Hicksville, N.Y.—With the glueless laminate segment having grown so quickly recently—almost 100% of the laminate market is now glueless after only three years—many in the industry were eager to find out how glueless wood might do. The answer so far? Not nearly as well as its laminate counterpart, at least not initially, but it is headed in the right direction. “It’s a popular product for us in our line,” said David Wilkerson, Shaw Industries’ vice president of marketing, hard surfaces, “but I think it is what most people in the industry would classify as, not necessarily a niche product, but not a mainstream component of the hardwood business. You’ve got your traditional solid, traditional engineered, and glueless engineered. It’s certainly the smallest of those three categories, but for us it’s a pretty important one.

“With glueless laminate, there was an industry perception that the gluing of laminates was a problem,” he explained. “The vast majority of the installation issues and of the claims that ultimately resulted when laminate was being sold and installed, had more to do with glue than anything else, whether it be too much, not enough or the wrong kind. There was an industry perception that there needed to be a solution to this problem. “When the industry came out with glueless laminate, and it worked as well as it did,” added Wilkerson, “there was just an immediate migration toward that alternative. It was the ‘new and improved laminate flooring,’ and it just took the marketplace by storm and as quickly as people could convert from standard glued laminate to glueless laminate, they did. It was a solution to a problem.

 “With hardwood,” he continued, “you’ve had years and years of experience working with various types of engineered and solid woods, and some are glued down while others are nailed down. But there is not this immediate perception of, ‘Gee, I have got a problem getting this product installed.’ And the majority of consumers who buy it, they do not install it themselves. They hire an installer. “So,” said Wilkerson, “because the D-I-Y portion of the market is not as great, and because the industry experience with the product on the hardwood side had not festered [as it had with laminates], those are two key reasons why glueless hardwood has not yet had the same type of impact on the market as glueless laminate has.”

Claus Wennerth, president of Alloc, said, “Glueless wood is growing, but it is not growing as fast as the laminates, obviously, but it is growing. Do-it-yourselfers especially seem to really like it. Some of the professional installers are sticking to the traditional staple guns and glue. The do-it-yourselfers have really liked the product as it is much easier for them to install than buying a staple gun and those types of things. I think it is going to have a nice pickup “The reason glue-less wood has not grown as fast as glueless laminate is, primarily, installation-related,” he explained.

“The glued laminate floors were laborious and full of problems, with the glue not functioning the way it should, etc. When it comes to hardwood flooring, the installation with the staple gun is very fast, quite effective and works very well. So, the speed advantage with having a locking system versus gluing and stapling is less in hardwood than in laminate.” Wennerth, who reported double digit growth for the company’s glueless wood products, albeit not as much as with its laminate offerings, said, “with laminates, you glued the seams and you had a pretty complicated process. You had the glue on top of the surface; it was a real mess. However, the speed and efficiency with which you can staple together wood flooring is quite impressive.

“Another reason for the slower growth in glueless wood may be that the installers are a little bit more conservative in the wood segment than they were in laminates,” he explained, “where many of them came out of carpet and other areas, got into a new sector and were, you could say, taught from the beginning. Primarily, stapling is the method many of them prefer and that has a high speed, of course, and that’s an advantage for them. The locking systems are faster but not as much faster as they were with the laminates, in comparison.” “The assumption that, with engineered wood being so popular and with the advent of glueless, the two would go hand-in-hand, is one many would make,” said Wilkerson.

“But, so much of the wood used in the marketplace is used in new construction, and the builders, as a general rule, are very slow to change. Had there been a perception these traditional hardwood floors, whether they be engineered or solid, were too difficult to install, there would be a tendency on the part of the builder to look elsewhere. “But,” he added, “because they are not of the opinion today that the product cannot be installed satisfactorily, I don’t think the builders are as inclined to look for alternative installation methods and I believe that is why the vast majority of what we sell today in glueless hardwood is for residential replacement.”

Wilkerson noted he anticipates that the glueless segment would continue to grow at a steady, if not slower pace as its laminate counterpart. “I would said that today, it is less than 10% of the business. But I do feel like as more people get experience in selling it and as the variety of products offered increases in the standpoint of visuals and constructions, there will be more choices for the consumer. “Therefore,” he concluded, “the consumer will buy it with more frequency, but I don’t see it as something that overtakes or replaces conventional engineered flooring, and today, glueless is just available in engineered constructions.” —Louis Iannaco