Laminates:
Laminate is a relatively recent entrant into the United States Flooring market and is a popular choice in Atlanta. Available in Europe for the last couple of decades, it was not until the mid 1990′s that North America began to look to laminate as a viable flooring option.
How it’s made:
Laminate flooring is a multi-layer product. Moving from the top of the product down to the base the layers in most laminate products are as follows:
- Wear layer: The wear layer is usually a tough plastic, impregnated with aluminum oxide crystals. Through a process of heat forming, the resin material that makes up the wear layer becomes so dense that it is extremely resistant to scratching, burning or scuffing.
- Print Film: Literally a picture, the print film provides the look of the floor. Woodprint is likely the most common laminate flooring design, but the possibilities for other styles are limited only by the manufacturer’s imagination and customer demand.
- Core: A high-density fiberboard core makes up the bulk of the laminate flooring product. Often injected with resin to increase water resistance, the core of the laminate product is routed with a tongue and groove design.
- Backing: Often another layer of plastic, similar to the wear layer. This protects the core fromany moisture that might seep up from the sub floor.
Many laminate floors are textured in order to give a more realistic look and feel to the product. There are two basic processes by which texture is added to the product. They can be either….
- Embossed: this process involves pressing textured patterns in to the wear layer of the laminate product
- Embossed in register: like embossing, but the texture pattern is designed to follow the grain in the print film
How it comes:
Laminate is most commonly available in strips/planks (like solid and engineered wood) or in tiles. The strips and planks tend to be a very easy snap together or glue together installation whereas the tiles tend to be far more difficult to install as they are hard to keep even and straight over the course of an entire room.
How laminate is installed:
Laminate floors are floated. The first step in most laminate installations is to lay polyethylene sheeting (the thickness of the sheeting will be determined by the laminate manufacturer’s recommendation) on the sub floor as a moisture barrier. Most laminate products also require foam sheet laid on the sub floor on which the new laminate floor floats in order to deaden sound and cushion the walking surface.
The two basic methods for installing laminate flooring are snap-together and glue together.
Snap-together flooring is very installer-friendly. The planks pop together and require no adhesives. While not necessarily well suited to very high traffic commercial settings, snap-together installation will hold up very well for the average user in any area that is unlikely to be exposed to significant amounts of water. Caulking any seams and certainly caulking around any potential water sources (sinks, dishwashers etc.) is necessary as excess water can damage the fiber core of the laminate product.
Glue-together flooring certainly takes a bit more work to install, but also tends to be a bit more water resistant (the glue can form a seal in all of the joints which will limit the amount of water that can seep down into the fiber core), and more suitable to higher traffic commercial areas. Many laminate manufacturers make specific recommendation as to which glue is to be used in glue-together applications, and will void the warranty if a non-recommended product is used.
Similar Posts:
- Choosing Laminated Wood Flooring
- Laminate Flooring – Kitchen
- Exploring Flooring Options: How Laminate Flooring Is Made
- Thinking of Buying Laminate Flooring For Your Home?
- Laminate Flooring Installation Guidelines
