利用者:Utahlaminate29

Laminate Flooring - Everything You need to know

Laminate Flooring mimics the look of traditional woods and will be offering easy installation and long lasting durability. At first glance, it can be difficult to spot the difference between hardwoods and also laminate flooring. What appears to be considered a natural wood grain pattern is often a thin layer of furnishings paper (a photographic image) under a tough-as-nails protective film which is glued and pressed to some high-density backing board. Laminate Flooring comes in a range of wood effects as well as stone and ceramic results.

Laminate floors main advantages are that it is possible to install, is very hard sporting and relatively inexpensive when compared with real hardwood flooring.

Laminate flooring is the floating floor, which means it does not fasten directly to the particular sub-floor. Instead the planks are usually clicked together. This enables the floor being fitted fast and without any real mess.

Most laminate floors today fit along with a click system with common being the Uniclic system as used by Quick-Step. This is extremely easy and fast to match. The ingenious Uniclic system has a special shape of tongue and groove. You simply place the tongue of just one plank into the grove associated with another at an angle and press down. Their sophisticated and very accurate milled shape makes it possible to create a very tight connection through the installation. The floor can be walked on straight away.

If you are laying laminate flooring more than a concrete sub-floor then you'll fist need to set down a damp proof tissue layer (D. P. M.). This is basically the sheet of plastic generally around 5mm which assists protect the Laminate coming from moisture. On top of this goes the foam underlay this acts as sound absorption and also helps even out minor irregularities in the sub-floor.

Most manufactures now provide a combined D. P. M. and underlay along with several underlay's that have better sound absorbing characteristics.

You can now also get some laminate flooring which already has a built in underlay. This underlay is pre-fitted to the bottom of the flooring and it is usually of sound absorbing quality. If you are fitting this type of laminate over a concrete sub-floor you've still got to lay down any D. P. M. (Damp Proof Membrane layer) first.

Laminate flooring has been with us in Europe for around 15 years and contains seen massive growth in the past few years. In 2004 over 750 million square meters of laminate floors was sold worldwide this was an increase of 13% about the previous year. The biggest growth market is in the usa with an impressive progress rate of 25%.

What is Laminate Flooring Produced from?

Laminate flooring is usually composed of four layers:

1. Overlay (Wear Layer) The top wear layer is supplied by the melamine resin, a highly wear resistant material which makes laminate flooring so hard wearing. This top layer is much like the top layer upon counter or kitchen work tops but is normally around 40% stronger. This makes the laminate floors highly resistant to scuff marks, burns, dent's, stains, etc.

2. DPL (Decorative Papers) or HPL (Ornamental Paper + Add Higher Strength Paper) It is the decorative paper gives the laminate flooring it's individual appearance, ranging from highly authentic wood reproduction, ceramic or stone models. An important thing to look out for when purchasing laminate flooring would be to understand the difference in between DPL and HPL. We will talk concerning this latter

3. Core layer This is made upward of either high denseness fibreboard (H. D. F.). or medium density fibreboard (Michael. D. F.) This is saturated in resins to make it extremely hard. Most manufactures also put in a moisture resistant resin towards the core. This is important as it helps keep the floors protected against moisture penetrating the boards.

4. Stabilizing layer The bottom layer may be the stabilizing layer; this is what gives the laminate floor its stability. It is made up of moisture resistant resins

How is Laminate Floors Produced.

This is where DPL & HPL will vary.

In the direct-pressure laminate procedure the decorative covering layer and stabilizing layer are usually pressed together onto the core layer.

While the high-pressure laminate method, on the other hands, the decorative paper and also overlay are pressed on special high-strength paper initial. Only in a second stage is this so-called high-pressure laminate glued to the core layer. This makes the flooring a lot more tougher and more immune to dents etc. Learn more about utah carpet stores