Laminate Flooring Still Growing Strong.

Laminates' luster still sparkles at record-breaking Surfaces 2000.

FOUR YEARS HAVE passed since laminate flooring burst onto the North American flooring scene at Surfaces, the North American floor covering industry's most important annual event. Ever since, a few dozen companies of diverse backgrounds and makeups have fought arduously for their share of distribution and sales in an expanding but highly competitive market.

At Surfaces 2000, held Jan. 26-28 at the Sands Expo Center in Las Vegas, laminate flooring made another strong showing, albeit with less fanfare than in past years when its newness and hype stopped attendees dead in their tracks to learn what all the buzz of using countertop materials for floors was about. Some 40 companies, among them a handful of suppliers to flooring manufacturers, were listed under the "Laminate Flooring" heading in the Surfaces 2000 Show Guide.

Surfaces 2000 was characterized more by the expansion of individual company's laminate flooring line palettes than by any product design breakthroughs, a la the eye-catching grouted-tile look introduced by Uniboard, Formica and others at Surfaces 99. A notable exception was Mannington's introduction of iCORE, manufactured with a synthetic core and patent-pending "Snap-and-Fit" fastening system.

One of the biggest news stories emerging from Surfaces 2000 concerned what was not shown. Several laminate flooring companies reportedly decided in the final weeks leading up to the expo not to introduce glueless installation systems after being made aware of a U.S. patent granted Dec. 28, 1999, to BHK of America.

Yet another trend continuing to emerge at Surfaces was the expansion of "engineered wood" flooring products constructed with real wood veneers over composite wood cores. Priced higher than laminate, engineered wood floors are prefinished and feature a top layer of aluminum oxide, the same material that provides laminate flooring with its great durability.

In any and every regard the show represented a great start for its new owner, Hanley Wood, which purchased Surfaces from the World Floor Covering Assn. in late December. The 11-year-old show posted record numbers of visitors -- nearly 37,000 people -- and exhibits -- 788 companies -- at the newly expanded Sands Expo Center.

Following are some individual company highlights surfacing at Surfaces 2000.

Mannington of Salem, NJ, introduced iCORE Advanced Composite Flooring in eight woodgrain designs. It features a waterproof, extruded synthetic core that the company claims is quieter and five times more indentation resistant than products made with high-density fiberboard. In addition, iCORE has a patent-pending "Snap-and-Fit" system, which requires no glue and is installed using the floating floor method, popular with standard laminate floors. It comes in 6-foot-long planks, 2 feet longer than industry standard.

BHK of America of Central Valley, NY, sent shockwaves across the exhibit floor by virtue of being granted a U.S. patent Dec. 28 for the edge connection system of its Uniclic glueless laminate flooring. Speculation abounded as to which "major" companies dropped planned introductions of glueless systems at the last minute rather than take a chance of being in violation of the patent.

Bill Byrne, vice president of BHK of America, said the patent covers the interlocking technology developed by Unilin of Belgium, BHK's flooring partner.

After the patent was granted, Byrne said his company sent out cautionary letters to "several" Surfaces 2000 exhibitors, who he said were beginning to promote glueless laminate flooring systems. "BHK has advised a number of manufacturers of their potential patent infringement and we fully plan to promote and vigorously defend it."

Pergo of Raleigh, NC, announced a partnership with 3M to feature Scotchgard protection on its Pergo Select and Pergo Preferred floors beginning in May. Scotchgard will be incorporated into the melamine top layer of the flooring. According to Pergo, "It works to reduce surface energy and, as a result, improves anti-soil performance. It also speeds cleanup by making it easier to remove soil with simple dry mopping."

To further enhance durability, Pergo says its Pergo Select floors will feature new Lustergard Plus, a surface technology that provides greater protection against scuffing and dulling, and DuraCore 500, a specially engineered resin and fiber composite core that "provides greater resistance to water and dents." To coincide with these improvements, Pergo is increasing its warranty on Pergo Select floors from 20 to 25 years. In addition, the company expanded its Select product range with three new tile collections and two new wood collections.

The company also announced that it has entered into an exclusive deal with The Home Depot to distribute a new DIY product, Pergo Presto. Presto has a patent-pending joint system that requires no glue and can cut installation time by 50%, according to Pergo.

Bruce Laminate Floors of Addison, TX, a division of Armstrong, increased its range of product offerings with the introduction of Value Zone, the company's new promotional line of laminate flooring. Value Zone, with a six-year warranty, is the entry point of a three-tiered product line that also includes Carnival, 10-year-warranty, and Traffic Zone, 25-year warranty.

In addition to debuting Value Zone, Bruce expanded its Carnival line to 12 products with the addition of four new patterns, and introduced 11 new planks and five new tiles to its Traffic Zone line.

Formica Flooring of Warren, NJ, arrived at Surfaces 2000 Fresh off the heels of its Dec. 23 purchase of STEL Industries Inc. STEL of Algona, WA, was started by Ellstrom Manufacturing to exclusively manufacture laminate flooring for Formica.

David Hartman, Formica Flooring business manager, said, "With this acquisition we will be able to streamline and accelerate our new product introduction process, so you can expect to see Formica Flooring continue to lead with exciting new product innovations."

As a follow up to its Ceramix stone and marble collection introduced last year, Formica Flooring debuted its Stone Classix Collection, featuring six large-scale designs. Three of the six new designs feature a random block arrangement offering a mixture of square and rectangular stone images. The other three designs sport clean, chiseled edges and subtle marbleized veining of classic marble looks.

wilsonart International of Temple, TX, introduced the Designer Collection. It includes crossover looks from the commercial market -- six plank format wood-grain designs and six tile format designs, including colored abstracts inspired by concrete, rock and slate.

Columbia Flooring of Thomasville, NC, which recently began operating an engineered wood flooring plant, displayed seven new product lines incorporating oak, cherry, maple or pecan veneers. These pre-finished planks feature tongue-and-groove construction and an aluminum oxide finish to provide greater wearability and less maintenance.

Robbins Hardwood Flooring, a division of Armstrong, based in Addison, TX, represented another company introducing new and improved engineered wood flooring. The company says its new ForeEver II aluminum oxide urethane finish is 10 times more abrasion resistant than traditional urethane finishes, and is offering up to a 25-year residential finish warranty on its Premium Collection products to back its claim up.

NALFA Cites Progress of Standards

THE CREATION OF performance standards covering the wearability, cleanability and fade resistance of residential laminate floors is moving closer to becoming a reality, say representatives or the North American Laminate Flooring Assn.

E.C. "Bill" Dearing, pesident of NALFA, said, the association's technical committee was preparing to submit its standards proposal for a voice vote among members. Once approved, the standards will be submitted to the American National Standard Institute for approval and publication, a process that could be finalized as early as a year from now, Dearing said. Closely linked to the standard would be a certification program through which flooring manufacturers who pass testing by an independent agency could affix a seal to their products indicating that they "meet or exceed NALFA residential standards."

Dearing said testing would be carried out by North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC. He added that NALFA would soon turn its attention to creating separate commercial flooring standard.

David Hartman, CFO of NALFA, said the standard would arm consumers and retailers with information about what constitutes a quality laminate floor. He added that it will help prevent bad quality products from "damaging the trust of consumers."

Laminate Shipments Up 27%

Preliminary estimates by NALFA indicate that North American shipments of laminate flooring reached $600 million last year, up 27% from the year before. Dearing said laminate flooring now has a 4% share of the residential floor covering market and further estimated that 1999 laminate flooring shipments represented 300 million square feet of product.

In other news, NALFA announced that it was prepared to launch a Web site: www.laminateflooring.org. It will include links to NALFA's 11 regular members and 11 supplier members, plus Frequently Asked Questions, a glossary of laminate flooring terms and the voluntary performance standards after they are adopted.

--Rich Christianson