Laminate Flooring has made the most requisite change to the flooring industry in the last 25 years and continues to make huge changes and improvements over is hard surface counter parts.
In Europe they have been enjoying its features and benefits for any decades but not as laminate flooring as we know today. Decorative laminate was actually the origins and the beginning of what now is known as laminate flooring. The Decorative laminate was widely used in kitchen counter tops and furniture. As the technology evolved in the counter top laminate industry it clearly became apparent that with the endless number of decors that could be created, could also be created and used on the floor.
LOWES
The idea of laminate flooring was born. There have been many technical challenges the first of which was how can you take a uncomplicated counter top laminate and originate a flooring product, the flooring stock will take far more abuse by being walked on and a wear layer was created.
There has actually been no stopping the technical tidal wave of improvements and ideas that followed. Led generally by the European countries laminate flooring gained more store share year after year, no store experienced such rapid increase as North America. Weighty marketing campaigns led by such brands as Pergo who are now synonymous with laminate flooring introduced laminate flooring to the American communal in the early 1990s.
The actual history of laminate flooring is quite short in North America, because Pergo had achieved household recognition with the new flooring products Laminate flooring in North America was widely referred to as "Pergo" floors again the synonymous status and the 'holy grail' of all brands.
In 2000 laminate flooring was a glue product; even so the store share within the flooring industry in North America prolonged to grow at a duplicate digit pace. Many of the other Us former floor surface manufacturers of carpet and vinyl added laminate flooring to their folder of products.
Then so was born the incommunicable label laminate. Laminate flooring was easy to incommunicable label you simply changed the insert or the packaging and then that created other brand or line of flooring. This was especially useful for the hardwood and carpet manufacturer's to get on board with this new product. The former manufacturers of carpet and hardwood have huge distribution networks and with their own branded line of flooring were able to place thousands of new flooring displays in a matter of months and new brands started appearing everywhere. This prolonged to drive the increase in the Usa.
As former Us manufacturers of carpet and vinyl presented themselves as laminate flooring manufacturers, advertised the products, located laminate flooring displays and drove sales.
Time Line in the Us store The next stages of increase were equally fast and I will break them down chronologically:
2000 was particularly painful for the carpet industry in Dalton, Georgia they were thoroughly blindsided by the aggressive marketing of laminate flooring against their carpet and that is where the laminate took most of their store share from touting the Laminate Flooring stock as hypo allergenic and showing close ups of carpet mites and bugs did nothing to help the domestic carpet manufacturers.
All hard surface flooring clubs benefited. It was an consuming year for laminate flooring salesmen, even with terrible facility demonstrations and glue together flooring.
2001 Every year that preceded 2000 complicated new, consuming and innovative changes to the laminate flooring market. The first change actually started in 2001 glue free laminate. This was first introduced with metal clips on the back and during sales presentations as you tried to put it together you almost needed a sledge hammer, it was more difficult than the glue together method. Not very popular but the concept was created all we needed was the make and solution.
2002 A year later the technology of glue-less laminate flooring arrived, introductions of glue-less laminates began again revolutionizing the floor surface industry. Unilin Industries of Belgium introduced Quick-Step into the Us market. Quick-Step utilizes the patented Uniclic joint system. any other manufacturers bought licenses to use the Uniclic joint technology thereby acknowledging Uniclic as the industry suitable for Glue-less technology.
Still 95% of the Usa store was using glue together laminate, it took yet more aggressive marketing and this time generally led by the home centers with names like 'Easy-Lock', 'Quick-Lock', 'Speedy-Lock', etc, to drive the buyer towards the exceptionally friendly D.I.Y. Glue-less laminate flooring ranges.
It was predicted in 2002 that buy 2004 100% of the laminate flooring industry will be glue-less.
2003 This again proved to be a dynamic year within the laminate flooring industry, sales of the stock per quadrilateral foot prolonged to climb, but lawsuits with regards to patents over the locking law and who created and who could use it surfaced and would continue on for many years. Aside from the lawsuits the technology now happy with the glue-less free setup and now a particularly D.I.Y. friendly stock focused on creating the stock to be as realistic as hardwood as possible.
2004 This saw some dramatic changes in the capability of the laminate stock itself. The suitable glue-free laminate flooring stock was 7" wide by 54" long and it had a light 'ticking' effect, the panels went together with glue-less free locking system. Mostly all of the products were imports and generally from Europe.
Towards the end of 2004 laminate flooring factories (though not fully integrated and small in comparison to the European counterparts) started appearing over the Usa. The larger Us manufacturers of carpets invested in laminate flooring facilities though they were not fully integrated (we can seek the point of vertical integration later). But this showed the Us retailer and distributor that the stock was here to and it was time to start backing a horse.
This led to more innovation from overseas, the first was a wood grain texture - the laminate itself had heavier wood texture but it was random and not too realistic in ensue a modest upgrade, at first all manufacturers tried to sell this correction for .20Sf to distribution but the reality was their was no builder cost increase to produce this texture - it was just a dissimilar pressure plate.
2005 The lawsuits over the locking law continued, incidentally the locking law lawsuit is not about the easy angle long joint of the laminate flooring, all the law suits focus on the end locking joint.
The chase to originate an exact wood replicate of hardwood flooring prolonged and this led to a technology called 'Register and Emboss' or 'Embossed and Registered'. The idea of this was for the pattern of the oak for example to be perfectly indented into the wood panel, so the grain of the Oak or Cherry was realistic to the touch.
All the manufacturers soon chased this technology, it required a relatively uncomplicated process, originate the spoton paper (décor pattern) and then have a press plate and the end of the manufacturing process to match that paper décor and then you have the grain embossed.
Legal arguments over who came up with that technology all ensued.
2006 The year of branding, distributors with 'own brand' tried to position themselves as manufacturers - one of the biggest being a vinyl builder tried to position themselves as store leaders. Acquisitions also followed, Mohawk Industries bought Unilin 'Quick-Step' in 2006. This also became the year of the home town business, where having your labeled stock in one of the three main Us home centers was the ultimate goal.
One of the major carpet manufacturers and distributors with there facility in Dalton gained the company with Home Depot. Pergo was well positioned with a vinyl builder you had incommunicable labeled their laminate line into Lowes Home correction Stores. Being a vinyl builder and not a laminate builder originate a major problem and a crucial feebleness as Lowes Home correction shifted their purchasing policy to 'only' buy facility direct.
A major Swiss group and builder of laminate flooring also with the world's largest facility in Heiligengrabe, Germany had been quietly building a facility in Barnwell, Sc and at the right time were able to replace the vinyl builder as provider to Lowes Home Improvement.
2007 This actually saw the legal issue on the locking law end as two legal systems emerged, one under Valinge Innovation and Uniclic Licensees each with almost 100 partners paying royalties of almost .04Sf to .07Sf. Licensees were granted all over the world and this led way to the re-emergence of Chinese laminate flooring.
In the mid 1990 China was one of the fastest growing laminate flooring markets in the world and most of this was supplied by shipping in holder from Europe, there were huge distributors in China 100 packaging a month in size - or 2,400 pallets a month. It did not take long for Chinese ingenuity to copy the process and buy 2001, China had a slew of factories (with large Government subsidies), some of this stock came back as imports in to the Usa, but the legal issues with locking systems and potential freezes of stock, cease and cease letter flying about scared off most distributors.
2008 China was back, this time the large factories had license agreements and were legal, the machines that made the laminate flooring were from Europe and the stock capability was excellent.
There store tactics were equally excellent, instead off going after the low end dog fighting store of the 7mm and 8mm, they created a new look. A narrow plank and beveled the edges, this new narrow plank was almost 5" wide compared to the suitable 8" from Europe, the 5" wide was a one plank look and combined with the bevel, register and embossing they had created the ultimate flooring.
This was it, all things over the last 25 years culminated to this point a flooring that had a narrow board look 5 inches wide, beveled or micro beveled on all four side, realistic textured surface and a lifetime warranty.
The European's adjusted, but they were for once on the back foot, China instead of going after the low end store aimed high with a high quality, the highest capability laminate you could buy and they could make it and make it affordable to the Us market.
2009 It is not clear where we can go from here, but the same was probably said in 2005, laminate flooring is now so good in appearance that you cannot tell it apart from real hardwood, the only clue is the price laminate flooring is far less high-priced than real wood with more color choices. 2009 will be a difficult economic year and so will 2010. Consumers will focus on capability and price. Brand will become less foremost as the buyer becomes more educated. The huge price fluctuations four sided beveled and narrow plank from one distributor priced at Sf and from other .89Sf and yet actually no technical divergence in the product. buyer will explore and the gap will close.
Laminate flooring in the Us store is a suited story of increase and ingenuity. I do not think that a integrate of tough economic years will have much impact on its hereafter survival. It is an excellent stock and with some attempt and explore by the buyer you can get predicted value.
Laminate Flooring History and Timeline in the Us shop LOWES