At Baker Bros. we strongly believe that, in order to help you find the best flooring
for your home at the best value for your budget, we need to thoroughly understand
all aspects of our products, especially how they are manufactured.
That’s why we study the flooring industry in depth, why research is part of
every one of our sales associate’s responsibilities, and why we are constantly
refining our knowledge base through training and mentoring sessions.
Plus, with each member of our sales team averaging over 15 years of flooring experience,
you can count on us for wall-to-wall wisdom.
In fact, when it comes to vinyl flooring, Baker Bros. offers you…
More knowledge per square foot.
Then we go a step further. We ask you questions. The right questions to help us
understand your exact flooring needs and wants. Questions whose answers help us
define your expectations.
Then we exceed those expectations. And do it all with style. Style and fashion in
the products we offer you and a style of integrity in our relationship with you.
That’s why we say Baker Bros. is “Where Fashion meets Flooring”.
In our view, a vinyl floor is the combination of taste and technology, the union
of style and substance, elegance and performance.
And, in this section, knowing how vinyl is manufactured can be very advantageous.
It enables you to understand the product’s materials right from their birth.
Remember that these are materials you will be living with, and on, should you choose
to have our vinyl floor installed in your home.
Being familiar with vinyl construction also helps you understand and evaluate its
performance aspects: why certain vinyl floors wear better and longer.
Plus, perhaps most important, understanding how vinyl is created can make you a
smarter shopper, help you better determine vinyl value and keep you inside the borders
of your budget.
Our knowledgeable sales team has helped us put this section together.
Please read on, and we’ll do our best to help you understand what makes up
vinyl flooring and how it all comes together in the manufacturing process.
Rotogravure Construction: take your imagination out for a spin.
The manufacturing of vinyl flooring uses highly sophisticated techniques, complex
methods and precise systems.
The rotogravure printing process is the most commonly used method for making residential
vinyl floors.
It offers you unlimited possibilities in pattern and design. Imagination, start
your engine!
This process involves a print cylinder that spins around while the vinyl's core
layer (called the gel coat) passes underneath.
The cylinder systematically prints various colored ink dyes to create the pattern.
After the print dyes are set a clear wearlayer is applied to the surface.
The appearance retention of a rotogravure vinyl floor is dependent on the durability
of the clear wearlayer.
Wearlayer: the “make it or break it” area of vinyl flooring.
The wearlayer is absolutely critical to the performance of your vinyl floor –
key to its lasting potential.
The thickness of the wearlayer varies with each vinyl product collection, or series,
and is generally measured in mils.
The thickness of a mil is about the same as a page in your telephone book.
So a 10-mil wearlayer would be comparable in thickness to about 10 pages of your
telephone book.
Generally, the more expensive vinyl floors have thicker wearlayers.
Your expectations for how long your vinyl floor will look new and fresh are based
on the wearlayer's performance.
To help you understand wearlayer construction we need to define what the performance
characteristics are that we are looking for in a vinyl floor.
These performance characteristics can be divided into several areas:
- Easy to clean
- Stays looking like-new
- Resists staining from normal household products
- Doesn't show scratches easily
- Easy to clean up spills
The easy to clean characteristic relates to how tough it is to remove soiling and
other marks from the floor's surface.
When a floor begins to look old and drab it is usually caused by hundreds of fine
hairline scratches in the wearlayer.
These fine scratches come from dirt, grit and sand laying on the wearlayer's surface.
However there’s good news. The new generation of vinyl floors has all the
ingredients to resist showing wear and staining.
Plus all the beauty, style and value to certainly put vinyl in the running as a
possible flooring for your home.
Those are the basics of vinyl construction and manufacturing.
At Baker Bros. we believe that the right knowledge can be as functional and practical
as a vinyl floor.
We also hope that the information we’ve featured here leads you to a better
understanding of how this beautiful and versatile material is constructed, and helps
you be a better, smarter, savvier vinyl shopper.
And when visiting any of our seven showrooms, don’t hesitate to ask us anything
about the world of vinyl.
At Baker Bros. you can be assured of…
More knowledge per square foot.