-25% overage, as you cannot use as many of these cuts after they are made. These projects can be a little trickier to calculate, so always be sure you are consulting with an experienced tile installer when determining the amount you need to purchase. Another thing to consider is that tile is a lot more fragile than wood or vinyl planks and vinyl tiles. It may look like a box of tile is not damaged and when you open it, 3 tiles down from the top are broken. This is usually why we account for a standard 15%, but depending on the quality of the tile or brand you may want to account for more. To keep up with the latest flooring information, trends, and how to's, be sure to follow us on social! --- # Engineered Hardwood vs Solid Hardwood: What's the Difference? URL: https://millerswholesaleflooring.com/blog/2022/12/19/engineeredvssolid Published: 2025-10-28 Solid hardwood is one piece of real wood, milled from top to bottom out of the same board. Engineered hardwood is a thin layer of that same real wood, called the veneer, bonded over a stack of plywood. Both are wood floors. Both are real. The difference is what sits underneath the part you see, and that difference decides which rooms each one can live in. We've been selling and installing hardwood in Madisonville since 1970, and this is still the question we answer most at the counter. Here's how each one is built, where each one belongs, and which one we hand most customers today. [Photo: Two oak flooring planks shown end on side by side, labeled Solid and Engineered: the solid plank on the left is milled from one continuous piece of oak with a tongue and groove edge, and the engineered plank on the right shows a thin real oak veneer bonded over stacked crisscrossed plywood layers] ## What is solid hardwood? Solid hardwood is exactly what it sounds like: 100% real wood, milled into planks with a tongue and groove edge, meaning one side has a ridge and the other has a matching slot so the boards lock together as they go down. There is no core, no backing, and no veneer. It's wood all the way through. That construction is why solid can be sanded and refinished several times over its life. It's also why it moves. Wood takes on moisture from the air and gives it back, so a solid floor grows a little in a humid East Tennessee August and shrinks a little in dry winter heat. That's normal, and it's why solid hardwood has to acclimate, which just means sitting in your house for a few days before install so it settles at your home's humidity instead of the warehouse's. Solid hardwood shows up at your house with opinions about the weather. Because it moves that much, solid belongs in above-grade living spaces, meaning any floor at or above ground level. Not basements. Not bathrooms. It gets nailed or stapled down to a wood subfloor, the structural deck under your finished floor, and it wants an installer who has done it before. ## What is engineered hardwood? Engineered hardwood is usually five or more layers of plywood, each one turned crossways to the layer under it, pressed together, with a layer of real hardwood bonded on top. That top layer is the veneer, and it's the floor you actually see and walk on. Sand an engineered oak floor and you're sanding oak, because it is oak. The crisscrossed plywood underneath is the whole point. Wood moves most across the grain, so by turning each layer against the one below it, the layers fight each other's movement instead of adding it up. The result is a plank that stays much flatter through humidity swings than a solid board of the same width. That stability buys engineered two things solid doesn't get: it can be glued down to concrete, and it can go in rooms where solid would cup or gap. ## The veneer: the part you can refinish Everything about an engineered floor's long-term life comes down to how thick that top layer of real wood is. A thin veneer can usually be sanded once. A thick one can take a few passes. It varies by product, and it's the number worth asking about before you buy, because it's the difference between a floor you can bring back and a floor you replace. Solid still wins this category outright. There's so much wood in a solid plank that our sand and finish crews can typically take one back to bare wood three to five times. Bringing an old oak floor back is still one of the most satisfying jobs we do, and it's only possible because there's that much wood to work with. With engineered, you're buying the veneer. Everything under it is there to keep the veneer flat. ## Can you put hardwood in a basement? Engineered, yes. Solid, no. Basements sit below grade, against ground that holds moisture, and concrete slabs give off water vapor for years. A solid plank in that environment will cup, gap, or pull loose from its fasteners. Engineered handles it, and over a concrete slab it gets glued down rather than nailed, since there's nothing to nail into. One condition on that: the slab has to be flat. Glue only does its job when the plank and the slab are actually touching across the whole board, so any hump or dip gets ground down or filled before a single plank goes in. We wrote up what that prep actually involves in Floor Preparation and Installation. ## Can you put hardwood in a bathroom? We don't recommend it, and that goes for engineered too. People do it. Engineered's reputation for handling moisture leads folks to think it's waterproof, and it isn't. It's real wood on top of plywood, and both of those swell when water sits on them. A bathroom floor takes standing water off a shower door, out of a tub, and around a toilet base, year after year. That's a different job than seasonal humidity, and wood loses it. If you want the wood look in a bathroom, a laundry room, or anywhere else water lands, that's what luxury vinyl plank is for. It's waterproof through the plank itself, and the LVP we carry has come far enough that guests kneel down and touch it before they believe it isn't wood. Same reasoning we use on the lake, where hardwood belongs upstairs and away from the water door: What's the Best Flooring for a Lake House? ## Which one do we sell more of? Engineered, and it isn't close anymore. We glue down far more engineered than we nail these days, and most of what goes out our door is wide plank. That's mostly what customers want. Wide boards read as calm and modern in a room, and a 3 1/4 inch strip floor reads as traditional. But it's also physics. The wider a solid board gets, the more it moves across its width, and the bigger the gaps get when winter dries it out. Manufacturers went to engineered construction on the wide sizes for exactly that reason, and it's why the wide plank floor you liked in somebody's kitchen was almost certainly engineered. ## Why wide plank has to be glued Here's the rule we install by: at 4 inches and wider, engineered gets a full spread glue down, with total coverage. No stapling. The reason is air. A staple holds the plank at the staple, and between staples on a wide board there's open space under the wood. Step on it and the plank flexes into that space, and that movement is what you hear as popping, squeaking, and cracking underfoot. Full coverage adhesive removes the space entirely. The plank is bonded to the subfloor across its whole back, so there's nothing to flex into. A wide plank floor we glued down that way is going to hold, and it isn't going to squeak. Under 4 inches, the subfloor decides: wood gets nailed, concrete gets glued. Width only forces the issue once the boards get wide. Two things worth knowing before you price a wide plank floor. The adhesive and the labor to spread it cost more than stapling, so the install method belongs in your budget alongside the box. And if you want the full breakdown of staple versus glue versus float, including the glue we stock and why, it's all in Gluing VS Stapling Hardwood. ## When we'd tell you to buy solid instead We sell mostly engineered, so here's the honest boundary on our own usual answer. If your floor is above grade over a wood subfloor, you like a narrower board, and you're flooring a house you intend to hand down, buy the solid. Nothing engineered matches a floor that can be sanded back to bare wood three to five times. A solid oak floor is a long decision, and across that life it can be made new again more than once. That's a real advantage and we're not going to talk you out of it to sell you a wider plank. And if the room in question is a basement bath, a mudroom, or the main level of a house on the water, we'll tell you to skip wood altogether. Buying the right floor for the room beats buying the floor you liked in a photograph. Come stand on both in our Madisonville showroom and the difference stops being theoretical. We'll show you veneer thicknesses side by side and tell you straight which one your rooms are asking for. If you'd rather start from your own floor plan, request a free estimate and we'll bring the samples to you. You can see the hardwood lines we carry and install any time. --- # Cleaning Products and Tips for Cleaning your Floors URL: https://millerswholesaleflooring.com/blog/2024/1/29/floorcleaningtips Published: 2025-10-28 ## What type of cleaners should I use to keep my flooring looking fresh and new? It can be overwhelming trying to determine the best way to take care of your flooring to make it look new for years to come. The internet can be a scary place when searching for cleaning tips so we want to give you some advice on what products and methods have been successful for us personally, as well as our clients! ### Luxury vinyl plank cleaning tips You might be thinking, “What could be so hard about cleaning a waterproof flooring? If it is waterproof can I use anything?” Well, yes, however, some will have better performance than others. There are certain formulas to floor cleaners, so when purchasing your cleaner you want to be sure to look at the description for what flooring type it is meant for. The main things you need to look for on the description are Resilient Floor Cleaner, Hard Surface Floor Cleaner, Stone Tile & Laminate Floor Cleaner, or Luxury Vinyl Floor Cleaner. We typically suggest Bona, Swiffer, or O'Cedar Mops with a Hard Surface, or Resilient Floor Cleaning Solution ### Which formula do I need? Cleaning formulas are typically modified for each type of flooring. LVP cleaners usually have a higher solution to water ratio as this type of flooring has a coating that can handle something more aggressive. The brand we carry and recommend is Bona. It is very similar to Swiffer, however Bona is non-toxic and environmentally friendly. Since many of our clients have children and pets, we find it is the safest product, just in case you have a crazy cat that likes to lick the floors in the house or something like that. If you prefer to make your own cleaner, that works, too! Some people prefer the good old fashioned Vinegar and Baking Soda Method, or even just a Lysol All Purpose Cleaner mixed with some water. All of these cleaners are safe for your flooring, but sometimes can leave a streaky residue. If you choose to use your own cleaner you will just have to play with your water to cleaner ratio to see what works best for you. We have found using the correct Bona formula's have the best performance with no residues. ### What about a deep cleaning for my mess that is in the texture of my flooring? If you have a mess that seems has gotten down into the textures and grooves of your flooring we suggest using a soft bristle brush and some elbow grease to loosen up those spots so that you can easily mop them up. We do not recommend any abrasive brushes or Brillo pads. ### How do I clean my engineered or hardwood? Hardwood can be tricky when it comes to cleaning methods. Hardwood has a certain polyurethane coating that with some cleaners can wear off. Much like LVP, hardwood has cleaners with a specific formula as well. Usually, hardwood cleaners have a higher water to solution ratio so that it will not eat the top coat of your hardwood. LVP Cleaners can be used on hardwood, but sometimes can make the floor look hazy or have streaks in it. We recommend Bona Hard Surface Cleaner, or Bona Hardwood Cleaner for engineered and solid hardwood. You can never go wrong with baking soda and vinegar, however if you do not mix it to the correct ratio it, too, can leave a residue on your flooring. Many people prefer to use a Murphy's Oil to clean their hardwood flooring, and there is nothing wrong with that! We do not recommend ANY wax or wax based cleaners as they typically are creating an extra coat on top of your flooring that in the long run ends up looking cakey or hazy. ### Why can't I wet mop my hardwood with water? Since Hardwood is porous like a sponge, we recommend dry mopping, but we understand that most people have an O'Cedar Mop, a Swiffer, or a Bona. All great gadgets to use, it is just important you mop until the floor is completely dry, or take a towel to dry everything after you have completed cleaning the area. Here's why- if water is left on hardwood long enough it can begin to absorb into the wood or even around the tongue and groove. If that happens you could run into a situation where your hardwood expands and buckles in some areas. If you have cleaned and are afraid this has happened, don't fret! Run a dehumidifier in the effected area and hopefully that would be the first step to absorb some of the moisture back out of the hardwood. Be sure to use this information to the best of your ability to determine which type of cleaning method you should use on your new flooring. ### Can I steam mop? Yes, BUT, not regularly. It can be confusing when someone tells you not to use the best type of cleaning method to clean your flooring. Especially if it is waterproof, but let us explain why it's important to only use a steam cleaner quarterly, yearly, or only during your DEEP CLEANS. Steam is essentially just water in it's gas state- so it is creating moisture in the area between the mop and the floor. The mop is directly on the floor, so that leaves no where for the moisture to go except for IN the floor. Wood is already porous so it can absorb that moisture immediately, which can cause the flooring to buckle. However, if you only resort to steam cleaning for heavier messes, quarterly deep cleans, or a yearly refresh, that would be when it is okay to use a steam mop on hardwood. The faster the motion of movement the better. The longer you hold the steam mop on an area, the more likely it is to absorb into the wood in that spot. Although Luxury Vinyl Planks are Waterproof from the top down, the steam, being humidity, can make its way around the locking system. This can cause moisture to make it's way underneath the flooring. This is not to say that WILL happen, but there is a likelihood it could, so if you insist on steam mopping your LVP, we would recommend only for deep cleaning, spot cleaning, quarterly, or yearly cleans. The quicker the motion, the better, as the longer the steam is on the area, the more likely it is to make its way around the locking system. ## Shop with confidence Now that you are knowledgeable on the product you are shopping for, you will be able to find something that not only works great, but performs as it is marketed, and keeps your flooring looking fresh over time! --- # Luxury Vinyl Flooring Myths and What You Need to Know URL: https://millerswholesaleflooring.com/blog/2022/12/19/luxury-vinyl-flooring-myths-and-what-you-need-to-know Published: 2022-12-19 ## Luxury vinyl flooring Luxury Vinyl Flooring has been the fastest growing flooring option for the past several years because people love the versatility, along with the durability, as it is the only waterproof flooring option other than porcelain or ceramic tile. Although there is a high demand for luxury vinyl planks, there are still some skeptics out there who aren't confident in the quality of LVF. No worries, though, we are here to bust some myths for you so you know more about what you are shopping for. ### Myth 1: all luxury vinyl flooring is the same B U S T: There are several different types of LVF and within those types you have several style and feature options. One of the main differences will be the engineering of the plank, so lets talk specs. - WPC: A LVP with a WPC consists of a backing, a wood core, a vinyl image layer, and a wear layer. These are highly recommended for residential spaces, especially upstairs as they are acoustically sound when walking. - SPC: A LVP with a SPC consists of a backing, a stone core, a vinyl image layer and a wear layer. These are suggested for commercial use as the stone core works to prevent indentation in the plank and have a higher weight PSI. - Wear Layer: The “Mil” of your LVP is the thickness of your “protective layer” that makes it waterproof and keeps it from scratching. The higher the mil the better the quality. A 12 mil is the lowest we are willing to go, and it earns its place in rentals and flips. For a home with high traffic, kids, or pets, we would rather put you on a 20 mil. - Thickness (MM): Each style may have a different thickness that can range from 2mm to 1/2” thick. If you are working on an uneven subfloor that has holes or patches, it is better to get a thicker option. However, if your subfloor is level and in good condition, a thickness of 4.5mm is good to use and it has an attached pad for comfort. - Types: Luxury Vinyl Flooring is a term that helps umbrella the different types offered. Luxury Vinyl Planks are popular for their wood looks, Luxury Vinyl Tiles are popular for their ceramic and stone looks, and Luxury Vinyl Sheets are popular for their decorative looks. - Installation Method: Just as you have different styles of LVF you have different installation methods for them as well. The Luxury Vinyl Flooring with a locking system is the simplest to install and glue down is another great option as they are easy to repair and replace planks. ### Myth 2: LVF doesn't hold value B U S T E D: When buyers are shopping for homes they are looking at the flooring and checking to see if it is well maintained and how easy it will be to maintain. Inevitably, buyers care about the aesthetic and feel when it comes to flooring. They will certainly appreciate the durability of LVF. - Investors are able to maintain a lower-cost budget, while improving the home quality by using LVF in areas with high moisture like bathrooms, kitchens, and laundry rooms. - Buyers appreciate the easy maintenance required for upkeep. - LVF is versatile and can play upon many design styles, making it easy to create the desired aesthetic. ### Myth 3: luxury vinyl flooring looks fake B U S T E D: Luxury vinyl flooring has come a long way with the engineering of its planks and now offers several textures and images that give not only an authentic look, but an authentic feel. - Embossed Textures: Some LVF mimics real wood with embossed textures which allow you to feel grooves and ridges in the flooring. - Bevel: There are several different styles of bevels, from painted to pillowed, but they each give an authentic look to the planks as if they were milled from solid hardwood. - Finish: There are several styles of LVF with many different imaging options. Some styles even come with HD imaging that brings the hardwood look to life. ## Myths B U S T E D Even though people state that all LVF is the same, it looks fake, and doesn't hold value, we have found many reasons those statements do not hold true. We strive to give you the information necessary to make the decision on what flooring may be best for your project, and hope this helps you shop with confidence To keep up with the latest flooring information, trends, and how to's, be sure to follow us on social! --- # Carpet — the deep dive URL: https://millerswholesaleflooring.com/services/carpet Replacing bedroom carpet? See our carpet installation in Lenoir City information and arrange a free in-home estimate. For an Athens home, explore our carpet installation in Athens advice on pad and fiber choices, then arrange a free measure with samples in your own light. Compare Anderson Tuftex carpet for texture, pattern and comfort, or explore Shaw carpet. We’ll help you choose the carpet and pad together. --- # Concrete Polishing — the deep dive URL: https://millerswholesaleflooring.com/services/concrete-polishing ## What is polished concrete? Polished concrete is a slab that has been ground flat with diamond tooling, hardened, and then polished in finer and finer steps until it shines. It is not a coating. The concrete itself becomes the finished floor, and a protective guard goes on at the end to help it resist stains. With polished concrete, the slab you already have is the floor. That is the whole appeal: a hard, bright surface made from material that is already in the building, with no new flooring to buy and nothing laid on top. ## What finishes can you get with polished concrete? You choose two things: how much of the stone inside the concrete shows, and how much the floor shines. - Cream. A light grind that keeps the smooth top layer of the slab, with little or no stone showing. - Salt and pepper. A little deeper, so fine sand and small specks of stone show through. - Exposed aggregate. A heavy grind down into the larger stones, for a look close to terrazzo (the speckled stone floors in older schools and banks). The shine runs from a soft satin to a high gloss that reflects the lights overhead, and we polish to whichever level you pick. Color can be added to the concrete too, if you want something other than natural gray. Every slab is a little different, because the stone and sand in it came from wherever it was poured, so we look at yours before we promise a finish. ## Where does polished concrete make sense? Indoors, on a sound slab, anywhere the floor works hard and needs to stay easy to clean: warehouses, shops and garages, showrooms and retail floors, offices, restaurants, churches, and gyms. For businesses it sits alongside the rest of our commercial flooring work, and we can quote a building that needs polished concrete in one area and a different floor in the next. In a home, it belongs where someone wants the concrete look: a basement, a barndominium, a slab-on-grade house, a shop, or a garage. If you love that look, we will polish it. If what you want underfoot is warmth, softness, and quiet, our pick is still a WPC luxury vinyl plank over that same slab. We would rather tell you that up front. ## Can you polish an old concrete floor? Usually, yes. A lot of good slabs are sitting under old epoxy, paint, sealer, tile, or glue. We grind the old coating or adhesive off, fill the control joints (the straight cuts in a slab that give it a place to crack neatly), repair cracks, and patch chipped spots. Then we polish it. One honest note: the patches and filled joints come out gray, so they will show in the finished floor rather than disappear into it. What is on the slab and what shape it is in decide the work, which is why we come look before we quote. ## Do you do concrete grinding without polishing? Yes. Sometimes a slab only needs to be ground: flattened before a new floor goes down, or stripped of an old coating so the next one bonds. We take those jobs on their own. Diamond grinding is also where every epoxy floor we install starts. ## Polished concrete or epoxy? It depends on the space, so ask us. The difference is simple to state. Polishing refines the concrete itself, and epoxy is a coating that goes on top of it. Epoxy is where solid colors, metallic pours, and decorative flake come from. Polished concrete keeps the look of the concrete, from a clean cream to exposed stone. We install both, so we can walk you through them for your floor with no reason to push one over the other. ## What to expect from a concrete polishing job - Estimate. We come look at the slab: what is on it, the joints and cracks, and how it is holding up. You get the price and the timeline with the estimate, because the size of the floor and the condition of the slab decide both. - Grinding. Diamond tooling takes off whatever is on the surface and flattens the slab. We grind wet or dry, depending on the slab and the building. - Repair and hardening. Joints get filled, cracks and chipped spots get repaired, and a densifier (a liquid that soaks in and hardens the surface) goes into the concrete. - Polishing. Finer and finer diamonds bring the floor up to the shine you picked, and the guard goes on last. Our crew is certified in concrete polishing by Concrete Polishing Solutions, the Norris, Tennessee company that builds the grinders and diamond tooling. That certification covered every step on this list, from stripping an old coating to the final polish. ## How do you take care of a polished concrete floor? Dust mop it often and clean it with a neutral floor cleaner. Grit tracked in on shoes is what dulls the shine over time, so keeping it off the floor does most of the work. Every floor we polish comes with care instructions. For a busy floor, or for anyone who would rather not think about it, we also offer maintenance that brings the shine back when traffic wears it down. ## Can you polish outdoor concrete? No, and we will not sell you on it. A polished finish does not hold up outdoors. It will start chipping away. Patios, driveways, and porches are the wrong place for it. Polishing is an indoor floor. If you are getting prices on polished concrete anywhere from Athens to Maryville, get ours. The estimate is free: request an estimate or stop by the showroom in Madisonville. --- # Epoxy Floors — the deep dive URL: https://millerswholesaleflooring.com/services/epoxy ## What is metallic epoxy flooring? Metallic epoxy is a poured resin floor with reflective pigment mixed in. As it cures, that pigment moves and pools, and the movement is what gives the floor its depth: it reads like you are looking down into water, but it is flat, seamless, and hard. No two metallic floors come out the same. We can steer the color and the amount of movement. We cannot duplicate a pattern, and that is the point of the finish. Metallic is the epoxy people choose when the floor is meant to be looked at: a showroom, a shop lobby, a finished garage. Colors can be blended for a subtle marble look or something far more dramatic, and the high-gloss topcoat is what makes the pattern look wet, like the Englewood floor in the video above. The Murphy warehouse in the story below went deep emerald green over black. ## What is flake epoxy flooring? Flake epoxy is a solid-color base coat with decorative vinyl flakes broadcast into it, then sealed under a clear topcoat. The flakes give the floor a speckled texture and a little visual grain. It is the more practical of the two: the texture hides everyday dust and tire marks better than a glossy metallic does, and the look is more uniform, so it suits a working space. We install flake as often as people ask for it. Flake belongs in garages, workshops, utility rooms, and commercial back-of-house areas, and the color blends run from near-solid to a full terrazzo look. One honest scheduling note: flake is harder to install in cold weather, so a garage floor in the dead of winter may wait for a warmer stretch. We would rather tell you that up front than pour it on a bad day. ## Metallic or flake: which epoxy floor should you choose? Choose metallic for the room people look at, and flake for the room people work in. That one sentence settles most of the conversations we have about it. - Metallic: flowing, one-of-a-kind pattern. Flake: uniform, speckled texture. - Metallic: for when appearance is the priority. Flake: for practical, high-use spaces. - Metallic: a smooth surface that shows dust and tire marks. Flake: texture that hides them. - Metallic: a statement floor. Flake: an understated one. Metallic runs more per square foot than flake or a solid-color coating, because of the extra pigment layers and the hands-on time during the pour. For a garage that gets parked in every day, that premium usually is not worth paying. Buy the flake. For a space that customers walk into, the metallic earns its price the first time somebody stops to take a picture of it. ## Where can epoxy flooring be used? Anywhere with a sound concrete slab and a reason to want it seamless: garages, workshops, retail floors, showrooms, shops, breweries and restaurants, gyms, basements, and commercial kitchens and corridors. It is a coating, so it uses the slab you already have. No demolition, no subfloor, no waiting on material to arrive. Those are examples, not a promise that every epoxy system suits every room. A metallic floor is a decorative system. It handles foot traffic, carts, and rolling loads well, but a forklift lane or a spot that takes dropped tools all day wants a heavier industrial coating in that zone. Plenty of buildings run both, and we will tell you which parts of yours want which. Outdoors, a standard epoxy yellows in sunlight, so a patio or loading dock gets a UV-stable system instead. ## A recent metallic epoxy project The video above is a floor we finished recently in Englewood, in McMinn County: a dark metallic pour with bronze and gold moving through black, sealed under a high-gloss topcoat. For a second look at what the finish does in a big commercial space, read about the emerald green warehouse floor we poured in Murphy, NC. Every other photo of our epoxy work is in the project gallery. ## What to expect from an epoxy installation Four steps, and the second one decides whether the floor lasts. - Estimate. We come look at the slab and talk through the finish you want. We do not quote epoxy over the phone from a square footage, because the concrete tells us what the job actually costs. Cracks, old sealer, and moisture in the slab all change the answer. - Surface preparation. The concrete is mechanically ground to open it up, repaired where it needs it, and checked for moisture. Skipped prep is where nearly every failed epoxy floor we have been called to look at was lost. - Installation. The base coat goes down, then the metallic pour or the flake broadcast, then the clear topcoat that takes the actual wear. - Cure. The floor needs time before it goes back to normal use, and heavier loads wait longer. How long depends on the system you choose, so we will tell you when it is ready rather than print a number here. Most jobs run about two and a half days from the first grind to the finished topcoat. The way we put it at the counter: doing epoxy is like baking an expensive cake. Do one thing wrong, or do one thing too much, and the whole thing can come out wrong. That is why the prep gets more of our time than the pour does. ## Is epoxy the right floor for your space? Not always, and we would rather say so up front. Inside a finished living space, most people are happier with a floor that is warm underfoot and quiet, which usually means luxury vinyl plank or hardwood. In a bathroom with a shower we steer people to tile. A high-gloss epoxy is slick when it is wet, the same as polished tile, so an entry or a wash bay gets a slip-resistant additive built into the topcoat, and we will tell you when a room calls for it. Where it is right, it is very right: a seamless surface with nowhere for oil, water, or dirt to hide, that cleans with a dust mop and does not need to be replaced every few years. Most of the epoxy we install goes into garages and commercial spaces around Madisonville, Athens, and Maryville. Tell us about the space, and we will help you decide whether metallic, flake, or a different floor altogether makes the most sense. Request a free estimate or stop by the showroom in Madisonville. --- # Hardwood Flooring — the deep dive URL: https://millerswholesaleflooring.com/services/hardwood For a local project, explore hardwood installation and refinishing in Lenoir City and ask us to compare the options for your existing floor. Have an older wood floor in Athens? See our hardwood flooring options in Athens for help weighing refinishing against replacement before you buy new flooring. Choosing new wood flooring? Explore Anderson Tuftex hardwood to compare grain, finish and room styles, or see our Shaw hardwood options. --- # Heat-Welded Vinyl & Protect-All — the deep dive URL: https://millerswholesaleflooring.com/services/heat-welded-vinyl ## Why do hospitals and commercial kitchens use heat-welded floors? Because the weak point of any floor is the seam, and heat welding removes the seam entirely. In a house, a little water at a seam is a mop-up. In a hospital corridor or a commercial kitchen, seams are where water, grease, and bacteria collect, and inspections treat them that way. A heat-welded floor has no seams to inspect. The sheets are glued down, then a vinyl rod is melted into every joint with a heat welder and shaved flush. What's left is one continuous surface that can be flooded, scrubbed, and sanitized with nowhere for trouble to hide. That is why the spec sheet for hospitals, surgery centers, commercial kitchens, laundries, and food prep areas so often says the same two words: heat welded. It's not a style choice. It's how those floors pass inspection year after year. ## What is Protect-All flooring? Protect-All is a heavy-duty commercial flooring built for the wettest, hardest-working spaces a building has, and commercial kitchens are its home turf. It is made to be slip-resistant in wet, greasy conditions and to shrug off the dropped pans, rolling carts, and nightly wash-downs that wear ordinary floors out. It is also an exclusive product. Protect-All requires installer training and certification, so it only goes in through certified installers. We completed that certification, which means two things for an East Tennessee project: the product is available to you here, and the crew installing it was trained and tested on exactly this floor. ## What does certified installation get you? A floor installed the way it was engineered to be installed. Certification is training on the details that decide whether a seamless floor actually stays seamless: how the material is cut and fitted, how the welds are run, how the floor is finished at drains, walls, and equipment. On a floor whose whole job is having no weak points, those details are the product. And like all of our work, the install carries the family name on the job. One more thing we check before any sheet floor goes down: the subfloor. Sheet goods show every bump and ridge in the surface under them, even more than a click-together plank does, so subfloor prep is part of every quote we write, not a surprise afterward. ## Do you have to use Protect-All to get a heat-welded floor? No. Heat welding is a technique, not a brand. Commercial sheet vinyl in general can be heat welded, and we bring the same welds to those installs. Protect-All is what we reach for when the space is a commercial kitchen or somewhere equally punishing; for other seam-free jobs, standard commercial sheet goods often do it for less. Tell us what the space has to survive and we'll spec the floor to match, not the other way around. And if your space doesn't see standing water, wash-downs, or an inspector, you may not need a welded floor at all. A glue-down commercial LVP or an epoxy floor handles plenty of storefronts, offices, and warehouses at a lower cost. We'll tell you when the cheaper floor is the right one. If a project anywhere in East Tennessee specs Protect-All or heat-welded vinyl, get our price. The estimate is free: request an estimate or come see us at the showroom in Madisonville. --- # Luxury Vinyl Plank (LVP) — the deep dive URL: https://millerswholesaleflooring.com/services/lvp ## WPC luxury vinyl plank WPC is luxury vinyl plank built on a wood-plastic composite core, and it is what we recommend for homes in East Tennessee, on every subfloor. The core is the thick middle of the plank; WPC's version has a little give and a lot of stability, which matters here more than most places. Our region swings from humid summers to dry winter heat, and a floor that can expand and contract with the seasons is a floor that stays flat and quiet. We've watched WPC hold up beautifully through Tennessee seasons where SPC struggles, and on wood subfloors it outlasts SPC by a wide margin. WPC is also the more comfortable floor to live on. It's warmer underfoot, quieter under a dropped toy, and easier on your knees at the kitchen sink. If you want the full cross-section, wear layer to pad, our article What Is LVP Made Of? walks through every layer. ## SPC luxury vinyl plank SPC is luxury vinyl plank built on a stone-plastic composite core: denser, harder, and more rigid than WPC. Its home is commercial work, installed glue-down, where rolling loads and constant traffic reward a rock-hard core. That's exactly how we spec it for storefronts and offices. As you can probably tell, we're not the biggest fans of SPC for houses, but SPC absolutely has its place and its value. A floating SPC is an honest choice for a rental, a flip, or a tighter budget, and over a flat, level slab it performs well. WPC generally runs more per square foot. For a rental you're turning over, that math matters: buy the SPC. For the house you'll live in for twenty years, the difference disappears into the years you don't spend replacing it. ## Can you put LVP on a concrete slab? Yes, and it's one of the most common installs we do, with one condition that decides everything: the slab has to be flat. A click-together plank bridges dips instead of filling them, and a floor installed over a wavy slab is a floor that's going to come apart, WPC or SPC. Get the slab flat first and both cores handle concrete fine; our pick for a home is still WPC, even over a slab, because the seasonal movement problem doesn't go away just because the subfloor is masonry. There is a specific underlayment we like over concrete. Ask us about it when you come in, and if you're weighing plank against wood, our hardwood page covers when real wood is worth it instead. ## What we stock and what we recommend For most people who walk in our door, the recommendation is the same: a WPC plank with at least a 20 mil wear layer. The wear layer is the clear coating you actually walk on, measured in mils (thousandths of an inch), and it's the first number we check on any plank, ours or a competitor's. Thin wear layers are where bargain "waterproof" floors quietly fail early. With our wholesale pricing, a 20 mil WPC from us often lands near what a thinner plank costs at a big box store. We also keep some 12 mil SPCs in stock, because they have an honest place: flippers, property managers, and rentals, where the floor needs to be presentable and replaceable rather than permanent. Commercial glue-down LVP runs thinner wear layers by design too. Tell us what the floor is for and we'll point you at the right one, even when it's the cheaper one. Replacing floors in Athens? Our luxury vinyl plank installation in Athens page explains the free measure, samples and installation process so you know what to expect before choosing a floor. If you're getting flooring prices, get ours. Bring your room measurements to the showroom in Madisonville, or request a free estimate and we'll bring samples to you. Shopping by brand? Explore COREtec luxury vinyl flooring for help comparing construction, comfort and wood looks, or Shaw luxury vinyl for more options. --- # Tile & Stone — the deep dive URL: https://millerswholesaleflooring.com/services/tile Planning a bathroom update? Learn about bathroom tile installation in Lenoir City, including floor tile, showers and backsplashes. --- # Flooring in Athens, TN — the deep dive URL: https://millerswholesaleflooring.com/locations/athens-tn ## Hardwood floors in Athens, TN: install new, or refinish what's there? Refinish first, if the wood is worth it. A lot of Athens houses have real oak under carpet or under thirty years of wear, and sanding and finishing it costs a fraction of replacing it. We look at the boards during the free measure and tell you honestly which way to go. If it's too thin to sand again, or the floor has water damage, we replace it, and most of what we install now is engineered hardwood glued down full-spread. Wide plank we glue that way is not going to squeak. Solid hardwood still has its place upstairs and in the older homes in town, nailed to a wood subfloor. More on the difference in our engineered vs solid guide. ## Carpet for Athens bedrooms Carpet's home is bedrooms, and Athens buys a lot of it. Our advice hasn't changed in three generations: put the money in the pad, not the carpet. The pad is the moisture barrier, the comfort, and the reason the carpet still looks right in five years. On fiber, the house line is simple. A polyester will clean better and a nylon will wear better. Kids and pets push us toward nylon; a guest room can take polyester and never know the difference. Details on the carpet page. ## LVP and COREtec in Athens For a busy Athens living area, kitchen or basement, we recommend WPC luxury vinyl plank with at least a 20 mil wear layer. Waterproof through the plank, warm underfoot, and it handles East Tennessee humidity better than the rigid SPC cores do. COREtec and Titan Surfaces are on our showroom floor, and we'll tell you which one fits the room rather than which one has the best poster. What we won't sell you is laminate. We stopped, on purpose, because the pressed core swells when water finds it. Why WPC, and when SPC. ## Flooring replacement in an Athens house: how it goes - Free measure at your home. We look at the rooms, the transitions, the stairs, and the subfloor. Flatness is the make-or-break for any click floor, so we check it before we quote, and any prep is priced into the estimate, not added later. - Samples in your light. We bring them, or the showroom is 22 minutes away on Isbill Road in Madisonville. - Our own crews. The people who measure and the people who install work for Miller's. Two-year workmanship warranty on the install. A customer over in Riceville, which is Athens for our purposes, put it this way: "Cassandra guided us through selection of LVP and Carpet, thoroughly explaining wear rating, stain resistance, etc. Jonathan came out the day after our LVP was down, took one look at a small section and carefully took it up and re-installed it to meet his standards. We weren't charged for the additional work." — Phil, Riceville ## Commercial floors in Athens The Food City in Athens is ours, and it's the job that started us flooring Food City stores across the Southeast. We've done flooring work for Tennessee Wesleyan. For stores, offices and clinics we install SPC glue-down, commercial carpet, epoxy, rubber and, new this year, heat-welded seamless vinyl for kitchens and healthcare. The commercial page has the lines; bring us the plans. ## When we'd tell you not to buy our usual recommendation A rental you're turning over, or a house you'll sell next spring: buy the floating SPC, not the WPC. It costs less, it's honest, and we'll happily sell it to you. A bathroom or a laundry room: we steer you to tile, not hardwood and not engineered, because real wood swells no matter what the box says. And if your existing hardwood just needs a screen and recoat, we'll say so, and you'll spend less with us than you planned to. ## Getting flooring prices in Athens Get ours. The estimate is free, it takes about an hour at your house, and we've been doing this since 1970. Call (423) 442-1697 or send the estimate form any time; after hours we call you back the next business morning. --- # Flooring in Englewood, TN — the deep dive URL: https://millerswholesaleflooring.com/locations/englewood-tn ## A flooring company with Englewood roots [Photo: Mitch, Jonathan, Jordan and John Miller in front of the original John Miller's Carpet Sales sign in Englewood, Tennessee] Mitch, Jonathan, Jordan, and John Miller at the family's original Englewood location. Miller's began in Englewood long before the current showroom opened in Madisonville. In 1970, John Miller left his factory job and started selling carpet from his garage. By 1973 the work had become John Miller's Carpet Sales. John and his son Mitch opened the Madisonville storefront in 1989, and the family later changed the name to Miller's Wholesale Flooring as the business grew beyond carpet. The address changed, but Englewood never stopped being part of the route. It is still one of the closest McMinn County communities to our showroom, and the third generation of the family is carrying the work forward. ## Recent work in an Englewood home Luxury vinyl plank is one of the floors our Englewood customers call for most. It works well through busy living areas because it is durable, easy to maintain, and available in a wide range of wood looks. One repeat customer described his installation this way: “Dylan from Millers Wholesale Flooring installed LVP in my home in Englewood and did an excellent job. This wasn't my first time using Millers, and they've always been great to work with. I highly recommend them for any flooring project!” — Caleb, Englewood, Tennessee LVP is only one option. We also install carpet, hardwood, tile, sheet vinyl, rubber, epoxy, and commercial flooring. If an existing hardwood floor can be saved, we can talk through refinishing instead of covering it. If the subfloor needs work before a new floor goes down, we will explain that during the measure rather than surprise you after the project starts. ## How a free Englewood estimate works - Tell us about the project. Call or send the estimate form with the rooms and flooring types you are considering. - We measure at your home for free. We look at the space, transitions, stairs, moisture concerns, and the condition of the subfloor. - We help narrow the choices. We can bring samples, and the full showroom is about 15 minutes away when you want to compare products under one roof. - You get a clear project price. The estimate covers the flooring and the installation work the project actually needs. There is no obligation to buy. Comparing estimates is sensible, and we want Englewood homeowners to know what they are getting before they commit. --- # Flooring in Lenoir City, TN — the deep dive URL: https://millerswholesaleflooring.com/locations/lenoir-city-tn ## LVP in Lenoir City and Tennessee National Luxury vinyl plank is the floor most Lenoir City customers call us for, and for a lake house at Tennessee National it's the right call: waterproof through the plank, warm underfoot, and built for humidity swings off Watts Bar. We recommend WPC with at least a 20 mil wear layer for a home you'll live in. A floating SPC is the honest pick for a rental or a flip. Either one comes apart on an unflat subfloor, so we check flatness at the measure and price any prep into the quote. The LVP page covers the brands we carry; the short version is COREtec and Titan Surfaces on the showroom floor. ## Bathroom Tile Installation in Lenoir City Showers and bathrooms are where we steer people to tile. It's the one place it's worth every dollar: a unique, luxurious look that LVP can imitate but not match, and it doesn't care about standing water. Good prep and a good laser are what make a tile job; a level substrate and straight lines are most of the difference between a bathroom that looks custom and one that looks patched. We install floor tile, shower tile and backsplash. What we don't do is plumbing or vanities, so if the job is a full bathroom remodel, we're the flooring and tile crew inside it. Tile and stone. ## Hardwood Installation and Refinishing in Lenoir City Most of the hardwood we sell now is engineered, and at four inches wide and up we glue it down full-spread, which is why a wide plank we installed doesn't squeak. Solid hardwood still goes in above grade on a wood subfloor. If the house already has real wood, refinishing is usually the better spend, and we'll say so at the measure. For day-to-day care, the answer to "hardwood floor cleaning" is shorter than the internet makes it: a dry microfiber, a damp mop with a cleaner made for wood, and no steam. We wrote it up in floor cleaning tips. ## Flooring replacement in a Lenoir City home We measure for free, bring samples, and quote the flooring and installation your rooms need. Our own crews remove the old floor, address the subfloor work included in your quote and install your new flooring. Ask about material availability and the earliest installation appointment when we measure. We'll explain the schedule and what to prepare before the crew arrives. One Lenoir City customer said what we'd hope to hear: "The salesman, John, is just like a family member helping you pick out carpet. Al came and measured my 1996 four-bedroom old nasty carpet and didn't make me feel bad or uncomfortable about letting it go for too long." — Sandy, Lenoir City ## Is 35 minutes too far? No. Lenoir City is about 35 minutes from the showroom, and our crews cover it the same way they cover Madisonville. We're not the closest store, and we don't try to be. What we bring is the same installers who've been doing this for us for years, a project manager who answers the phone, and pricing that's the same flat markup for everyone. If you're getting flooring prices in Lenoir City, get ours too; the estimate is free and comparing quotes is what we'd tell you to do anyway. Call (423) 442-1697 or send the form.