The Sustainability Review:Flooring
The Sustainability Review:  |
| The sustainable flooring is progressing in the new house. |
So we have six different floorings in our house so far, a mishmash of everything. We’ve done our best to keep the floors made from local and/or sustainable materials. To date, the materials include: tile, carpet, hardwood, softwood, marmoleum and cork, with brick to be added this summer in the greenhouse. I’ll give a brief description of each and let you know my opinion.
Tile (mudroom): It’s an amazing floor, albeit cold. I’m not fond of its sustainability and local aspect. Many tiles (ours included) are made overseas in Europe from mined clay. The tile in our house is leftover from my parents’ place. We had exactly enough tiles to do our mudroom (53 to be exact). I think tile is an excellent covering, especially if you can find it as surplus. Anything that is mined from the ground generally has a high-embodied energy (energy needed to make the product and deliver it to the customer).
Carpet (living room/bedroom): We’ve chosen to have carpet in two rooms of our house: the living room and our bedroom. I like floors that you can lie on and that are soft. We chose to use Nature’s Carpet because it is one of the two carpets that are truly natural. It is a wool carpet with a jute backing and a natural latex rubber adhesive to hold the two together. If you smell most carpets, they have a very synthetic odor and typically have many toxic ingredients. For carpet pad, we are using an animal-hair pad instead of the common synthetic rubber pad.
Hardwood (landing): I saw some elm hardwood about a year ago at the Natural Abode. David, the owner, told me that they were distributing it through a local sawmill. The trees came from those that were removed from East City Park last summer. We had a couple milled into 1x5 boards, which I later took to a friend to have planed into flooring. Elm is one of the most beautiful woods I have seen. It is also extremely difficult to work with, as it wants to “tear out” any chance it can.
Softwood (stair treads/upstairs): Our upstairs is primarily a ponderosa pine floor (we ran a little short, so our bedroom is carpet). A friend ran some pine for us from trees he gleaned from homeowners removing a tree here or there. The pine is “blued,” a characteristic color that ponderosa gets when it is attacked by a fungus. A problem we ran into was that we had to fill the floor with a latex filler since the pine has many worm holes. The filler did an excellent job of making the floor look like a normal wood floor.
Marmoleum (bathrooms): This is the original linoleum from years ago, made from wood flour, linseed oil, rosin, limestone and jute. It is a product of Sweden and gaining popularity throughout the world. It is available in sheet form, glue-down tiles, or “click-lock” tiles/planks. We chose to go with the 12”x12” click tiles since they’d be easiest to install and had the look we liked (it comes in over 100 colors). The stuff is a cinch to install once you figure out how the click works. I found the instructions to be worthless and best suited for the recycling bin. We purchased ours from the Natural Abode, where I’m sure they’d be happy to give pointers on how to install the product.
Cork (kitchen/dining/playroom): We’re about halfway through the installation of these tiles. Cork is actually considered a wood floor since it is made from the bark of the cork tree, which grows in Portugal. The bark can be harvested from the tree without harming it, creating a product that is sustainable. The flooring comes in glue-down tiles, sheets, and click-lock. We opted for the glue-down tiles since they are the least expensive option ($4-5 per square foot). Installing is easy. The most difficult part is managing the stickiest glue on earth. I have consumed many pairs of latex gloves in the process, and my arms have glue on them, as do my kids’ hair....
Flooring is an essential part of the house that many times we overlook its sources and ingredients. I hope I have given you some ideas as to different options out there from less toxic to more sustainable.
Mike and his family are almost done with the house enough to live in it for summer.
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