Choosing the best types of flooring for your home is a big decision you have to take before buying any floor. Nowadays, there are a lot of flooring types in the market with many characteristics. Laminate and Vinyl floor are two close flooring options in the market with many benefits if you are searching for a natural appearance for your home.
In this article, we will tell you the difference between these related types.
Flooring Composition
Firstly, if we want to start talking about the construction, Vinyl flooring being a synthetic floor is made from polyvinyl chloride plastic known as PVC. Each piece of PVC is colored, heated, and pressed into thin layers. These layers are pressed and adhered to flexible sheets that can be cut into tiles or planks. Thus, Vinyl flooring is not a natural substance that has different colors and textures. It has 4 different layers:
- Backing layer: is the first layer, and is the underlayment for the vinyl floor which is a good option to avoid noise and make the floor more comfortable.
- Waterproof layer with its two types (WPC and SPC), designed to absorb moisture.
- Design layer: presents many colors that faced your style. It may seem like wood or marble or it can have a gray trend color.
- Wear layer: protects the floor from being harmed and gives the floor high durability.
Laminate flooring is also a non-natural, multi-layer synthetic flooring product. Laminate flooring is not made from plastic but from wood fibers. It is made of thin, pressed wood boards fused together with fiberboard cores to produce a repeating wood image. As mentioned before, laminate flooring is a multi-layer flooring, it has 4 specific layers:
- Balancing layer or melamine backing layer: stabilizes the flooring and resists moisture.
- Medium-density fiberboard: makes up the water-resistant.
- Pattern layer: gives the flooring a decorative realistic look.
- Wear layer: protect the layer’s top and prevent moisture
Maintenance, Care, and Durability
Both Laminate and Vinyl flooring such as other flooring need to get good care. Although, cleaning these two floor with specific methods is important to have a durable floor. Don’t forget that cleaning your flooring with the wrong detergents can damage your floor. Thus, you can use a piece of old clothing as a dry mop to clean your floor. Start cleaning your floor with this dry mop or any other dry methods such as vacuum and brush.
Sometimes, Vinyl flooring can be wet-moped, laminate cannot.
When you treat good your floor, whether it was Vinyl flooring or laminate flooring, it will last for a long time. Good quality Vinyl floor can last over 20 years. Also, laminate floors can last up to 15 years, with good care.
Flooring Installation
Vinyl floor is a great option to save money. Being an easy floor for beginner home improvers, Vinyl floor is easy to get install. It can be bonded or loose-laid to the subfloor. Bonded vinyl flooring is available in tiles or planks that are glued with liquid adhesive or a self-stick adhesive backing. Planks are joined side by side but not to the subfloor which is also called Loose lay vinyl flooring.
Laminate floor is also an inexpensive floor, you can install it by yourself. It is easy to cut, snap and attach laminate planks together, and use some glue to fix the planks.
