Plastic laminate, wood- and stone-look flooring is becoming an alternative to no-wax vinyl and carpet in high-traffic areas.

The advantages of plastic laminate flooring are appearance, easy maintenance and price. Top quality laminate flooring looks remarkably like wood or stone, but it can be cleaned with a mop. The top-end prices are less than what low-end wood or stone flooring would cost.

Plastic laminate flooring generally is a combination of four layers. The top layer, or wear layer, is manufactured to resist scratching, burn marks, stains and impact. The design layer contains the actual printed pattern and rests on a high-density fiberboard core that is impregnated with melamine resin. The back layer, or balancing layer, also features melamine for stability.

The design layer can be made to look exactly like wood or stone. Pergo, a Swedish company, introduced laminate flooring to the United States in 1994, and it has been increasingly popular ever since in Missoula, Montana.

Another advantage of laminate floors is that they can be installed directly over a slab without a subfloor. This makes them cheaper to install than wood or other kinds of floors and a good alternative in the basement where high humidity or water would destroy wood flooring.