Laminate Flooring: The Pros, the Cons, and How It Stacks Up Against Vinyl and Carpet

Laminate flooring isn’t the fragile, swollen-seam problem a lot of us remember. We walk through how laminate entered the U.S. as a game changing wood look floor at a lower cost, why the rush to make it even cheaper caused real moisture failures, and how that era shaped the “laminate vs LVP” debate that still shows up in kitchens, hallways, rentals, and remodel flips.

Jason Trim digs into the moment luxury vinyl plank (LVP) exploded with waterproof marketing and why laminate manufacturers had to rebuild trust. We get specific about what “waterproof laminate” usually means in practice: tight locking systems that keep spills from slipping through the joints, plus newer dense core technologies that absorb far less moisture than older products. If you’ve ever heard a salesperson throw around water resistant, waterproof, hybrid core, or high def core, we translate the terms into plain English.

Then we zoom in on durability and install realities. Laminate uses an AC rating (abrasion class) to measure scratch and wear performance, and that hard surface can outperform many vinyl wear layers for abrasion resistance. We also talk subfloor prep, why switching from carpet to any hard surface can reveal low spots and high spots, and how the right underlayment can reduce hollow sound without blowing the budget. If you found value here, subscribe, share the show with a friend planning a renovation, and leave a quick review so more homeowners can buy flooring with confidence.

To learn more about BPS Southeast Flooring visit:
https://www.BPSSoutheast.com
BPS Southeast Flooring 
Servicing Rutherford, Polk, Henderson and Cleveland County 
828-532-2141 

Transcript

Welcome And What We Cover

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the BPS Stalphy Sporting Podcast, where beautiful spaces start from the ground up. Hosted by Jason Cliff, owner of BPS Taffy, serving homely interested interior design with remodelers and flippers across Western North Carolina and upstate South Carolina. From luxury vinyl and hardwood to carpet and tile. If it goes underfoot, we've got to cover it. Expect practical tips, money-saving insight, and the occasional bad dad joint. Because around here, it's flooring for everyone. Let's roll without the bubbles.

Why Laminate Took Off

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Laminate flooring has come a long way. Today we're unpacking how modern technology has changed its performance, durability, and value. Welcome everyone. I'm Julie Schwenzer, co-host and producer, back with Jason Trim, the owner of BPS Southeast. Jason, thanks again for joining us and teaching us a lot about what to do with the Pets and our flooring in the last episode. And for this one, like you were discussing laminate, if you could discuss some of the pros and cons to kick us off, that'd be great.

SPEAKER_02 1:09

Sure. Laminate's one of the newer, not the newest, one of the newer flooring products on our market. Most of everybody knows the name Purgo. That was the first laminate that kind of came into the U.S. market. And it kind of revolutionized flooring because before you only had two options, wood or carpet. So Purgo introduced something that looked really good, looked like wood, at a fraction of the cost. So it became a pretty big hit quickly because of its scratch resistance and its realistic look to wood. So you could have that look of wood without spending all the money. Later on, as it becomes so popular, there's a tendency for the market and companies to try to make it more affordable to the mass people looking for flooring. Even though it's a pretty affordable product to begin with, there's always the desire of do you have anything cheaper? Do you have anything less expensive? Because people are trying to save money. And typically what happens is when you make something less expensive, you have to take something out of it or reduce the quality in ways to make it more reasonably priced. So what happened was you see an influx of companies that provide laminate or big names that provide lamina, and you start seeing these lower cost versions that install just look just as good when installed. But what we ran into was laminate was never a product designed to go into areas

The Moisture Problem That Broke Trust

SPEAKER_02 2:43

where there was moisture. So we typically like wood you can put anywhere you want. You see homes with wood in their kitchen, you see wood in the bathrooms. I don't encourage it in the bathrooms, but you utilize a lot of homes, they'll put it through a lot of places. They did that with laminate in a lot of places, and what happened was it did not react well with moisture in any way. And some people's cleaning methods are heavy wet mopping. What happened was that moisture seeped into the edges, and the lower cost products absorbed it like a sponge. So then you start getting these swelling areas around all the edges, and the floor is just ruined. There's nothing you can do. It's like press board. You add water to it, it balloons, and then it just falls apart.

Luxury Vinyl Changes The Game

SPEAKER_02 3:34

So in 2012, Cortec comes onto the market, and that's the new waterproof luxury vinyl product, and it gains traction like wildfire in just a few years and is bought up by Shaw Industries and becomes a Shaw product. And the technology of basically using vinyl with a waterproof core system takes the market by storm because laminate had become so popular, but they had put so much on the market that was just inexpensive and did not react well to moisture. And that was the big point of I mop my floors, my floors are ruined now. So now you have this new product on the market called Luxury Vinyl that's waterproof. And that waterproof terminology just took market by storm and took it away from lamina. Lamina just basically went downhill from that point and almost just become obsolete. Now it didn't ever leave the market as a whole. They basically stepped back and said, okay, we screwed up. What do we need to do to fix this? Because it's still a really good product. A lot of laminate is made here in the United States, and it's a lot less expensive than Luxree

What “Waterproof Laminate” Really Means

SPEAKER_02 4:49

Vinyl just because of the way it's made. So give or take, with the past few years, what they've been doing is intro they've taken the locking systems that are available that are patented and introduced a new technology into the cores that have made them more dense and used different properties to make them. They may not be what they say when you say waterproof, it's not something you desperately can throw down a pool and nothing's gonna happen to it. What they say when I say waterproof laminate typically is once that product is locked together, no moisture is gonna get through those joints. So on top of the water will sit on the top and not go through it. The cores are not a hundred percent waterproof, but the amount of moisture they'll absorb may be like 0.05% of moisture after being underwater for a day or two. So it they can say it's waterproof because there is some level of absorption. And each company may be a little different in the percentage, but it's a very, very low. I mean, I have other companies that have literally thrown a piece of laminate in a bucket of water at their plant and it's been there for three years without absorbing anything. It's not a vinyl product, but they're what they say hybrid cores or H high def cores. So they everybody's kind of changed the technology or changed the terminology, and there's little tweaks to formulation. But the cores have gotten where they're more either water resistant or waterproof.

AC Ratings And Surface Toughness

SPEAKER_02 6:24

The difference between luxury vinyl and laminate is laminates are rated by what they call an AC rating, abrasion class. They're actually got a harder surface on them than luxury vinyl. Luxury vinyl, you see 12 mil, 6mm, 20 mil, 30 mil ware layers. They're constructed differently. So vinyl is a softer surface because it is a vinyl product. I mean, like for those of us who are old enough to know and getting to know those in the new generation, vinyl records. It it's a f it is a flexible product. It's vinyl. It's you get vinyl on cheap furniture, it's flexible. So what they've done is they put a vinyl film that has a print of a wood on it, put a protective coating on it, which is what you see in a six mil, twelve mil, is basically how thick that protective coating is to a rigid type core. And there's different types of cores when you go into luxury vinyl. But with laminate, they call it abrasion class. So you have one through five, a few sixes here and there. As you get higher number, the more resistant against scratches, dents, and where the product is. So if you go into my store, most of my products are AC4 and AC five. So those are high like lifetime residential warranty to 15 to 20 year light commercial warranty quality resistance of scratch and abrasion. So the higher the number, the more scratch resistant and abrasion resistant it is. But it's typically laminate, it's a much harder surface, so it doesn't flex like vinyl, it's a very rigid product.

Subfloor Prep And Budget Surprises

SPEAKER_02 8:12

So one of the things that we have to explain to a customer is like if you're getting rid of all your carpet, we may have to do some work on your floor before we put the laminate in because it doesn't flex real. So if your floor is not perfectly flat, if there's low spots or a few high spots, carpet will cover that up and you really don't notice it. But when you put a hard surface, you'll see if you put a hard surface, if there's a low spot, you'll see a gap in there. Or if you see a high spot, it'll peak and the flooring doesn't sit right. So we have to address that in the installation. So there's sometimes some additional cost of filling in low spots and grinding out, and we put that under floor prep. We don't typically, if you're pulling carpet up, we don't know what we're gonna run into until the carpet is out. So I try to put a blanket number in there, like, hey, this is so you don't get sticker shock. We may not have to charge this, or there's a possibility we may have to charge more. But we try to throw that number out there just so you can be aware that we are gonna check it. It doesn't mean that it'll require it, but we want you to make sure that there is you budgeting enough to cover if we have to do the work.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

So is it less likely you'll have to do um more prep work on the ground if they go with vinyl than laminate?

SPEAKER_02 9:36

It would be the same prep work. They under they have the same warranties. It would be this anytime you go from carpet to hard surface, whether it's laminate, luxury vinyl, hardwood, tile, your floors have to be a lot flatter because carpet is basically just a fabric material. So it it can flop, it can move. Yeah, it you can stretch, you stretch it out of the room, but it doesn't require a flat surface. I mean, if your rim is uneven, it'll it's like throwing a blanket on the floor. It you can have a tight blanket, but if you see your cats underneath it, you're gonna have a hump. It will still sit flat, but I mean it it'll sh it'll show up now. Your flooring's not gonna be that tall of a hump, but it's the same principle.

Picking The Right Floor For You

SPEAKER_00 10:21

And then when does laminate make more sense than vinyl or hardwood um for homeowners? I mean, what what are the main lifestyle choices that they have? Maybe the duration of the floor being intact? Like what should homeowners ask themselves before this flooring choice?

SPEAKER_02 10:39

If you want durability, honestly, look laminate is a lot more durable against abrasions and scratches than luxury vinyl. There are some much there are luxury vinyl that are very realistic in look, and they look fantastic. But I've I have met people that work for Mohawk that they would buy a mohawk rev wood laminate over hardwood flooring or luxury vinyl any day of the week because of the durability, and it looks so good. There, there is a lot of really good laminates on the market. I have quite a few in my storeroom that I have. I mean, I have some from Lions Floor, from Staten, from Johnston Hardwood. I mean, there's a lot of companies that have invested back into laminate, and they look fantastic. And the benefit is they're a lot less expensive than luxury vinyl. So what I'm paying $4 to maybe $5 for a luxury vinyl, I'm getting something that's twice as thick in a laminate, more scratch resistant. The only challenges to it is some laminates don't have the padding or cushion attached to each plaque. So you might have to put a roll of padding or underlayment underneath it to help absorb the sound so you don't get a hollow sound because it is a more rigid product, it's constructed differently. So it can be a noisier floor to walk on, but that's something you can fix with a high quality underlayment and not spend a lot of money. So you can spend an extra 50 cents a square foot to a dollar fifty and get some seriously sound deadening underlayment for any of those hard surfaces. So when you walk on it, it'll sound like hardened flooring. So there's a lot of things you don't have to spend a lot of money to get a really good flooring. Typically, if you're looking for laminate, you want to stay within a $3.50 to $4 base range and $550 to $6 range to get a good product. And most of your better products are going to be in retail stores. So if you're looking for laminate, you will find it at Lowe's on Depot Florida Decor. But if you're looking for that high quality, retail stores are going to have a much better quality in that price range. And that's where you want to be to make sure you get that long life, long durability product that you typically won't get at a retail store.

SPEAKER_00 13:07

Okay, well, Jason, thank you so much for breaking this down clearly and the history of Laminate, because uh you made it like clear about all the different stages. So a much better understanding of it now.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

That's today's step in the right direction from the BPS Southeast Flooring Podcast.

Wrap Up And Free Estimate

SPEAKER_01 13:24

Ready to finally love what you're standing on? Call Jason for a free estimate at 828-532-2141 or visit bpssoutheast.com. Luxury vinyl, hardwood, carpet tile, flooring for everyone. Thanks for listening. And remember, great rooms don't just happen, they're installed.