What a parquet board differs from a laminate

Repair in the house is not only financial expenses, dirt, household chores, it is also the flour of the choice of finishing materials. Especially a lot of controversy arises around the floor covering. Really, on what to stop: on a laminate or a parquet board? Each of these materials is very popular and good in its own way. So what to give preference? Perhaps, a closer acquaintance with each of them will help determine the choice.

The article was prepared with the support of the store www.ya-magazin.ru

More about the parquet board

“The decorative layer of the product is always made of valuable wood”

There is an opinion that the laminate floor is the prerogative of the office. Some people consider such a finish a low-quality cheap. This is fundamentally wrong, but still, if there is an opportunity, preference should be given to the parquet board. This material, of natural origin, will bring special warmth and comfort to the house. He is able to warm even the coldest minimalist interior.

Parquet board – the construction of the team, which has three layers. The base is made from veneer of coniferous wood or solid plywood. The middle part is assembled from wooden slats laid along. They are also made of fir or pine. At this level there are lock slats, which allow for quick assembly of floors. Cross-laminated parquet board adds strength to the product, makes it resistant to deformation, deflection, other loads.

The decorative layer of the product is always made of valuable wood. However, he is responsible not only for the aesthetic beauty of the coating. In his conduct, the durability and quality of exploitation of the sexes in general. The most popular is the texture:

• oak;
• beech;
• birch;
• ash.

To preserve the charm of a natural wood pattern, do not open the parquet board with varnish. It is enough to treat it with wax-containing compounds or a specific oil. The latter option is more practical and advantageous, since it requires updating every two to three years. But back to the design of the board. According to the design of the top layer it can be:

• whole;
• two-way;
• three-way.

In the first case, the top layer of the board is a solid wood bar, on which the figure created by nature itself is perfectly visible. It can be anything. There are also homogeneous strips, and variegated veins, and knotty knot. The variations depend on the sawing.

In other cases, the decorative part is assembled from several lamellas, which can have different lengths, as a result of which the picture turns out to be unusual and unusual. But this feeling is preserved only until the coating is laid. When you look at the finished floor there is a feeling that the bed is laid with natural parquet laid in a deck way. There is also such a pattern in the parquet board, which imitates the laying of the “tree” or “braid”.

In general, the assortment of a parquet board is quite wide, so that you can choose the right shade and an interesting drawing of labor will not be.

Pros of the parquet board

1. The coating is an excellent silencer. The tree jams the sound wave and prevents external noise from entering the house.

2. Parquet board is antistatic, which means that it will not attract dust.

3. The material is subject to restoration. Such floors can be repeatedly polished. How many times – depends on the thickness of the decorative layer. The main thing is not to engage in such work independently. Here the hand of the master is needed.

4. The aesthetics of the parquet board are beyond competition. Nature – the best creator and released from under her brush is distinguished by its unique beauty.

5. The flooring in the interior looks expensive and stylish.

6. Not in the last place is the simplicity of installation and maintenance of the floors.

7. The last argument is the amount of the warranty period. The manufacturer gives it for their goods for no less than 10 years.

Cons of the parquet board

1. There are not enough of them, but one can not keep silent about them, as some moments are quite serious.

2. First of all, the parquet board does not tolerate moisture, so it is not used in the finishing of bathrooms, baths and swimming pools.

3. Parquet varnish is less sturdy than the laminate coating, so it is faster. This means that in homes where there are animals or walking, without removing the shoes, its layer will often have to be restored.

4. Parquet floor for long-term service requires a stable indoor microclimate. He reacts poorly to temperature changes and dampness. What does it say? Only that such finishing of floors is not the best solution for country houses and other seasonal housing.

More about laminate

“The material is more resistant to abrasion and adverse effects than the parquet board”

To begin to characterize this material it is necessary that it has an artificial origin. This does not prevent the laminate from holding the palm tree for demand. He pretty actively replaces the parquet board. The material is more resistant to abrasion and adverse effects than the parquet board. In its production there are no stages of impregnation, polishing, varnishing, which reduces the cost price. Laminate is unpretentious in the care, which greatly facilitates the life of the housewives.

The coating is multilayered: it is made from polymer-bonded kraft paper or plastic and fiberboard boards.

The wood-fiber layer allows the board to keep the geometric dimensions unchanged and actively resist unfavorable physical influences. The decorative layer, imitating a pattern of wood structure, is covered with a protective film based on melamine resin. It is this protection that makes the laminate particularly durable.

To increase the moisture resistance of the material, its non-laminated edges are further impregnated with wax containing compositions.

Laminate is not only distinguished by its decorative features, but also by its strength. There are grades for minor, medium and high loads. The type of the product belongs to the corresponding labeling. Naturally, this affects the value of the goods. What strength to lay laminate, directly depends on the level of patency of the room. If you look at the example of an apartment, the lowest loads on the floor will be in the bedroom, the highest – in the kitchen.

What is good about laminate flooring:

1. It does not accumulate dust.

2. Excellent resistance to impact and abrasion. Classes 31-33 have the highest strength. Such a laminate is designed for finishing office offices and production facilities. When repairing living spaces, you can limit classes 21-23. Their strength indicators will be sufficient for the load they are to bear.

3. Laminate is not deformed even with strong physical impact. It will withstand persistent compression for a long time.

4. The coating is not afraid of the sun’s rays. Its decorative layer does not fade, thermostose, does not react with household chemicals.

5. Good thermal conductivity makes the laminate a priority material for finishing in the arrangement of the warm floor.

6. A wide range of patterns, shades and textures allows you to choose the ideal variant of floor covering in the interior of any stylistic solution.

7. The warranty period of operation is at least 5 years.

What in the laminate is alarming:

1. With all the efforts of the manufacturer to make the coating as waterproof as possible, it is impossible to lay it in rooms with too high humidity.

2. The laminate has low noise absorption, so the coating requires the use of a sound-insulating substrate.

3. The most unpleasant moment is the impossibility of repair. If the board is damaged, it will not be possible to repair it. The element will have to be replaced.

4. For all the aesthetics of the decorative laminate layer, the artificiality of its origin from the eyes will not escape.

Myths about a laminate and a parquet board

What of the existing opinions about the quality of these materials is true, and what is a delusion? Let’s try to understand. So, what do people talk about?

1. Laminate – a synthetic material, which means dangerous. It’s not like that at all. By its ecological quality laminate floor is not inferior to the parquet board, as evidenced by its belonging to this class to the class E1. You will not believe, but the parquet floor can be much more harmful to health if at its assembly the unscrupulous builders use a toxic glue and will open it with a cheap and low-quality varnish.

2. Laminate, unlike parquet floor, booming. This is also a myth. The friability of the coating will depend on the quality of the substrate used and the original smoothness of the surface being trimmed. If you put a parquet board on a cheap PVC substrate on an uneven floor, and a laminate on the cork and on the ideal smoothness of the surface, then acoustics will be created by steps one on the first. Whether the floor will resemble a drum depends on how tight it can be pressed to the surface. The only way to avoid the problem is to glue the board on the bottom. The event is expensive and calls into question the meaning of acquiring a finish, providing a lock fastener, in general.

3. The parquet board is subject to restoration, and the laminate flooring is not. This is really so. But honestly, it should be said that such a statement is a pure marketing move, since it is extremely difficult to find a master who will undertake the restoration of a parquet that has not been glued to the floor. The floating surface is risky to handle. The board will surely bend in the area of ​​the locking joints, which will cause the undulation of the coating. But even if a specialist performing manual grinding is found, it must be borne in mind that after several such procedures, the decorative layer will lose its color and brashing. The floor will look like a cheap boardwalk. In fact, there is no sense in restoring the three-lane model of the board after using the floor for more than 5 years. The reason for this is the detachment of the lamellas. The old strength will not be restored to the board, so it will be cheaper to rearrange the floor than to restore it. By the way, for the period of restoration works the premises will need to be completely freed from furniture for at least several days, until the coating layer has completely dried.

So what to choose?

Determine the choice can only be analyzed in comparison.

If you look at the above, you can see that the common for laminate and parquet board is not so much – multi-layered. But there are also nuances. Now let’s try to compare the other parameters.

Resistance to load

The leader in this indicator, of course, will be a laminate floor, but on the condition that it was made of high quality material. Cover from a quality laminate does not hurt either with sharp heels, or fidgeting on a chair. On it it is possible to move even very heavy subjects, naturally not in impudent, and with observance of certain care, for example, having put under the feet nylon covers. There will be no traces of drawing on the laminate. Parquet of such “violence” will not survive.

Moisture resistance and heat resistance

The parquet board is fastidious. She needs a specific microclimate. In a room with too dry air, it will dry up, and in too damp a swell. In both cases, deformation can not be avoided. The laminate has no such problems. And in general, the material was created as an alternative to parquet coating, so it lacks all the inherent drawbacks inherent in natural wood.

Initially, laminate flooring could be found in elite houses. Improvement of the manufacturing technology allowed to bring the production of laminate to a mass level. The material became cheaper and became available to the masses. Some classes (from 31 to 34) surpass the parquet board in everything. The secret is that they are based on HDF, which can smoothly and proportionally expand, therefore, in such a floor, gaps are never formed.

Decorative

Here on this indicator the undisputed leader – a parquet board! Her design is refined and noble. She is a member of the classic interiors. Parquet flooring simply asks in addition to the marble fireplace, wall gilding, ceiling moldings. Such a floor is an unsurpassed addition of paintings in rich frames and antique furniture.

However, in modern interior solutions, it is lost. Modern, high-flow, eco-decor is more appealing to laminate. Its range is so diverse that it will be possible to select a cover for a particular design without any problems.

Operational characteristics

The service life of materials is large enough. Although in the comparative analysis the parquet board looks a little brittle and gentle, however, with adequate care, the floor from it is ready to last up to three decades. Laminate of the middle class will last 7-20 years. More high-quality species serve also that longer.

What to put?

If we ignore the stylistic design of the premises in the house, then the next guideline for choosing the material of the flooring will be the planned load. So in the corridor and the kitchen it is quite high, so it is better to use a laminate. In the nursery and the bedroom is more suitable parquet floor. It will bring a touch of comfort to the atmosphere.

Price policy

It can not be considered as an axiom that a parquet board is more expensive than a laminate board. Here everything will depend on the manufacturer and the class of laminate. The price for it is directly proportional to the strength of its coverage, so that on sale it is possible to meet laminate synthetics with a noticeably superior parquet cost.

Parquet board is also offered in price variety. Products with a misplaced pattern, knotty inclusions will not be expensive. Many people can afford the material. A brand-new product is quite another matter, from splendid wood without the slightest flaws. For such a parquet board ask very expensive. Usually it is made up of elite class apartments.

Care

As the laminated board is more adapted to the conditions of the present, floors from it can be washed without fear of damaging the coating. This does not mean that they can be nailed like a deck. Naturally, you do not need to use abrasives and scouring powders, as well as splash a bucket of water on them.

The parquet board is mostly neatly vacuumed. If you can not do without wet cleaning, then you need to conduct it with a semi-dry cloth. When caring for parquet floor several times a year, it will need to be treated with a special composition that protects the tree.

Conclusion

No matter how good the characteristics of the materials, it’s up to you to decide which of them will go to the flooring in your house. In principle, both laminate and parquet board are worthy of complementing the interior design. Beautiful in this case – it’s not always expensive, but if the priorities of choice are also naturalness, durability, comfort – then the answer is obvious: parquet.

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Author: Mikhail Bond

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