Laminate Flooring - Advantages & Disadvantages in Charlotte Homes

Is Laminate Flooring Right For Your Home?

Advantages & Disadvantages of Laminate Flooring

Laminate flooring is a multi-layer flooring product which uses fiber board materials and adhesive resin compressed together for the core of the product, and a laminated face either made of wood, or resembles the look of wood, tile, or other common flooring products.  Over the past few decades, laminate flooring has risen in popularity with homeowners for a number of reasons. Laminate flooring is often less expensive then other popular flooring products, cost less to install, and easy to maintain.  Although, like with any flooring product, laminate flooring does have some disadvantages as well.  What we intend to explain in this blog post, is the advantages and disadvantages of laminate flooring, and to help educate the homeowner to make the decision on whether laminate flooring if right for your home or not.

As with any home improvement project, cost is often a big factor for homeowners, when making a decision on what to buy.  While a homeowner may want hardwood floors, it simply may not be within their budget.  Laminate flooring is a great cost effective option for homeowners, to get the look of hardwood flooring, at half the cost.  With hundreds of styles and options of laminate flooring, homeowners can generally find a laminate flooring product that resembles the hardwood flooring product's look they are going for.  There are laminate flooring products that resemble nearly every species of wood, board size, and pattern of hardwood products.  Laminate flooring products vary in pricing from as low as $.50/square foot, all the way up to $4 or $5 per square foot.  Higher priced laminate products generally offer a longer warranty then the lower priced products, however their are a variety of options for homeowners in any price range.

Ease of installation is another advantage laminate flooring provides to homeowners.  While a more experienced DIY'er could do a laminate floor installation, eliminating installation cost all together, the ease of which the product is to install leads to lower installation cost, even when having a professional installer do the work.  Laminate flooring generally comes in 4 foot by 12 inch pieces, meaning more square footage can be installed on each board piece.  Sometimes laminate flooring is referred to as a "floating floor" because it requires no nailing, which also helps to lower installation cost as well.  Underlayment materials for laminate flooring also take less time to install then other flooring products as well. Also in addition to easier installation, laminate flooring can be installed on just about any surface.  While many homes in the Charlotte, NC area are built on concrete slabs, laminate flooring can be installed right over a vapor barrier, versus using expensive adhesive to put down an engineered hardwood floor.

While cost is the major driving factor for many homeowners when choosing laminate flooring over other flooring products, a lot of homeowners will choose a laminate flooring product over other flooring options because of the low maintenance.  Laminate flooring can be vacuumed, broom sweeped, or dust moped, which takes a lot less time to do then moping and waxing like you would have to do with other flooring products.  Many homeowners with pets often choose laminate flooring as it is easier to get up the pet hair off a laminate flooring surface versus other flooring products.

With all the advantages of laminate flooring it is hard to find why a homeowner would not choose a laminate flooring product for their home.  However, as with any flooring product, laminate flooring has some disadvantages as well.  One of the major disadvantages of laminate flooring is its water resistant abilities.  While some of the higher end laminate products hold up better to water exposure, many laminate flooring products don't hold up well if exposed to water for long periods of time.  Another disadvantage of laminate flooring versus other flooring products like hardwood, is product warranties and lifespan of the product.  While the higher end products can offer 25 year warranties, many of the more affordable options will only cover 10 years.  Also laminate flooring can not be refinished like traditional hardwoods.

Overall, laminate flooring is a great flooring product, that will provide the homeowner with a great look and quality flooring product at an affordable price.  As you can see the advantages of laminate flooring outweigh the disadvantages, however the final choice of what flooring product to use rest in the hands of the homeowner.  We hope that we have educated the homeowner on laminate flooring products and will help the homeowner make a better educated decision when choosing their next flooring product.  For more information on laminate flooring, visit some of these websites of the leading laminate flooring manufacturers.

Mohawk Flooring - http://www.mohawkflooring.com/flooring-products/laminate/default.aspx
Shaw Flooring - http://shawfloors.com/laminate-flooring
Pergo Flooring - http://na.pergo.com/
Bruce Flooring - http://www.bruce.com/flooring/laminate
Armstrong Flooring - http://www.armstrong.com/flooring/laminate.html

You can also find a lot of useful information on laminate flooring at these leading home improvement suppliers websites as well:

Lowe's Home Improvement - http://www.lowes.com
Home Depot - http://www.homedepot.com

While we do not work for or recommend one product or store over another, we do want to provide easy access to the information available on laminate flooring products.  We do not endorse one brand over the other.  If you are a homeowner in the Salisbury NC or Charlotte NC areas looking to have a professionally installed laminate flooring, contact us through any of the methods listed below.  Thanks for reading and please comment for more topics for our blog.

Authored by:


MB Construction Company
224 Prescott Drive
Salisbury, NC 28144
Phone: 704-267-7763
Website: http://www.mbconstructioncompany.com

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