What Type of Flooring is the Most Eco Friendly?
So your remodeling your home... Or at least considering it and that's what brought you here. There can't be any other flooring freaks like myself out there.. can there? 🤪 With so many options out there for flooring choices, how to you finally settle on a material? Let's face it, marketing companies have gotten really good at identifying our needs and making sure to check all the boxes but that doesn't necessarily help us choose!
I could talk for days about floors (no really, I have.. it was my job for 11 years straight). Starting with this post, I'm going to discuss some of the lesser talked about features of flooring because I want you to you to make the best decision for your home ❤️ In this post, we will discuss Eco Friendly flooring options.
Which Floor Is The Most Eco Friendly?
I'm starting with this controversial topic right out the gate. Marketing flooring as eco-friendly is a play on your emotions towards the environment and wanting to feel like a good person - which isn't a bad thing! I mean, we all want that, that's why marketers use it! We've all seen flooring labeled with a circular green and blue logo that says 'Floor Score Certified', which tests the amount of off gassing it can produce. If a product is mandated to be clearly labeled and tested for volatile chemicals, do we fully trust any of the other eco-friendly things it doesn't come right out the gate and say. For example, the amount of micro plastics it introduces to our home? Or perhaps, the lifespan of the product and at what point can we expect it to arrive in a landfill? The answers to these two questions will inevitably lead you to the flooring choices of either A. Solid Wood or B. Tile.
A. Solid Wood Flooring in Your Remodel
Solid wood flooring is the number 1 most environmentally friendly flooring you can put in your home. And I know what your thinking, "What about all the forests we're chopping down!" Unlike any other flooring materials, the raw material - trees - can regrow after being cut. If cutting trees down are a company's lively hood, then they recognize it is in there best interest to invest into replanting else one day they'd be out of business! Solid wood flooring is considered to be a generational floor. This means you install it one time, and even with your basic maintenance of sweeping and mopping, it can be brought back to life as the first day it was originally installed 30, 50, even 100 years in the future. Not to mention, solid wood will always increase the value of your home higher than any other floor type and that alone is an investment worth passing down to future generations.
B. Tile Flooring in Your Remodel
There are many different types of floor tile out there; ceramic, porcelain, natural stone, an encaustic to name a few. As long as the tile is installed properly, tile is the most resilient to the blunders of everyday wear and tear. Each type of tile has its own pros and cons but as a blanketed statement; tile is meant to be a forever floor. Consider historical buildings like the Vatican built in 1929, perfectly adorned for nearly 100 years with stone tile flooring. Or perhaps a lesser maintained flooring found on an archeological site in Pompeii, Rome where a literal VOLCANO covered the entire town in hot ash in AD79. That's 1,945 years ago for those counting.
Other Types of Eco Friendly Flooring for Your Remodel
Let's discuss one lesser known flooring type under the topic of sustainable eco friendly flooring; Concrete floors. Concrete floors have been gaining in popularity as modern, minimalistic design trends soar. They are an eco friendly option because your not actually installing anything other than sealer on top of your concrete slab foundation; no trees, no stone, no plastic. Concrete floors low maintenance (like tile) and fire proof (like solid wood). They can be customized with dyes and stamped pattern leaving you with a one of a kind art installation in your home. This eco friendly flooring choice has its own list of cons one of which is that it can amplify sounds and this will create an echo-y effect in your home.
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