Doesn't sound like a hardwood flooring topic does it....but

It's been almost 15 years since laminate flooring began selling in the US. Any opinions? Ten years ago many were telling me it's a fad, not going to last etc.

Unfortunatley I think they are here to stay. IMO I think they are a band aid in the world of flooring. I personally think they actually decrease the value of a home.
I have been looking for a new house, 7 of the last 20 I have looked at said they had hardwood floors, wich were actually laminate. Sorry but printed cardboard doesnt have the same value as true hardwood to me.

But because of the low cost of most of the laminate products, the warrantys they offer (that usually are voided), and the fact that almost anyone can install them I believe they are here to stay.

Ya know after picking up some of those lines for my now defunct retail store I was really impressewd with some of them especially Wilsonart and Quick Step. Here's a piece(link) I did on them...

Laminate Flooring Trends & Styles

I'm definitely not an expert, just one man with one experience.

We opted for laminate (generic QuickStep from a bulk discount store) because it was cheap ($1.50 - $2 SF installed), easy to keep clean, hard to scratch, and wouldn't crack skulls when the kids fell and hit it.

Paint, juice, anything we've gotten on it will either wipe up or scrape up with a fingernail. There are a few dings where we've dropped the equivalent of a brick on it, but hardly any scratches at all. The toddler can fall and smack her head on it and hardly even cry. We consider it a 10 year temporary surface that we'll replace after the kids are out of the house - and pulling it up will take about 20 minutes to do the whole house!

We would have preferred wood or tile but the cost & effort put both out of our league for a budding family.

Not fancy or elegant, but practical and cost-effective.

From my experience (managing one of the big box home centers) here are the top reason customers purchased laminate over wood.

-Price. Even though some of the 'better laminates' are the same price of the cheaper engineered hardwood.

-They heard it's really good. One of those things where the actual lifespan is to be determined. People often said "I have dogs" or "I have kids"...they think it's more durable until their dog pisses on it or their kid scrapes or drops something on it. While HDF is very dense, it can not be repaired well when damaged.

-Installation. DIY network and HGTV shows make everyone think that they are skilled enough to do things themselve. There is much less worries about installing laminate themselves. They don't need to buy or rent the tools and it pretty fool proof to install.

-Price of nail down/glue down hardwood installation. This quickly can make make laminates 1/5 the price of a hardwood purchase with install.

-They don't have to "worry about refinishing it" even though woods don't need refinished very often and they will probably die or sell the house before it would need to be done.

-Poor quality sales people. Laminate is easy to sell. Most customers get talked out of buying hardwoods, in the process of it being sold to them. I have seen many customers have their eyes glaze over and say "thanks, we'll think about it" when talking to the knuckle head salesman. This then solidifies to the customer "Let's just get the Pergo. It's cheaper and we can do it ourselves....what does acclimitization mean anyways?"


With that being said, I installed 600^ft of Columbia laminate in my old house about 3 years ago. It was great until my dog pissed on it and the seam swelled. This was a moisture resistant product.

Thanks Phil. It's nice to hear views from the other side of the fence.

i put colombia laminate in my house.best choice i ever made.looks and sounds great.very durable(i have two toddlers who run there cars and chairs all over it.i dont allow pets inside but my dog had to be monitored closely once. he threwup on the laminate inthe middle of the night .it must have sat there for hours.we wiped it up and there is not bit of swelling.we did install the type of laminate that has the the gradual bevel on the edge.

Although we specialize in sand and finish floors we do install a fair amount of laminate, the reason is usually they talked to a salesman at the store and were sold on an indestructible floor. That being said we also remove a lot of laminate between 6 months and several years old and replace with a solid sand and finish floor, this is usually due to scratching, some don't like the feel and sound, water damage but mostly due to a bad installation. Several customers have told us the spent more on the laminate than a solid floor costs them. I think it will be around for the duration I guess that is good as it gives us work on both ends.

Here to stay??? I bet I don't ever see a house with 100 year old laminate that can be made to look brand new.