You’re undertaking a major home renovation, and you’re thinking about going for green flooring. It would certainly be a wise choice, because some of the more common flooring options today, vinyl and regular carpets included, post risks to your home and the environment. Not only are they petroleum based, but they—regular carpets in particular—also harbour allergens and toxic chemicals.
Green flooring options minimise this risk. If you decide to go on with it, here are some things you should know about green flooring.
There are different types of green flooring
Most people think that green flooring automatically means it’s made from wood, bamboo, cork, sea grass, sisal and other natural, renewable products. While it’s true that wood and the like make up most green flooring products, they are not limited to such materials. Flooring also qualifies as green if it is made from recycled or recyclable materials. Sustainable flooring is also considered green flooring. It can be made up natural, recycled, or recyclable materials, but factors such as how it was manufactured, whether or not it emits potentially hazardous chemicals, or if it is installed without using toxic products will be taken into consideration before one product can be declared as sustainable and environment friendly.
Green flooring lasts longer
Regular carpets last only 8 to 11 years. Green flooring lasts way longer. Hardwood flooring, for instance, has a life expectancy of 25 to 125 years. Cork flooring, on the other hand, has an expected product life of 30-40 years. If you go for bamboo flooring, you will have nice, green flooring for the next 30 to 50 years.
Green flooring reduces energy consumption
Cleaning up a carpet often requires a vacuum cleaner, which uses up a lot of electricity. Hardwood, bamboo and cork floors, on the other hand, don’t require a vacuum cleaner. In most cases, a brush and a mop will do.
Cork flooring provides good insulation as well. It has thermal qualities that make it warm and soft to walk on even in cold winter months. That means your heater won’t have to work as hard to keep the floor you walk on warm, and that translates to significant energy savings.
Green flooring is the healthiest option
When you install regular carpet and vinyl flooring, you are likely to be filling the air inside your home with hundreds of volatile organic compounds or VOCs. These VOCs can include formaldehyde and benzene, known and suspected carcinogens that takes years to get rid of. You should also keep in mind that manufacturers make them mothproof or moisture-repellant by treating them with toxic substances. What makes regular carpets worse is their notorious ability to trap toxic lawn chemicals, VOCs, and allergens that come in from the outside.
Green flooring has so many things going for it that it would be such a pity not to give it a try for your home renovation project.
Related Posts
