Laminate Flooring

Laminate Flooring mimics the look of traditional woods while offering easy installation and lasting durability. A wear-resistant decorative surface made of resin-based melamine makes the floor extremely difficult to stain, scratch, or burn with a cigarette. Laminate flooring is a floating floor, which means it does not fasten directly to the sub-floor. Instead the planks are clicked together. This enables the floor to be fitted fast and with no real mess.

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

If you are laying over a concrete sub-floor then you will fist need to lay down a combi underlay which has a built in damp proof membrane (DPM)

What are Laminate Floors made from?

1. Overlay (Wear Layer)
The top wear layer is provided by the melamine resin, a highly wear resistant material that makes it so hard wearing. This top layer is very similar to the top layer on counter or kitchen work tops but is usually around 40% stronger. This makes the floor highly resistant to scratches, burns, dent’s, stains, etc.

2. DPL (Decorative Paper) or HPL (Decorative Paper + Add High Strength Paper)
It is the decorative paper which gives the floor its individual appearance, ranging from highly authentic wood reproduction, ceramic or stone designs.

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

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