Laminate flooring is still relatively new in terms of a product category within the flooring industry.
Still it is surprising how often people still ask the basic question of, "What exactly is laminate?"
They want to know, "Is it a hardwood floor?" or they ask, "Is this a vinyl floor?"
People are trying to use their existing knowledge about floors to try and fit laminate flooring into one of those buckets.
Laminate flooring simply said is a plastic surface with a core made of wood fiber. As I have always said, the part that looks like wood, yeah that's the plastic. The part in the middle that is hard to tell what it is exactly is actually a high density fiber board (depending on the manufacturer.) For more details check out my 1996 article called Pergo Vs. The World.
The brands Pergo, Wilsonart, Shaw, Amstrong, True Flooring and many more make laminate flooring in all different ways. Pergo is the top brand consumers are aware of and often will refer to the category of laminate as Pergo. (in the same vein as all tissue paper being referred to as Kleenex) To see a quick rating guide check out Brand Wars II which compare some of the top brands to each other.
As the end of the day, laminate flooring is a unique product category of its own. It is cool, it is value priced, and more and more it is becoming more innovative. It's not for everybody, but that is a whole different topic.
