What is the difference between laminate and linoleum flooring

Ok, so what is laminate flooring? Think of it like a cross between traditional linoleum and the best engineered wood flooring you can buy. Laminate is composed of three layers: a plywood or fiberboard base layer, a photo-realistic image layer, and a hard plasticate wear layer to protect against scuffs, dings, and dents.

When it comes to hardwood floor alternatives , laminate often looks and feels the most realistic even more so than LVT. And while it used to get a bad rap for looking plastic-y, many laminate products have become virtually indistinguishable from real hardwood in recent years. Laminate is super affordable, you can use it to create gorgeous wood floor designs , and it can even go head to head with the most durable wood flooring in a battle of hardness.

By now, you should know that these materials are very different. Comparing the pros and cons of linoleum vs. It has lost most of its popularity to vinyl, which is plastic. Laminate is a wood floor substitute largely made of plywood. Ok, we all caught up? Who knew comparing linoleum vs.

Now, the only thing left to do is find a flooring store in your area and get started! And for more information on flooring products, read up on:. Savannah is a midwestern writer who dabbles in blogging, poetry, and news.

When she's not stuck behind a desk, she can be found hiking, in a coffee shop, or chasing a rambunctious toddler. What a wonderful, thoughtful and empathetic article with history lessons to boot! Thank you for gently explaining why my laminate kitchen floor is really vinyl, and why I can celebrate that. Thanks so much for the kind words, Missy! Your email address will not be published. Shop our full range of wooden laminates today. With over 50 years of experience, Quickstep is one of our most popular suppliers of quality laminate flooring.

Find out more about their exciting range. One of the traditional advantages of lino is price. More affordable than most laminates, lino has proven itself to be a good, inexpensive alternative.

Thanks to improved technology and design, lino is now available in a wide range of stylish designs. This type of flooring can be much more comfortable in a bathroom setting than its laminate counterpart. For those who are specifically looking for a sustainable, environmentally friendly flooring option, linoleum is actually a good choice, because linoleum is an all-natural product , made mostly of oils, resins, minerals, and other plant-based materials.

Is it weird to point out a fact about disposability in an article likely to be read by people looking to install flooring? Exposure to excess moisture can damage a linoleum floor. So, keep that in mind if you are going to install linoleum in rooms where water or minor flooding could be an issue a bathroom , the kitchen , a laundry room. Also, if you are going to install linoleum in a basement , make doubly sure that the subfloor is dry and sealed against moisture.

Laminate is also advertised as water-resistant although, some brands are launching waterproof laminate lines. However,, if any moisture seeps between the planks you risk swelling and warping of the boards. If you get any kind of standing water, forget about it. That floor is going to have to be replaced.

Laminates are maybe the most DIY-friendly flooring option. With their very familiar click-lock floating floor system and need for only basic tools, most do-it-yourselfers can install flooring in a large room over a weekend. All that you need is a clean subfloor, possibly some kind of underlayment, the patience to click and lock plank after plank, and, hopefully, some friends and family to help.

Some laminate manufacturers are now making planks that have an underlayment backing already attached, pulling a step out of the installation process. While laminate flooring is great for those who like doing the work themselves, laminate floor planks can sometimes be fragile. Damage them in the right spot and you can make whole planks unusable.

Linoleum does come in click-lock floating floor planks , and that option is something that DIYers can install. More commonly, though, linoleum comes in tiles or sheets. Installing either of those requires you to lay out adhesive first. A flooring professional should handle those. You need to replace ambered linoleum. This ambering occurs when the linseed oil used to manufacture the linoleum oxidizes because of prolonged exposure to UV rays. You can install laminate floors in a room that gets a lot of sunlight and not have any concerns that the prolonged exposure to the UV rays are going to affect the look of your floor.

A standard broom is fine for removing dust. A little water and some mild detergent should get up any mud or grime. While you can get specialized laminate mops , brooms and cleaners, standard ones will often do just fine. Accidents are a part of life, maybe a more regular part of it if you have kids around the house. Sometimes those accidents damage a floor.

If you have laminate flooring, fixing these accidents often means doing your best to disguise the damage and then living with the results. Not the case with linoleum. That means linoleum can be refinished. Any significant damage to any plank on the floor and you are going to be faced with removing that plank, meaning that all of the flooring is coming up until the damaged plank can be reached and removed. For years, linoleum was a bad word among homeowners.

Linoleum flooring was often the first thing to go during remodeling. Linoleum is beginning to have something of a renaissance , so much so that there are actually companies selling retro linoleum. While laminate flooring has a core composed of pressed wood, the top of each plank the part that we can all see once the floor is installed is essentially just a sticker. That means what we see could literally be anything.

In fact, there is laminate flooring that now mimics ceramic tile and natural stone. The reality is, though, that most people turn to laminates because they want the look and feel of real hardwoods without paying the cost.

While laminates were not initially invented as a substitute for real hardwoods, they have become almost exclusively that. Flooring technologies have advanced so much that many laminates are now nearly indistinguishable from real hardwoods. They can even mimic the look of antique, hand-scraped hardwoods if you are hoping for a more rustic feel.