We’ve given you, so far, a lot of choices for flooring options. We’ve discussed hardwood, ceramic, carpet, and stone flooring, enumerating each flooring type’s pros and cons. We now give you another type you would want to consider – Cork Flooring.
One of its pros is its positive environmental impact in terms of sustainable flooring. Sustainable flooring is produced from materials that reduces demands on ecosystems. This also includes sustainable process which involve harvesting, production, use, and disposal. Sustainable flooring is widely popular today as it creates safer and healthier buildings and promotes a future for traditional producers of renewable resources too.
So is cork part of the sustainability team? Research has shown that the life cycle environmental impacts associated with producing and using flooring alternatives, one of them being cork, are clearly lower than other alternatives. Cork flooring, specifically, is made by removing the bark of the Cork Oak without harming the tree. It is this reason why it’s a renewable and sustainable resource.
Cork floors are also beautiful, lightweight, warm to touch, hypoallergenic, fire and insect-resistant, stable and renewable every 10 years or more. They are naturally cushioned and are great in sound insulation. In addition, it is naturally anti-microbial and has excellent insulation properties, ensuring minimal heat loss and comfortable warm walking surface. Cork is very resilient too, preventing imprints that may be due to traffic.
Caring for cork flooring is very easy and is similar to caring for hardwood, linoleum or bamboo flooring. Regular dusting and damp mopping is all that’s required to keep it in excellent condition. In cases of deep scratches and gouges, they can all be repaired with wood putty. The price range? Cork flooring is just about the same as most hardwood floors, from $3.99 to $6.99/SF. It’s also very easy to install.
One major con of cork flooring is it absorbs moisture so well. This makes it not too suitable for bathrooms and kitchens. In fact, flooding cork flooring with water repeatedly will cause the edges to swell but that’s it basically.
Cork flooring sounds too perfect for flooring does it not? Wait til’ you see the designs yourself!
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