If you’re looking for a less expensive alternative to hardwood or a quick solution to brighten your home with a new look, laminate is a reliable choice.

But how do you choose floors that can handle the challenges of the arid North Phoenix area? The dry wind blows in sand and dust to scratch and wear away your floors, dry conditions can make boards shrink or crack, and the hot and heavy sun makes floors fade.

Choosing the right laminate could be the difference between rugged, scratched floors that you’ll replace much sooner than you wanted, and stunning floors that last beautifully for years.

Your local Floor Coverings International® team has advice below for how to select laminate flooring for your beautiful home in Phoenix.

First, What Is Laminate?

Let’s start by talking about how laminate is made, so we can better understand which components are important to look at when shopping for new floors.

Laminate is a durable floor composed of multiple compressed layers. The visible layer holds the image design and is often textured to give a more realistic impression of hardwood or various other materials. This layer is protected by a clear top layer of resin or aluminum oxide.

Below the design layer is the compact fiberboard core, which makes the floors stable and durable to handle foot traffic. All of this is attached to a strong backing layer that provides balance for the floors and seals against moisture damage from beneath the floor.

While laminate is commonly confused with floors like engineered hardwood or vinyl, there are distinct differences: Engineered hardwood has a real wood top layer, and vinyl is completely constructed of synthetic materials. If you’d like to learn more about how vinyl compares with laminate, check out our comparison discussing the differences.

Assessing the Quality of Laminate Flooring

What are the different types of laminate flooring? And how do you choose the best for your home? The ideal place to start is talking quality. Not all laminate is made equally, and there is a wide range of quality to sort through.

To find quality laminate that will hold up in your home, consider the density of the core, the thickness of the wear layer, and the abrasion class:

Core Density

Laminate cores are commonly made from either high-density fiberboard (HDF) or medium-density fiberboard (MDF). This layer gives the floor some weight and determines the floor’s durability and longevity. With a denser core, you’re less likely to have chips or dents. Spills are also less of a concern because denser cores absorb less water. For homes in dry climates, HDF is particularly important because it prevents the floor from shrinking and warping with changing temperatures.

Thickness

Thicker wear layers provide more protection from scratches, dents, and general wear. For most homes, a wear layer between 10-12 mil gives you a sturdy floor. However, simply looking at the wear layer isn’t enough to determine the quality of the laminate, since some have stronger (or weaker) wear layers than others. You'll also want to consider the abrasion class.

Abrasion Class

As the official ranking of durability for each laminate’s wear layer, the abrasion class (AC) can range from one to five. While lower AC laminates are often less expensive, they also will wear down and start to expose the design layer faster than laminate flooring with a higher AC. A good rating for your home is AC3 or AC4 if you feel like you need something stronger.

Finish

While choosing the right finish is largely up to your style preference, it can significantly impact your experience. Knowing what you prefer beforehand can help guide you to floors that you’re sure to love.

These are a few common laminate finishes and why homeowners choose them:

Matte: With a soft embossed texture, these floors diffuse the shine and give a softer light reflection than glossy laminates. They're great for hiding dust, footprints, and small scratches.
Glossy: Laminate flooring with a glossy finish has a shiny, polished look that can brighten the room and make the space look more high-end. The smooth surface makes this flooring easy to clean, though it'll show smudges more than matte or textured floors.
Textured: This type of laminate includes grooves and ridges that make the floors look more realistically like hardwood. With more laminates, you’ll notice the texture and the image line up remarkably well.

Choosing the Best Laminate for Your Desert Home

Let’s be honest: dealing with dry conditions, sand, dust, and a lot of sun can wear away your laminate floors. So, what’s the best type of laminate flooring for our desert climate?

Here are three things to prioritize when you’re choosing new laminate floors for your home in North Phoenix:

Higher density (HDF) core: Choosing a denser core reduces warping, shrinking, or cracking from dry air. Consider laminate flooring with a high-density or a moisture-resistant HDF core for your Phoenix-area home.
UV-resistance: In areas like ours with strong sunlight, fading and discoloration can be an issue, so it’s best to consider the laminate’s UV-resistance.
Thicker wear layers: Like we mentioned earlier, choosing a thicker wear layer (10-12 mil) will offer you more protection. And making sure the wear layer is an AC3 rating or higher will keep the desert sand and dust from scuffing your floors.

Choosing Laminate by Room

Some laminate flooring is strong in scratch resistance, while others focus on preventing fading or protecting against water damage. That’s because when you use laminate in different rooms, you’ll find different features are more of a priority. Some rooms may need more durability or protection from sunlight, while in others, water-resistance is more important.

Here's what you’ll want to consider room by room:

Living room: The best type of laminate for living rooms is durable and decorative to fit the style of your home.
Bedroom: For floors in the bedroom, you may consider looking for more comfortable and quieter laminate flooring.
Kitchen and dining room: Consider water-resistant laminate flooring to manage spills and frequent messes.
Homes with kids, pets, or high traffic: To handle the high activity, look for laminate with an AC4 rating for increased durability and scratch-resistance.

How to Keep Your Laminate Flooring Beautiful

Phoenix winds can be incredibly hot and dry, and the arid conditions can quickly wear away your new laminate floors. Here are a few steps you can take to protect your floors and keep them looking fresh and beautiful:

Sweep regularly: Dust and dirt are like sandpaper, wearing away the floors every day. Regular sweeping or dry mopping with a microfiber mop will cut down on extra wear.
Use minimal water: While laminate is often water-resistant, a puddle of water left on the floors can eventually seep into the edges and result in swelling or warped floors. So, as you clean, use only the amount of water needed, and try to clean up spills promptly.
Use blinds or rugs to protect from sun exposure: To avoid fading, close the blinds to minimize sun exposure or consider decorating with area rugs in rooms that get plenty of sunlight.

Ready to Brighten Your North Phoenix Home with New Laminate Floors?

Now that you know how to pick laminate flooring, you know to look for a higher-density core (HDF) to handle the low humidity of your North Phoenix home, a wear layer thickness between 10-12 mil, and an abrasion class (AC) rating of AC3-AC4 to prevent excessive wear from sand or dust.

Our team at Floor Coverings International® of North Phoenix, AZ, skillfully installs quality laminate flooring. To make sure your floors are perfectly fitted for the dry climate, our installers allow the laminate to acclimate between 48 and 72 hours before installation. And we include an underlay designed to control humidity and reduce sound. We also leave precise expansion gaps, so your floors won’t buckle and can expand and contract with the changing temperatures.

Ready to shop for beautiful new laminate and discuss the options with professionals? Reach out for a free consultation or call us at (623) 323-9500 to get started.