So, What Exactly Is A Laminate Floor?
Posted: Monday, November 23, 2009
by Anthony Davis
How many times have you stepped on to someone's brand new laminate floor and immediately exclaimed, "What the heck is that!?". Although you're probably not alone in having never done that, you're probably starting to wonder now, aren't you? For many people, laminate floors have been around for as long as they can remember, so they really don't think too much about what they are or where they came from. Regardless, some people are curious and, if that's you, then read on. I
Let's get this out of the way: Pergo and laminate flooring is the same thing. You have to respect a brand that is a household name in an industry so competitive as laminate flooring, but Pergo really is nothing more than a laminate floor brand. People tend to start calling things by their brand name, since that's what's mostly advertised, but calling laminate floors Pergo is akin to calling all sodas Coke or Pepsi. So, when someone says they have Pergo, you know that what they are really saying is laminate flooring, but I wouldn't point that out since some people will just argue the matter.
Laminate Floors Are Not Real Hard Wood
Yet they sort of are. No, laminate floors are not hard wood, that much is obvious, even though with some of the higher quality brands you do have to get down on your hands and knees to really tell the difference. To be fair, there is some real wood in the mix, as the base of most laminate flooring is a wood-chip composite, but that's not really telling the whole story. If you're finding it really hard to tell the difference between real wood floors and a laminate floor, try knocking on it. Laminate floors will usually generate a sound more like a plastic "tick" and less like a wooden "thud".
Laminate Floors Are Designed To Mimic Wood
Practically speaking, the laminate floor is nothing but a picture of real wood pasted on to something that is a lot tougher than your typical hard wood floor. Laminated flooring will remain unscathed through events that usually make hardwood floor owners go in to fits. Scratches, scuffs, and scrapes are certainly possible, but are a lot less likely or common, and much easier to fix when they do happen. In those homes that get a lot of pet or kid traffic, authentic wooden floors have become rather cumbersome and outdated in comparison, not to mention stressful.
Laminate Floors And Your Office Laminator
Yes, they are both derivatives of the same process, called lamination. Most people think that lamination is basically the act of putting some paper in some plastic, but that's a very watered down definition. If you were to put plastic around your cell phone and either glue the plastic or seal it with heat, you would have laminated your cell phone, which would be either ridiculous or hilarious, depending on the circumstances. In the case of laminate floors, the plastic surrounds and protects a photograph of wood which then sits, amusingly enough, on a base of wood chips. The result is almost all of the benefits of hard wood floors with few of the drawbacks.
For more information on laminate floors, check out my site, Laminate Floor Facts.
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)I am married to a builder who thinks there is nothing like the real thing - it doesn't swell and get messed up with some water on it and when the surface is scratched you can sand it down and put another coat of finish on it for basically a new floor... we do like Trex for decks though. MarijoThank you very much for the input!It's not terribly hard to repair a scratch or scuff on a laminate floor. My mom actually had an issue with her real wood floors where some water managed to get between the foundation and the bottom layer of the flooring (no one knows how) and she ended up with an interesting, but annoying hump in the floor about six inches high. Like everything, there are certainly pros and cons.
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