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Are you looking for that picture perfect floor to make your new living room look great? Laminate floors are an ever more popular and affordable choice for homeowners that want a floor that looks great and stands up to the kind of abuse an active family can dish out. Over the past two decades, advances in manufacturing technology have brought laminate flooring out of the realms of ‘cheap alternative’. Today’s laminates are versatile, durable and virtually indistinguishable from the ‘real thing’.

The ‘real thing’ that laminate floors duplicate is most often hardwood flooring, but the manufacturing process for laminates allows for endless possibilities of patterns and materials. Because the actual pattern of the floor is an image embedded beneath a crystal clear protective coating, laminate flooring can look like oak or cherry, fine terracotta or ceramic, or even marble or flagstone. With the development of high-tech imaging processes and materials, laminate floors are rapidly becoming known as the best choice of flooring for any active family.

Four Layer Construction – Stability, Versatility, Durability and Beauty
The secret of the durability and beauty of laminate floors lies in the manufacturing processes and materials used for creating them. A sheet of laminate floor consists of four layers that are bonded together using a combination of pressure and heat. Each layer serves a specific purpose in the construction.

Layer 1: The Back Layer

Laminate floors are designed to be laid over an existing floor without being attached to it. The back layer of a laminate floor is usually made of melamine, a tough, waterproof acrylic that helps protect the core layer of the floor from moisture damage. This means that laminate flooring can be used in areas that aren’t recommended for wood and other types of floors that can’t stand up to damage.

Layer 2: The Inner Core

Between the back layer and the decorative layer is a resilient fiberboard core. The material that’s used for the core varies slightly from manufacturer to manufacturer. The fiberboard is pressed together to create a dense, resilient center that gives laminate flooring the ‘spring’ that distinguishes it from hardwood or stone floors. The fiberboard is subjected to either pressure or a combination of pressure and heat to give it added strength.

Layer 3: The Decorative Layer

This is the layer that gives laminate floors their well-deserved reputation as ‘great pretenders’. It’s a highly detailed photograph of the natural surface desired that is bonded to the inner core. The most popular ‘surface’ is wood, as wood grains render beautifully in photographs, but more and more often, the photo is of stone or tile. The pattern or design that may be used is limited only by the floor designer’s imagination. Four or five years back, you’d have had to look hard to find anything but wood – but these days you’ll find dozens of other styles available that mimic the look of anything from Grecian marble to fieldstone to terracotta tile.

The Wear Layer

The top layer of a laminate floor is called the wear layer – for obvious reasons. In high end products, aluminum oxide is the most commonly used top surface. Similar to the laminated top of a counter like Formica, the laminate layer used by most floor manufacturers is up to 40% stronger than countertop laminates. It may be up to several milliliters thick, and it resists staining, moisture, burns, fading – nearly any abuse you can give it. The wear layer is what protects the floor, keeping it looking brand new for years.

Putting It All Together

The design layer is fused to the inner core first, either using heat and pressure, or just pressure. The fused layers are then bonded to the melamine backing the same way. The wear layer goes on last, before the laminate flooring material goes through a final fusing. The material is cut into planks or blocks – which is what the end user will buy at the store. The planks may range from less than an inch in width to almost a foot, and are edged with tongue and groove construction so that the pieces of a floor can be fitted together just like a puzzle piece. Many manufacturers extend the protective coating to the sides of the flooring planks as well as the top and bottom.

Putting It All Together Again

The tongue and groove construction makes installation so easy that a complete novice can put down a new floor in a weekend afternoon. Some of the newer laminate floor products don’t even require glue to get a virtually seamless floor. They just snap together and lock tight, making it possible to walk on your new floor as soon as you put it down. Picture perfect, years of wear and easy to install – the new generation of laminate floors are definitely worth a second look when you’re looking for a new floor.