When Frances Lancaster shopped for flooring materials for her newly remodeled recreation room last year, she wanted something that could withstand plenty of traffic from her teenage sons and their visiting friends. Her husband, Walter, wanted a material that was kind to the environment. They both wanted something that would look beautiful, she adds.
Their choice: cork. “It’s easy on the feet and can take the pool balls and weights the boys drop,” says Lancaster, a St. Charles resident. “After a year of teenagers, it still looks great. When friends see it, they say, `Wow!'”
Homeowners such as the Lancasters no longer have to worry about treading on Mother Nature when choosing flooring. A growing number of new eco-conscious materials are increasingly available to consumers and come in a wide range of colors, textures and designs. Plus, old favorites, such as linoleum, have rolled back into fashion.
“There are a lot more options in flooring, and the industry has gone across the world and brought products back to the U.S.,” says Kimberly Gavin, editor of Floor Covering Weekly, an industry trade magazine in Hicksville, N.Y.
Architects and the design community have fueled the demand for sustainable products in commercial construction and, as a result, helped to drive product innovations, Gavin says. Also, a growing interest in hard-surface flooring among consumers in recent years–from hardwoods to ceramic tile, which also is consider environmentally friendly–has spurred new product choices.
Still, although many consumers have an interest in using green products, they tend to weigh their desire to be earth-friendly against cost, maintenance and appearance. “Consumers would like to be green, but they’re not going to go to a lot of trouble to do it,” Gavin says.
Although some green home components cost a lot, at least upfront, environmentally correct flooring doesn’t have to break the bank.
“This is one industry where you’re not paying a lot more to `get green,'” says Alan Petlin of the International Design Guild, a national alliance of flooring retailers.
Cork, bamboo, linoleum and rubber all start between $5 and $6 a square foot (not including installation), Petlin says. These are in the same range as solid, “exotic” hardwoods, though oak can cost less. Carpeting runs the gamut, but starts at less than $5.
The following is a rundown of some of the eco-friendly flooring choices.
Cork it
Grown mostly in Spain and Portugal, cork is mainly used–and universally recognized–as stoppers for wine bottles, explains Wendes Jones of Augusta, Ga.-based Natural Cork. Flooring is one of the uses of cork byproducts. It is ground up, baked and compressed into dense boards.
Cork comes in tiles, which are usually glued down, or tongue-and-groove planks, which are neither glued or nailed down, so installers call them “floating floors.”
“It has been imported for 100 years, but went out of style during the 1970s `mop and shine’ era of vinyl flooring,” Jones says. “Thanks to consumer request, it is back. Our sales are up 40 percent this year alone.”
Cork products come from the outer bark of the tree, which regenerates itself. “The harvesting is done by hand, so there are no machines involved. The [cork farms] are treated with care like orchards,” Jones says.
In addition to its resiliency, fans of cork flooring like the way it absorbs sound and resists growth of mold and mildew. Suppliers recommend cleaning it by dry-mopping it.
Stalk of the town
Another new-old green flooring product is bamboo. Grown in Southeast Asia, bamboo is a grass that regenerates three to five years after it is harvested. Flooring comes from the lower, harder ends of the hollow stalks. Growers cut it into strips, boil it, dry it and laminate it into planks. It arrives at retailers in ready-to-install, tongue-and-groove planks and is installed like hardwood. Maintenance is similar, too–vacuuming and occasional damp-mopping. Compared to hardwood, though, bamboo is more forgiving if the dishwasher leaks.
Like wood, bamboo is a natural product that varies in color, says Rick Paxton, co-owner of GreenWood Products, a San Juan Capistrano, Calif., bamboo importer.
“When you install, lay out the pieces first to create a collage of the lighter and darker ones,” he says. “If you use them as you take them out of a box, you might have all the light pieces in one area and all the darks in another.”
Over time, Paxton says, a bamboo floor “honeys out” to a more uniform color.
Flax time
Linoleum has been around but is enjoying renewed appreciation for its use of natural products.
“It almost went off the radar screen in the ’70s when vinyl came along,” says Piera Marotto, residential marketing manager for Hazleton, Pa.-based Forbo Flooring, which makes the Marmoleum brand. “Then it came back. Our residential sales in 2003 were twice that of 2002, and we expect 2004 sales to be just as high.”
Made of linseed oil, tree resins and jute, linoleum is biodegradable, warm to the touch and easy to keep clean. It sells in tiles or sheets.
“Families with allergies, especially, like it because dust and bacteria don’t cling to it,” says Marotto.
Unlike the patterns of old, the new linoleum comes in dozens of designs including faux marble with tile-like inlays.
Laying rubber
Traditionally used in commercial settings such as hospitals and school gyms, rubber floors are gaining ground as a funky yet earth-friendly option in homes. Because it’s rugged, easy to stand on, slip-resistant and easy to clean, rubber tile floors are being installed in exercise rooms, basements and kitchens.
“Rubber has been around for a long time, but what has happened is this segment of the industry has gotten more fashion-conscious,” Gavin says.
Rubber tiles come in patterns and styles ranging from a flat marble look to a raised square or round design. Because rubber is made from trees and can be recycled when it wears out, it is considered environmentally friendly.
Wooden it be lovely
The old standby of the flooring industry, wood, is considered by many as a green product because it is a renewable resource.
Although oak is plentiful, homeowners shopping for exotic species can look for the FSC certification. Bestowed by the U.S. Forest Stewardship Council, this tells if the wood comes from a well-managed forest.
Magic carpets
Carpeting ranges from environmentally OK to not OK. One yardstick is the Carpet and Rug Institute’s (CRI) Green Label program, which measures the amount of nasty chemical emissions that create that “new carpet smell.” For a “low-emitting” carpet, look for the CRI’s Indoor Air Quality label.
Among carpets manufactured from man-made materials, those made from recycled products get the highest grades from environmentalists.
Wool is a popular natural carpet and is a renewable resource. The sheep must be sheared, after all. Although it lost market share when synthetic carpeting came onto the scene in the 1950 and ’60s, wool is a perennial.
Especially hot now are the undyed wool carpets, which suppliers say are chemical-free.
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Shopping tips from pros
Before installing a green floor, say industry pros, make sure your supplier is familiar with the product. As with any hot product, cork and bamboo, especially, are attracting lots of new kids on the block. Of the 30 cork and bamboo exhibitors at Surfaces 2004, the floor industry’s trade show, 20 were new.
To get quality products, don’t shop by price only, say the experts. With bamboo, for example, a too-low price can mean it was harvested prematurely. Then, it doesn’t dry out completely and will warp.
“Joe Homeowner should do his homework, then quiz the retailer to see how much he knows about it,” says Rick Paxton of GreenWood Products.
For do-it-yourselfers, Alan Petlin of the International Design Guild adds: “The key is preparation of the subfloor. It should be clean and level.”
— Leslie Mann
