Laminate Flooring mimics the look of classic woods while providing easy installation and lasting durability. At first glance, it can be difficult to spot the difference between hardwoods and laminate flooring. What appears to be a natural wood grain pattern is really a thin layer of decor paper (a photographic image) under a tough-as-nails protective film that is glued and pressed to a high-density backing board. Laminate Flooring comes in an array of wood effects as well as stone and ceramic effects.

Laminate floors most important advantages are that it is simple to install, is really hard wearing and fairly affordable compared to real hardwood flooring.

Laminate flooring is a floating floor, which indicates it does not fasten directly to the sub-floor. Instead the planks are clicked together. This enables the floor to be fitted rapidly and with no real mess.


Most laminate floors these days fit together with a click system with the most popular being the Uniclic system as used by Quick-Step. This is very simple 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 extremely tight connection during the installation. The floor can be walked on straight away.


If you are laying laminate flooring over a concrete sub-floor then you will fist need to lay down a damp proof membrane (D.P.M.). This is basically a sheet of plastic usually around 5mm which helps protect the Laminate 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 much better sound absorbing qualities.

You can now also get some laminate flooring which already comes with a built in underlay. This underlay is pre-fitted to the bottom of the flooring and is normally of sound absorbing quality. If you are fitting this kind of laminate over a concrete sub-floor you still have to lay down a D.P.M. (Damp Proof Membrane) first.

Laminate flooring has been around in United states and Europe for about 15 years and has seen huge growth in the past few years. In 2004 over 750 million square meters of laminate flooring was sold worldwide this was an improve of 13n the previous year. The biggest growth market is in the US with an impressive growth rate of 25

What is Laminate Flooring Made From?

Laminate flooring is normally made up of 4 layers:
1. Overlay (Wear Layer)
The top wear layer is provided by the melamine resin, a highly wear resistant material that makes laminate flooring so hard wearing. This top layer is extremely similar to the top layer on counter or kitchen work tops but is usually about 40tronger. This makes the laminate flooring highly resistant to scratches, burns, dent's, stains, and so forth.

2. DPL (Decorative Paper) or HPL (Decorative Paper + Add High Strength Paper)
It is the decorative paper which gives the laminate flooring its individual look, ranging from very authentic wood reproduction, ceramic or stone styles. An important thing to look out for when buying laminate flooring is to understand the difference between DPL and HPL.

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 maintain the flooring protected against moisture penetrating the boards.

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