Laminate

Laminate Flooring is one of the hottest flooring products being sold today. If you want flooring for active lifestyles , a floor which is durable and easy to clean, then laminate floors may be exactly what you are searching for.

Laminate flooring is a tongue and groove interlocking flooring system that rests on top of the existing substrate. Plywood, concrete slab, sheet vinyl flooring, hardwood flooring, or virtually any other flat hard surface is suitable for a "floating" laminate installation. Indeed, this is a major reason why the installation of laminate flooring is so DIY friendly. The word "floating" or "float-in" is a flooring term that means the new floor is not attached to the floor underneath. In a typical floating installation, only the joints are glued or attached. The body of the floor rests unattached to an appropriate underlayment.

With glueless brands, the tongue and groove interlocks via either a aluminum joint locking (Alloc Original) or a fiberboard joint locking system (all others). With the brand new (Fall 2002) “pre-glued” or “glue activated” products, the tongue is wiped with water and the panels are clicked together like a glueless product. The wetting of the tongue activates the glue which results in a glued joint.

With glued brands of laminate flooring, the joints are glued with specially formulated, water-resistant, glue placed between the tongue and grooves of every plank. There are variances in how much glue is used. Some brands require a lot of glue - enough to completely fill the entire groove and the excess squeezes out when the tongue and groove are interlocked. Others only require only a small bead of glue on a specific location of the groove.

Laminate flooring consists of components that are bonded together. A wear-resistant decorative surface made of resin-based melamine. This material is bonded to a moisture-resistant wood-based core. A balancing backing is bonded to the underside of the core. By using the existing technology found in counter tops and adding considerably more resins to the wear layer these materials become an ideal floor covering. Matter of fact, some laminate floor manufacturers boast that their laminate floors are 10 to 20 times harder than laminate counter tops. Since this resin-filled wear layer is so dense, it becomes extremely difficult to stain, scratch, or burn with a cigarette. These floors are not scratch proof.

Aesthetically, the most common designs have a wood grain visual appearance or stone and marble appearance. Most of the laminate floors are made in long rectangular shaped planks typically about 47"x8". There are some square tiles (usually about 15"x15" or 24"x24")

The photography and number of photographs per color (termed "screens"), is an important factor of the aesthetic quality and visual realism. Hardwood flooring is easily and very authentically reproduced. Therefore, most hardwood floor species are reproduced such as exotic, distressed and tropical hardwoods along with oak, maple, birch and cherry. The term "blocked" is used to describe a laminate flooring plank's design that consists of smaller plank fillets-widths such as 2.25" strip hardwood. The term "planked" is used to describe a laminate flooring plank's design that represents one board of lumber.

Because laminate floors are so dense, they are easy to keep clean and most, if not all, polishes will not stick to their surface area. All that is really required is vacuuming; dust mopping and maybe a damp towel at times. Most brands carry a 10,15, 25-year and lifetime residential warranty against staining, wearing, and fading. Many of the top brands include a warranty for topical moisture resistance.

Laminate Flooring Construction

There are two types of laminate floor construction. A direct pressure laminate (DPL) and a high pressure laminate (HPL). The difference is in the process of attaching the materials to the core. The direct pressure laminate is basically a one step process, whereby all the layers are fused directly to the core at the same time, and impregnated with melamine resins using heat and pressure. On the other hand, the high-pressure laminates are a two-step wear layer process. First the Kraft paper type sheets are glued together along with the print film, then this is glued to the core, and everything is bonded together under pressure. Both types of laminate flooring make an extremely hard surface that resists scratching, denting, sunlight fading, and even cigarette burns!