Harmonics Laminate Flooring

Harmonics laminate flooring is a glueless laminate floor available exclusively from Costco Wholesale Corporation at any of their participating warehouse stores. Glueless laminate refers to the floating type of laminate floor that's not fastened to the subfloor but rather "floats" on top of it.

Costco is a membership warehouse club so the only way you're able to purchase their Harmonics laminate flooring is to become a member. If you're already a member it's worth the time to see if your local warehouse carries Harmonics in order to get a closer look. There isn't a broad selection of styles to choose from but what they have is appealing in both looks and price.

If you're wondering who actually makes the product, it's a mystery that Harmonics Flooring won't divulge. That piece of information is kept secret as part of the exclusivity arrangement with Costco.

What Harmonics Laminate Flooring Has To Offer

Harmonics laminate flooring is offered in only 4 styles and they all emulate the look of wood (as opposed to tile or stone as some other laminates do). The 4 styles are:

• Vintage Chestnut in a wide-plank, hand-scraped look. Hand-scraped mimics the look of hand-worked planks that are individually scraped into plank form as was done before mechanized tools.
• Skyline Maple in a smooth, blond narrow-plank style (the actual laminate plank width is 6 1/8 inches wide but the printed wood pattern is of smaller plank widths).
• Harvest Oak in a darker honey color.
• Royal Mahogany in a rich reddish brown color.

Harmonics laminate uses the Uniclic^® joinery method which is also used on other brand-name laminate flooring products. It's similar to a tongue-and-groove type of joint however the Uniclic^® joint snaps together and doesn't require any fasteners to hold the planks together.

The product carries a 35-year residential warranty against wear, staining, water damage and fading. The Uniclic^® joint is also warranted against failure.

The warranty is pro-rated so the benefits decrease as the warranty period progresses. Remember to keep your sales receipt because you'll need to show proof of purchase should you ever need to make a warranty claim (and those Costco receipts are just small slips of paper similar to a grocery store receipt).

According to the Harmonics Flooring website these floors can be used over concrete sub-floors in basements provided a Harmonics moisture barrier is used under the laminate planks.

Harmonics also offers moldings in matching colors for finishing effects where the laminate floor meets the wall and/or adjacent floors.

The cost of Harmonics laminate flooring is very competitive with laminate flooring products offered at online retailers as well as big-box home centers.

What I Like About Harmonics Laminate

The appealing characteristic of Harmonics laminate, aside from the price, is how it looks. It's made with a register-embossed technique which matches up the physical texturing in the laminate surface with the printed wood grain pattern.

I found the Vintage Chestnut to be the most convincing to my eye but all of the Harmonics styles were pretty good as far as visual appeal goes. I'd go as far as saying that the it's among the better looking brands of laminate floor products that I've looked at. As printing and texturing processes continue to improve the result is more realistic looking laminate floor products.

Granted, there's obviously more to a laminate floor than just looks but a big part of differentiating among the various brands in my opinion involves how realistic it appears. Given the strong visual appeal of the Harmonics laminate combined with the good price, it's a product I'd consider along with some of the other known name brands.

Additional information about choosing a laminate floor can be found here.

The website for Harmonics laminate flooring is:
www.harmonics-flooring.com

Robert Levesque
Publisher/Editor

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