Talk:Laminate flooring

Too much brand promotion?

This article seems to make rather too much mention of Pergo. Did Pergo actually invent laminate flooring or is it just the leading brand in some countries. In general we should not be discussing one brand in preference to any others, unless there is a good reason. I can't see much of this article that couldn't be rephrased to avoid mentioning Pergo. -- Solipsist 15:32, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, Pergo invented laminate flooring in 1977 and first marketed the product to Europe in 1984. Ignoring their influence on the product would be like ignoring IBM's influence on the personal computer. -- Ceran 15:12, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

TOO MUCH PROMOTION in general. This reads like an ad by the laminate flooring association, and needs balance.131.238.31.40 (talk) 19:54, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Advertisement removed

Pergo is probably the most recognized brand name of laminate flooring, although there are dozens of different brands. Pergo has a unique composite of layers that makes up its construction. The bulk of the flooring plank is a thick, water-resistant core material designed for uniformity and dimensional stability, with a polymer backing paper attached to the bottom surface of the core to add stability and help the floor adjust as temperature and humidity levels in the house change. The top layer of the composite is the finished flooring material, which is actually a decorative laminate that is somewhat similar to the popular laminates used for kitchen and bathroom counters, but with some important differences. Pergo, for example, uses a three-layer composition of decorative cellulose paper, melamine resins, and a strong, heat-resistant base layer, bonded to one another and then bonded to the central core material. Hardeners are also added which, according to Pergo, make the laminate layer some 25 times harder than the laminates used for counters.

- FrancisTyers 15:50, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Pergo was NOT the inventor of laminate flooring containing aluminum oxide. The original flooring, still in use today, was invented by engineers at GE in 1965, and supplied to engineered suspended flooring manufacturers for use in main frame computer installations. This material was the "white" appearing floors seen world wide in the NASA Gemini and Apollo project control rooms. The manufacturing process for both low & high pressure flooring materials has changed considerably since 1965, but the use of aluminum oxide as the "wear" inhibitor in place of silica was a result of work to improve both wear and eliminate discoloring caused by the iron oxide present in most silica’s. This material was sold under the name Perma-Kleen. Along with low maintenance cost, melamine surfaced laminate flooring has the unique property of not developing or introducing into any material a static charge, which during the 1960's was a main frame computer nightmare. In 1969, a prominent main frame computer manufacturer stated that the introduction of Perma-Kleen flooring material advanced the next level computer development by 3-5 years. With the use of certain polymers and aluminum oxide, laminates can be made to exceed 100,000 cycles on the standard NEMA Tabor abrasion wear test, 500 times the normal. Several of the NASA floor tiles contained small amounts of man-made diamonds. The Perma-Kleen aluminum oxide based laminate process was licensed to a laminate manufacturer in Italy in 1972. An unsuccessful attempt was made between 1975 and 1977 to use this material for covering bowling lanes. It was marketed and promoted as Perma-Lane, but dropped because of it’s inability to develop “grooves,” resulting in lower scores for professional bowlers. The GE aluminum oxide laminate process was used to produce 62 different solid color counter top laminates in the 1960,s and sold under the product name Textolite. robman 15 Dec 2010 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.181.193.185 (talk • contribs) 18:27, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Do you have a reliable source for this? tedder (talk) 18:44, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

NOT waterproof or even water resistant

Well-meaning or other promoters of this stuff have apparently never had experience mixing water with it. Once water gets in, it cannot get out for a VERY long time. Consequently, the flooring swells along every seam and becomes quite unsightly. It MAY be possible to prevent such disasters by applying a water-repellant to the seams and especially to the ends, but for my money, I will not touch this material on this objection alone.

Need more ? Another drawback is that laminate flooring is NOISY (pet claws) and, being "hard", it is slippery. Caveat emptor, indeed !! I am indeed grateful that I was introduced to this hazard via a rental, not a purchase.

The date sited for US (1994) is wrong. I installed 1200 sgft of Pergo flooring in a new specialty food store in Mt. Pleasant SC. in 1987. The flooring held up exceptionally well to heavy traffic and did withstand occasional water and other liquid spills without damage. Later I installed in a number of homes with large and small dogs and don't recall any noise problems. —Preceding unsigned comment added by MooseOU (talk • contribs) 23:09, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Alumionium oxide

Have people something against mentioning Aluminium oxide being used in the wear layer? I noticed the same bit of information was removed from the Wood flooring article and asked about it on the talk page there and got no reply. Also the recent change removed a reference to a history at the Laminate Flooring Association.

By the way laminate is not advisable below grade or where it can be damp like a previous contributor to this talk page indicated. That probably should be included. Dmcq (talk) 13:08, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Confusion about what laminate flooring is

So apparently there's some confusion between laminate flooring and Solid and Engineered wood floorings. I've always had laminate flooring described to me as chipboard or HDF with a wood veneer, but that was clearly not what I could see being sold as laminate in shops. I wonder if this page should contain some clarification. I ended up going off site (scandalous!) to find the proper names for those things that people had told me were laminate. --ToobMug (talk) 17:35, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Glueless laminate flooring

Why is it here? Shouldn't that have its own article if anything? Also, as far as I know, the whole dispute between Unilin and Välinge Aluminium was between flooring locking system in general and not specifically locking systems for laminate flooring which this article suggests. Overall, this article feels like a giant advertisement for Pergo, and it feels rather biased. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Perkelton (talk • contribs) 23:04, 6 June 2011 (UTC)