Manufacturers of both floors and underlays repeatedly boast of their membership in organisations whose names are enigmatic for customers, such as EPLF and MMFA. A colourful logo on packaging apparently means little. However, membership of these two associations should give the customer a clear message that the manufacturer continuously develops and improves its products in order to ensure their superior quality.
We choose the laminate floor.
Laminate floors are extremely popular. The first directly coated laminate floor entered the market in 1989. Within a decade, this product had developed to the point it became a trendsetter. The laminate is laid quickly and easily, many individual patterns are available and the value for money is excellent.
The EPLF, to be exact the European Producers of Laminate Flooring, is – on the one hand – an information platform for manufacturers and suppliers and – on the other – a source of information for customers and sales specialists, aimed at ensuring market transparency and improving the image of the product, namely laminate floors.
Members of the association include enterprises from various European states which manufacture and sell laminate floors at their own responsibility. The union appoints its members only from among manufacturers which undertake to maintain high quality standards and have proper manufacturing technology and machinery at their disposal.
The association also nominates extraordinary members, laminate flooring industry suppliers. Such enterprises cover a wide spectrum, from suppliers of wooden materials, through manufacturers of paper, printers of decorative patterns and manufacturers of impregnating agents, to machinery manufacturers.
The EPLF, which maintains an ongoing partnership with flooring manufacturers, regularly provides information and recommends values of characteristic parameters for both floors and accessories. Documentation released by the EPLF specifies what conditions must be fulfilled by production so that it is considered ecological, what layers the floor should consist of, how it should be laid, what utility values it should be characterised by, what values are paid attention to while selecting the underlay or how to take care of the floor to make it last for years.
We choose the vinyl floor:
The EPLF’s counterpart for vinyl floors is the MMFA, which stands for the Multilayer Modular Flooring Association. This organisation represents both leading LVT manufacturers in Europe and their suppliers. It is an international platform for exchanging ideas and experiences, which is developed on the basis of ongoing research and improvement of standards in the production of multilayer modular floors.
Documentation issued by the association specifies information on guidelines related to the structure of LVT floors, vinyl panel underlays, methods for the assembly of such floors and their maintenance.
Not so enigmatic after all:
It is worth reading labels. The colourful logo with the note “member of” the EPLF and MMFA is an indicator of quality and guarantees that a selected product fulfils most stringent requirements in its category. By boasting of their membership in these associations, manufacturers assure of their dedication to development.
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