Technology in Flooring Part 2 Laminate Flooring

Laminate has come a long way after two decades in the states.

When laminate first came over from Europe it looked fake. Laminate flooring only had a few different plank looks in a box so you could see the same plank repeated all over the floor, didn’t have any real texture that looked like wood and was all straight edge planks that had to be glued together. Many people in the flooring industry thought it was a fad and would be gone in a few years. Instead, new technology has advanced laminate to be a great choice in flooring for several reasons.

Uniclic locking: Sometimes it’s hard to get flooring people to agree, but if you ask several flooring people experienced in laminate “What’s the best locking system” they’ll say “Uniclic”. We don’t need to glue laminate floors together anymore. All laminate floors lock together with specially milled joints, but the way they lock are different – and make a huge difference on how fast and easy you can install them and then how the floor performs after the installation. Uniclic laminate planks can be installed using the angle method where you tilt the plank to about a 45% angle & then “snap” it down (which is how most laminates install) or you can directly tap the plank in while laying flat on the floor (which most other laminates can’t do without damaging the locking system). This helps in tight spaces –like going up against cabinets or doing the last row against the wall. Many other systems tell the installer to “cut off the locking mechanism” and glue the planks together to get the best and easiest fit in these tight places. Uniclic floors go together easy without fuss – many other locking systems are more difficult and cause both professional installers and certainly DIY people to “beat” the planks together which leads to a difficult long installation with lots of damaged planks. This also can lead to chips coming loose and falling off the surface in the days after the installation because of the damaged caused from the installation difficulties (and chipped corners probably won’t fall under a warranty). The other locking system problem is that if the floor goes together too easy – it may pull apart later when the floor moves with the seasons (it expands with the heat and humidity of the summer & then shrinks a little in the winter). That leaves gaps between planks – especially in the winter. Uniclic Laminates have exceptional joint integrity to install easy & stay together. Mohawk’s Uniclic laminate floors have Joint Integrity warranties – even on our value styles. This is extremely important. You’ll find that the extra cheap styles you find in a box store have very small warranties to begin with and usually don’t have a joint integrity warranty. If it comes apart this winter – you’re stuck. And the last point on Uniclic is that it actually locks so tight that it helps the resistance to water damage from spills. Mohawk uses very high grade core board that is extremely resistant to water damage from spills but the Uniclic joint makes it hard for any water to get past the surface to begin with.

Scratchgard: Here is a big reason why you might want to buy a Laminate floor. They are harder to dent, gouge and scratch than real hardwood floors. That can be a great advantage to an active young family with lots of toys being dropped and dragged over the floor. This can also be an advantage with some pets that love to get active in the house and run around. The complaint about laminate floors was that you could still see the little micro scratches in the wear layer that would gradually make the floor look dull and worn. Scratchgard is a new formulation in the wear layer adding smaller particles of scratch resistant material. This makes the floor 4X more resistant to these micro scratches than average laminate wear layers. Mohawk now adds Scratchgard to all of our laminates that are 8mm or thicker.

GenuEdge: Laminate technology took us from straight edges to beveled edges to look more like the individual planks of a real wood floor. But those bevels were big and painted so they really didn’t look like the bevels on a real wood floor. Many buyers were also worried about the big bevels catching dust and dirt – making the floor harder to clean. GenuEdge is where the edge of the plank has a gentle wrapped edge to look like a real micro beveled hardwood floor. You still get the look of individual wood planks but with a real wood look bevel that is small – making sure cleaning will be a breeze. Along with GenuEdge – make sure you pay attention to the graining of the laminate wear layer. Many cheaper laminates have no graining or a random graining in the wear layer that makes the floor look extremely fake after the installation. Better laminate floors have realistic graining in the wear layer that exactly follows the wood visual so that after you install it and look across the floor – it looks so much like a real wood floor – most people can’t tell the difference (this technology is usually referred to as EIR – Embossed in Register graining). The GenuEdge and EIR technology make the difference between your friend coming over and saying “Nice new laminate floor” or saying “This is a beautiful hardwood floor”.

Laminate floating floors can save time and money – especially if they are Mohawk Uniclic Laminate. You save money due to less subfloor prep than you would need for other types or flooring – like nail down hardwood. Uniclic floors go together easy to get your project done faster with less tools needed than a nail down hardwood. And with the new technology – your floor will look more like a real wood floor and perform better than those original laminate floors that came over from Europe. Many of those original laminates only had about 5 different planks in a box before they started to repeat – but now, many Mohawk styles have closer to 20 different planks before they repeat giving a much more natural realistic look. All of Mohawk’s Uniclic wood look laminates are now made in Thomasville, NC where 74% of our core board comes from post industrial recycled waste.

Guest Blog by Ryan Barron Mohawk Hardsurface  Specialist for the NE Region