A history of laminate flooring

Laminate flooring is the most revolutionary floor design created in the last 30 years.

The product we know today as laminate flooring was originally developed as another possible use of high-pressure melamine laminate. This occurred in the early eighties, the first floors was created with a base of several layers of paper impregnated with resins which were squashed together under high pressure into a highly wear resistant composite material. The decorative paper determined the design, the finished laminate was then glued onto a carrier and cut into sections with very precise dimensions.

Decorative laminate was a product that was widely used on kitchen countertops + tables, but obviously not as yet for floors. This clearly created an opportunity, but a flooring application brought new technical challenges. The initial concern to be solved was the wear factor. It is obvious that floors are walked on and therefore suffer a lot more normal traffic than furniture or counter tops. A laminate floor clearly had to be a lot more durable. A reinforced laminate that was approximately ten times stronger than counter tops was created and the first flooring began to be sold. As knowledge grew, the relative strength of flooring laminate increased drastically to at least 15 times that of countertops, no one at this stage realised how important under laminate heating would be in the future.

Important parallel developments were also taking place during these early days. Packaging was one. Wood flooring at the time was normally sold in long strips of approximately eight feet and installed only by a skilled professional. Laminate flooring was different right from the beginning. It was packaged eight planks to a carton that was approximately half this length (about four feet). The easy to handle carton was fairly lightweight and could be transported by car or in an elevator with ease. Its carton contents equaled approximately twenty square feet (two square meters). Because of these revolutionary factors and ease of installation, a large do-it yourself market was created in Sweden that exists today. In fact, over ninety percent of laminate flooring in Sweden still is self-installed!

The European Spread of Laminate Flooring

The main benefits of laminates - durability, design and the installation process now assured the popularity of laminate flooring in Europe. Following the early success in Scandinavia, and other northern European countries, mainly Germany began to market laminate flooring. Distribution then spread quickly throughout the rest of Europe and continues to grow today. Standards in Europe are being created by the CEN (Comité Européen de Normalisation or The European Committee for Standardization) group and will have the full force of law.

North America

Laminate flooring crossed the Atlantic to North America in the early 90s and was brought very quickly to the market,the results of this introduction surpassed even Europe.

The North American consumer discovered that he could have a product of beauty with incredible wear and unmatched stain durability. American and Canadian kitchens quickly became the primary room for laminate floors , the consumer found out that virtually nothing could stain this beautiful floor, nor would sun or ultraviolet cause fade effects, and wear patterns were a thing of the past. and yet there were more discovered benefits. The resistance to indentation from heavy objects or shoes was far greater tham most existing wood or vinyl floors. laminate floors are incredibly easy to clean - vacuuming or damp mopping are needed.

The retailer enjoyed ease of stocking and servicing, the retailer benefit also assured the consumer of exact match in tone and color, even if additional matching flooring was purchased and installed a year later!

Besides importers, US manufacturing operations began to produce the product in vast amounts. Laminate flooring was on its way to another success. North America took to this new style of beautiful flooring with its remarkable qualities in huge numbers, incorperated with under laminate heating it was to be a revolution in floor heating

Today, laminate flooring continues its remarkable growth. Virtually every room of the house, including bathrooms is benefiting from a laminate floor application. The commercial marketplace is now exploring the aspects of laminate flooring for its demanding situations.