It is unbelievably remarkable how the last twenty years have increased the range of material used for home flooring. Once only hardwood, linoleum or carpet, the inclusion of tile, bamboo, cork and laminate floorings have given homeowners a wide range of styles and material to choose from. With incomparable advantages laminate flooring is becoming the most popular flooring material in homes across North America and the rest of the globe. Meanwhile, many laminate flooring manufacturers are getting into laminate flooring industry to satisfy the gradually increasing demands for laminate flooring, including Quick step, Pergo, Shaw and Sunspeed Flooring.

Though laminate flooring is well accepted by most consumers, it’s not perfect, there are still pros and cons.

Pros:
Laminate flooring is produced by hot pressing 4 distinct layers together which assures the durability and wearing resistance. Melamine resin on the top layer makes it resistant to scratch, impact and preventing fading. Depending on manufacturers, most laminate flooring has a warranty of at least 10 years and the average is 15 years.

Care free maintenance is another shining point of laminate flooring. For the special material of the top layer, liquid and stains are hard to attach onto flooring surface although they can eventually soak in if let stand.


Easy installation will totally satisfy your curiosity of do it yourself. Produced with click systems, laminate can be installed easily just by a slight tap. Besides, this flooring can be installed on existing flooring without having to tear up the original flooring.

Stylish designs enable laminate flooring not limited to traditional wood appearance. Cloth, carpet, stone and tile, all these mimics help to make laminate flooring present diversely. Anyway, if you are still interested in traditional wood colors, cherry laminate flooring and maple laminate flooring are good choices.

Even with all these advantages, perhaps the most important one is the cost. Laminate flooring prices have been coming down steadily over the last few years, while quality has improved. Modern laminate flooring is virtually indistinguishable from hardwood flooring, but it only costs a fraction of solid flooring prices.

Cons:
Laminate flooring is not hardwood. This means it adds little to the value of the home, and some people find it unattractive because it isn’t ‘real’ wood.

You also cannot refinish a laminate floor. Damaged or worn flooring needs to have the individual planks removed and replaced to restore the appearance.

Although the pros overweigh the cons when it comes to laminate flooring, there will remain hold outs who don’t like laminate flooring on the principle that it’s not a real wood. However, for the price, ease of durability and installation, it’s hard to beat laminate flooring.