Our Laminates Create Easy to Love Floors!

We have a great selection of 12mm laminates around the $2.00 a square foot price range. Laminates now look similar to handscraped real wood! Laminate flooring of today is more realistic, durable, easy to install and requires little maintenance. This is a great, easy to care for choice if you prefer a wood look over a tile floor.

Most of the laminates we carry are at least 12mm thick. The thicker the laminate, the less hollow the floor sounds. A 12mm laminate ends up giving you a much quieter sound over the former popular 8mm laminates. The quality of the underlayment that you choose will also improve the sound quality.

If you decide to install the floor yourself, choose a drop and lock laminate. When installing a floor with drop and lock technology, you literally just drop and lock each piece together. Other piece technology requires you to lift and hinge every piece in and then tap with a hammer. Not so bad for a professional, but a little tricky for a first time do-it-yourselfer.

Durability

Laminates are harder to scratch and dent than real wood. However, any laminate may scratch. If your floor does get scratched, it can not be re-finished, only replaced (either by yourself or an installer). Luckily, laminates allow for easy removal (snap apart) and re-installation (snap together). So it’s a good idea to keep some extra boards around in case of scratches.

Laminates won’t stain or fade. The top layer (called the melamine wear layer) is a tough, clear finish reinforced with aluminum oxide, one of the hardest mineral compounds known to man. It resists staining, fading, surface moisture, and wear.

To help prevent scratches, follow these simple and protective steps:

• Place floor mats at outside doorways to collect dirt and moisture.

• Place glides or floor protectors under furniture legs.

• Use special cleaners endorsed by the manufacturers to clean tough stains and/or refresh the gloss level of your laminate floors to its original shine.

• Use chair pads under rolling chairs.

Estimate the Cost of Your Laminate Floor

If you do plan on doing the work yourself, we can help! We’ll spend the time to talk to you about your particular project so that you are prepared and confident.

To help you estimate how much your new lamiante floor will cost, we’ve broken down a typical job into its different parts. For each part of the typical job, we’ve given the low and high estimates for you. All estimates in the chart are per square foot.

These estimates do not include costs which vary greatly such as:

1) taking up the existing floor. Laminates can be laid on top of most other flooring sufaces except carpet. If carpet is currently on your floor, or if you want to remove the existing floor, you can either remove it yourself or include cost in your estimate to hire someone else.

2) the cost of any trim pieces. This cost varies greatly by each job. The amount and type of trim you need depends on the number of doorways and how much other flooring your laminate will butt up against.