Becomes the fourth supplier to announce a price increase in recent weeks. New prices will take effect March 1.

Congoleum said it will increases prices by 5 percent on all of its residential and commercial flooring products beginning March 1, 2005.

"The increase is necessitated by an unprecedented rise in cost of key raw materials, specifically vinyl resins and plasticizers," said Dennis Jarosz, Congoleum's senior vice president of sales and marketing. "We will continue to explore ways to keep costs down as well as investigate alternate raw materials."