How Is Pergo Flooring Made?
Pergo is the proprietary name of a laminate flooring that is frequently selected by homeowners and contractors for floors that will take a lot of wear. Pergo flooring resists stains, scratches and scuffs and will not fade, according to the manufacturer. It is available in a number of colors and finishes to realistically resemble a wide variety of woods, stone and tile. You can install Pergo laminate flooring over most existing hard flooring with no nailing, stapling or gluing. Pergo is manufactured for durability and ease of installation. Does this Spark an idea?
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Layers
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Pergo flooring is a laminate manufactured by bonding several layers of materials together under extreme pressure and heat. According to the company, no toxic chemicals are used in the bonding process.
Laminate Layer
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The top layer is composed of a melamine resin and aluminum oxide particles. This layer provides protection from scratches, scuffs and other wear. Pergo also can emboss this layer to create textures. The second layer of a Pergo laminate floor is a special paper printed with photographic images of the wood, stone or tile the flooring is intended to mimic. Pergo uses a four-color printing process to make the printed image as realistic as possible. These two layers form the top, or laminate, layer of the flooring.
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Core Layer
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The core layer of the laminate flooring is high-density fiber board made from recycled wood products and treated with a lot of resin to give it added durability. The fiber board, according to Pergo, provides the floor with stability and strength and protects it from dents.
Bonding
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Both sides of the 4-foot by 8-foot sheet of core material are treated with a pre-hardener to make the glue dry faster, then it is put through the glue rollers, which coat both the top and the bottom. As the core layer travels down the production line, the laminate sheet is placed on top and a backing sheet is placed on the bottom. The sandwich of layers then goes through a high temperature/high pressure press where it is exposed to a temperature of several hundred degrees for about a minute.
Milling
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The sheet of flooring that comes out of the press is milled into 4-foot by 8-inch planks and then each plank is further milled to create its tongue-and-groove edges. The finished planks are packaged and put on pallets for shipping.
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References
- Photo Credit wood image by Amjad Shihab from Fotolia.com
