Yes, to some extent you need to pay a little more attention to your hardwood floors than say, a ceramic floor. Proper maintenance and using the proper cleaning products will greatly add to your floor’s life. Once you get used to its care requirements, you will likely find that it is a very forgiving floor to live with.

Vinyl is certainly not as resistant to tears and scratches as ceramic tile is, but most vinyl does have an inner layer built into it now which tends to resist tears quite well. I wouldn’t hesitate to consider it in a high traffic residential area.

If your original vinyl floor was installed using a full spread adhesive method, then you can apply an embossing leveler to the original vinyl to smooth it out and then install the new vinyl.