A Look At The Pros And Cons Of Laminate Flooring

Want that gorgeous wood-look for a fraction of the price you’d spend on solid hardwood?

If your answer is yes, then laminate flooring is what you need to get.

A low-cost alternative to stone or standard wood flooring, laminate is a long-lasting floor that comes in a variety of attractive styles. Apart from being a popular flooring option in condos and rental homes, laminate is also ideal for businesses and family homes. The material’s realistic stone-and-wood-look and low-maintenance, low-cost cleaning make it a favorite for many.

Laminate flooring first debuted in the flooring market in the ‘70s as the first human-made, fully-synthetic alternative to natural wood. The flooring material quickly gained popularity as laminate manufacturers made increasingly realistic that easily passed for real wood.

The material was, in a sense, the pioneer of realistic, wood-looking flooring and paved the way for other flooring types. Since its inception, several different flooring materials have caught on and have started creating their wood looks. However, laminate remains to be the realistic wood-look flooring material of choice, and for various reasons too.

Laminate Flooring: Why Use It?

What keeps laminate flooring trending as one of the most popular flooring options in modern businesses and homes despite it being an old trend? To answer this question, here is a look at why current homeowners are still choosing laminate flooring:

The Benefits of Installing Laminate Flooring

More scratch resistant than vinyl: The material has a sturdy, hard-to-wear layer that protects the floor from dents, staining, scratches, and wear, all the things our furry friends do to our floors.

Durable: Laminate has supreme durability, which makes it an excellent option for homes with pets and kids and areas with high traffic.

Realistic wood and stone-looks: Laminate flooring planks tend to have surface detail, which further mimics the looks of natural hardwood. These planks can be made to have the feel and look of distressed hardwood, embossed wood, or hand-scraped hardwood and can come smooth or textured. Unlike real hardwood, the quality remains consistent across all laminate-based flooring boards.

It can be installed over a radiant heating system: This is one feature you will rarely find with a majority of hardwood flooring options.

It is water-resistant to some extent: Through research and development, the material is slowly improving its water-resistance. While it still isn’t waterproof as compared to vinyl flooring, a majority of today’s laminate floors can tolerate topical moisture. When properly installed, a laminate floor will keep water from seeping through its planks.

Easy to install: A laminate floor is designed to be fixed as a floating floor. This means that it’s not secured to the ground beneath it; instead, it ‘floats’ through a unique interlocking design. The installation process is relatively easy and can be done by anyone – which makes it a great DIY project. (Want to learn how to install a laminate floor? Check out the video below.)

Easy to maintain and clean: You can sweep or mop up messes as needed. With a laminate floor, floor waxing is not necessary.

Cost-Effective: A laminate floor is a more affordable alternative to a hardwood floor. Lower maintenance and even lower prices? Cheap laminate flooring.

Comfortable to stand on for extended periods: A majority of laminate installations have an underlayment that makes the floor a bit more comfortable to stand on.

Laminate Flooring Shortcomings

As much as we would love to continue talking about how laminate is the best flooring material, it still – like any other floor – has its shortcomings. As is the case with all types of flooring, there will always be some concerns to think about. Here are some of the less appealing aspects of laminate flooring:

Not recommended for basements or full bathrooms: Since these are two areas that are prone to flooding and leaks, you should consider installing a floor that is a bit more water-resistant. Fortunately, you can make a laminate floor more resistant to water by installing a vapor barrier and an underlayment or by installing it using the glue-down method.

It isn’t as water-resistant as vinyl floors: While the material’s capability to resist water has improved, it still can’t tolerate stagnant pools of water. Laminate’s water resistance, unlike vinyl’s, works from top to bottom instead of the other way around. If your subfloor is experiencing issues with moisture, consider installing a vapor barrier.

Sound: If poorly installed, a laminate floor can create an empty, hollow sound. Every product comes with comprehensive installation instructions, so installation shouldn’t be a problem. However, if you are worried that you won’t get it right, you can always have an expert do it for you. If you want your laminate floor quiet, consider installing a quality underlayment.

The History of Laminate Flooring

Laminate Flooring is one of the most durable and resilient floor surfaces available in the world. Laminate flooring has gained popularity as a result of its low maintenance requirements, ease of installation, and long life. Also, this material can be printed to stimulate a wide range of natural flooring materials which include ceramic tiles, slate and hardwood planks.

What is Laminate Flooring?

A New Laminate Flooring

Laminate is synthetic flooring that is manufactured by fusing various layers of different materials using pressure, adhesive and heat in a process referred to as lamination. While these products are in most cases manufactured to replicate the feel and look of various hardwood surfaces, they contain non-wood materials.

They have become the best installation method of choice for many floor coverings. Due to its simplicity and ease, floating floor installations save both money and time while making the entire installation process to go a lot faster. A floating floor is not a type of flooring, but a perfect method of installing your floor.

Individual boards, planks, and tiles attach to each other, but not to the subfloor. You may attach them with glue or by snapping them together. Also, you can have laminate flooring in your building by installing floating floorboards. Just like floating floors, floating floorboards are a method of installation that is in most cases used synonymously with the laminate flooring.

The Structure of Laminate Flooring

Laminate flooring features various layers which include a top wear layer, decorative or photograph layer, fiberboard core, back layer, and the underlayment. The top wear layer is the invisible surface which rests over the material. It protects it from scratches as well as other damages. The layer is primarily made from aluminum oxide chemical treatment.

A decorative or photograph layer is a surface that provides the laminate with its actual appearance. It’s created when a pattern or an image is printed on a paper-like material that is embedded in resin. Fiberboard core is the heart of laminate material, and it provides it with the structure, depth, and stability of the entire surface covering. It is primarily made up of sawdust or wood chips ground into a fine powder and then coated with resin before being pressed into flat sheets.

Most laminates have moisture barrier back layers. They work closely with water-resistant wear layers to sandwich the picture and fiberboard layers of the laminate forming a water seal around the core materials. Back layers also provide much-needed stability in the installation process. Laminate flooring is installed over the underlayment layer which is most often a foam or cork rolls.

The History of Laminate Flooring

Laminate is a material that has been used on various surfaces like backsplashes and counters since the early 1920s. Initially, the material wasn’t strong enough to be used in flooring installations, but over time, technological advancements as well as innovations in their manufacturing process refined the process and made it durable.

In 1977, the first laminate flooring materials were invented in Sweden by Perstorp Company. The company started marketing its products in 1984 in European countries under the name Pergo. By mid-1990s, the product had spread across the United States. Currently, the term Pergo is synonymous with laminate flooring, but there are many other manufacturers of these materials.In 1996 and 1997, glueless interlocking laminate flooring materials were invented at the same time in Europe by two separate companies. As a result of this, the Perstorp Company in Sweden and the Unilin Company in Belgium have had various conflicts over the years.

Since the invention of the interlocking laminate floors, the two companies have fought for many years over the patent rights as to which among them was the first to introduce the new technology. Currently, almost all laminate floors are marketed and sold by one of the two companies.

The Applications of Laminate Flooring

Laminate flooring is stain resistant, durable as well as mold resistant, which means that it is perfect in high traffic areas. You can use them in your living room, entryways, dining room, and hallways.

Laminate flooring is also water resistant, making it appropriate for baths, kitchens, laundry rooms and other water-heavy environments. When shopping, check with the retailer for specific characteristics of the material you are buying.

Laminate flooring with the flooring industry

Laminate flooring has revolutionized the flooring industry in the past decade. It offers the consumer the option to achieve almost any flooring style out there at the price of basic carpeting. How is this possible? Well, laminate flooring is itself made out of more economical materials which are easier on your wallet, but that on the surface offer the appeal of anything from sandalwood to marble. That’s right. Since laminate flooring is not actually made of the materials it appears to be. It can be a replacement for wood, tile, marble, stone, cork, and even bamboo. This remarkable ability in laminate flooring comes from the fact that its veneer is made of photographic material. That’s right. Anything one can take a high-quality photograph of, in a sense, can become laminate flooring.

Laminate Flooring The other stand-out characteristic of laminate floors is that they are so easy to install almost anyone can do it. It truly is the do-it-yourselfer’s dream. Most laminate floors are engineered in a fashion so that not only are not nails required, but no glue is either — the means no mess, and no injury. The pieces of laminate have corresponding grooves on the end of each piece which locks safely and securely into one another. The most challenging part of installing these floors is if there is an even edge or odd corner in the room(s) you are installing it in. That may require a bit of cutting that can be done with a simple handsaw. Nevertheless, this is more the exception than the rule. Most people just throw down the laminate, lock it into place, and enjoy their beautiful new floor.

As far as maintenance is concerned, laminate floors should be swept relatively often, depending on the level of traffic their receiving. But, they never require such pricey and arduous processes as waxing, oiling, or staining. This means that you can lock your floor into place and enjoy the fruit without any added labor. This is music to the ears of many homeowners who spend a great deal of their free time tending to their homes rather than enjoying them.