Fashionable yet timeless. Warm yet unyielding. You could say it's one of life's affordable luxuries.

  Laminated Wood Flooring

A popular alternative to other hard surface products, high-quality laminate flooring resists staining, wear, and fading much better than wood and natural stone while providing unique looks and appeal.

Laminate flooring is a material made to look like natural products such as wood flooring or natural stone. It is made up of either synthetic materials (usually melamine resin) or of synthetic materials combined with natural and recycled ingredients and covered with an attached decorative applique including an aluminum oxide finish.

Laminate floors are usually much less expensive than wood or natural stone flooring material, and are a good solution for a do-it-yourself homeowner to install. Most unique to laminate flooring is its monolithic function- each plank or tile clicks into one another, without the use of glue, staples, nails, or cementitious compounds. Laminate floors "float" over the installations sub-floor after laying a foam/film underlayment to provide moisture & sound reducing properties.

Laminate flooring has a dense inner core and a glued-on layer or fused layers of outer material. Many types of laminate flooring simulate wood, but some look like marble or granite.

Laminate flooring at the top end of the market is now a highly sophisticated product with designs and styling very close to the wood and natural products its mimics.

High quality photographic images are reproduced by a process called “embossing in register”. The finished surfaces no longer look like plastic because the quality of the lacquers has improved.

Matt,satin or high gloss finishes are widely available, and for wood effects , a new oiled look. Although the majority of laminate products are I wood effects, including the reproduction of exotic species and distressed timbers, the range of tile and stone effects is expanding. There are also plain or grained colours such as white, silver, grey ,blue, green etc, bold contemporary geometric styles in bright colours and reproductions of fruits and nuts.

Additional realism incorporated into the designs includes ‘V’ grooves and beveled edges on wood effects and ‘grouting’ on stone and tile styles. Extra wide and long wood effect boards now rival large sold wood planks, and short narrow planks enable herringbone and parquet patterns to be laid.

Click systems are key players in the market. Most systems rely on an elaborate type of tongue and grooving, with the ‘tonge’ being inserted into the ‘groove’ at a near 45 degrees angle. As it is flattened the two boards lie side by side firmly joined.

In the mechanical joint system the groove is cut horizontally in a broad shallow ‘u’ shape at the edge of the core which is extended on one side of the board. On the other side, the core is cut away leaving a hanging ‘u’ to drop neatly into the groove of the adjacent board.

Manufacturing mechanical joints is more expensive than producing the standard click system, but its proponents say that as it is quick to lay the time saved justifies the initial additional cost. One reason for the success of glueless systems is that they can be walked on immediately. Adhesive manufacturers have resonded to this challenge by making new glues that are easier to apply, dry faster and have lower emission rates to reduce the smell.

Other adhesives can be applied in strips to reduce coverage costs and stay flexibe after drying.
The new building regulations on sound attenuation has made laminate manufacturers address the problem of noise transmission. Good insulation against noise is a major factor in successful floor installations. Dense panels give better insulation than light ones, and panels perform better than normal strips.  Some laminated panels now incorporate a foam underside for sound insulation.

Low cleaning and maintenance costs are important marketing tools for laminate manufacturers. While cheap products still thrive in the DIY market, the contract sector appears to be trading up to better qualities.