The 6 Best Home Flooring Ideas and Options

Are you thinking about replacing flooring in your home? Consider the costs, benefits, and the downsides of each type of flooring before you commit. Here is a list of the most popular types of flooring, their pros and cons, and the rooms for which they are best suited.

1. Hardwoods

Costs: Depending on the type of hardwoods you go with, it could cost you anywhere from $3 to $12 per square foot. Engineered wood will cost you a little less. On top of the cost of materials, you will need to pay to get it installed which will likely run you in the hundreds or thousands of dollars.

Pros: Hardwoods look very nice and have a great resale value. They are easy to clean and maintain and usually only require vacuuming.

Cons: The cost is the largest drawback. Like tile, hardwoods are also loud to walk on. Real hardwoods also need refinishing occasionally in high-traffic areas. Standing water can also ruin hardwoods.

Best Rooms: The best place to put hardwoods is in a living room. It looks good and is stylish. It is not a high-traffic area such as a foyer so the would can remain protected. You can also use a rug to muffle the noise a bit.

2. Tile

Costs: There are many different types of tile. It can range in price from $1 to $20 a square foot. Professional installation can run into the hundreds of dollars depending on the size of the area.

Pros: Glazed ceramic tile is very durable and resistant to scratches. It is water resistant. Tile comes in a variety of sizes and materials, such as marble, porcelain, travertine, slate, and granite. Additionally, tile is fairly easy to clean, and stains are not much of a concern.

Cons: Tile can be very loud to walk on and echos. It can also be cold, and heating systems for tile are very expensive. Tile can crack and can be difficult to repair. The grout gets stained and needs to be cleaned.

Best Rooms: Since tile is water resistant, it is perfect for a bathroom or a kitchen. It may also work well in a dining area where food and drinks tend to be spilled frequently.

3. Laminate

Costs: Again, this ranges in price, but I have seen it anywhere from $0.50 to $3 a square foot. You will also have to pay for installation.

Pros: My favorite thing about laminate is that it does not easily scratch. And if it does, a little vegetable oil rubbed on the scratch will get it right out. It also can look like real wood or tile, and it can even be difficult to tell if it is real or not. Like hardwoods, laminate is easy to clean. You can even make your own cheap and natural house cleaners. It is also great for pets because they can’t scratch or stain it.

Cons: Standing water will ruin laminate flooring. I learned this the hard way after having a refrigerator leak, and I ended up having to replace all the flooring in my kitchen. If the laminate does get ruined, unlike read hardwoods, laminate can not be refinished.

Best Rooms: Laminate is great for high traffic areas such as a foyer or any room with a lot of activity because of its durability. I highly recommend not putting it in a kitchen, bathroom, or a laundry room since laminate should not get wet.

4. Carpet

Costs: The cost of carpet varies greatly depending on the quality. However, standard carpeting and padding is between $2 and $5 per square foot. There are usually decent installation deals at Lowe’s and Home Depot for around $50.

Pros: Carpet not only feels soft, but it also gives a soft look to a room. It is quiet to walk on and prevents echoing throughout a home. Carpet is quick and simple to install and can go over uneven subfloors.

Cons: Although advancements in fiber technology have enabled carpet to be more stain-resistant, it still gets stained. Even when vacuumed frequently, it still may contain hidden dirt. When my husband and I tore up our old carpet, it had mounds of dirt underneath it. Carpet also needs to be steam-cleaned occasionally to keep it fresh. Additionally, carpet is not good for people with allergies.

Best Rooms: The best location for carpet is low traffic rooms, such as bedrooms, to minimize the dirt that gets trapped in it. It also gives bedrooms a more cozy look and feel.

5. Vinyl

Costs: Vinyl can cost less than $1 per square foot on the low end but can cost up to $5 per square foot on the high end. Installation is a couple hundred dollars.

Pros: Like carpet, vinyl is quiet and easy on your feet. It is inexpensive compared to some of the other flooring types.

Cons: Although vinyl has come a long way and can be made to look like wood or tile, it still does not look as good as the real thing. Vinyl dents and tears easily, and I have found that it can be a challenge to clean.

Best Rooms: Vinyl is great for a laundry room as it can shield a lot of the sound from your laundry machines. It could also work well in bathrooms and the kitchen because of the warmth it adds.

6. Cork

Costs: Again, there is a range of prices: $2 to $8 per square foot.

Pros: Cork is a good insulator. It is warm, soft, and absorbs sounds. Cork is a natural material, so it is environmentally friendly. Also, since it’s antimicrobial and resistant to mold, it’s safe for the family.

Cons: Since cork is a natural material, it will fade in direct sunlight. It also has been known to turn yellow with time. Because of the moldable nature of cork, it may get damaged underneath furniture pressure points. It will also swell when it is in standing water.

Best Rooms: Cork would work great in bedrooms because of it softness and warmth.

(Photo Credit: neoliminal)

First seen here: http://www.moneycrashers.com/best-home-flooring-ideas-and-options/

The post The 6 Best Home Flooring Ideas and Options was originally published on ExpertSanding – Dublin

Sustainable Floor Choices

When it comes to choosing flooring for your home, there are a myriad ways to go. And while looks and cost are certainly going to be key drivers in your decision-making, don’t forget that it’s also so easy to build eco-friendliness and sustainability into the equation.

What makes a sustainable floor?

It’s a surface that’s produced from readily renewable materials via eco-friendly processes. It also creates little impact on the ecosystems around it in the course of its life-cycle, from harvest through to manufacture, use and disposal. Many sustainable floors also have a social aspect to them, in that traditional flooring types, such as bamboo or sisal, tend to rate highly when it comes to sustainability, and choosing such options ensures a future for the communities that supply and manufacture them.

If you’re interested in assessment-based life-cycle information regarding the flooring you’re considering, the American National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Building for Energy and Environmental Sustainability (BEES) programme is the website to visit. It compares the life-cycle environmental impacts of a range of floorings, as provided by researchers around the world. Top of its list come the natural products cork, linoleum, and wood, with wool and composite marble at the other end of the scale, due to their manufacture and installation requirements.

So, what are some of the “greener” choices available to you?

Hardwood

Wooden floors have been popular around the world for centuries. They add warmth and color to your interior scheme, are practical and easy to clean, and – unlike carpet – are great for people with allergies. What’s more, depending on the kind of timber you pick, this is a great environmentally responsible flooring choice.

To begin with, trees are a renewable resource, but opt for a species that’s plantation-grown and harvested commercially, rather than one that’s plundered out of native forestry. They also absorb carbon as they grow and this remains stored in your flooring, rather than being released as emissions into the atmosphere. What’s more, at the end of its useful life beneath your feet, your wood can be repurposed or recycled, so that the carbon stays locked inside.

New technology has also made many types of hardwood floors much easier to install than they have been in the past. They can even now be ordered pre-finished, so there is no need to sand or seal the boards before or after installation – they can simply be laid straight out of the box.

Bamboo

Bamboo has been a traditional flooring in Asia for millennia. To look at, it can resemble hardwood, but it is cut from a rapidly renewing, highly replenishable resource – as bamboo is a grass, not a wood, it grows to maturity in just 3-5 years. It stores up to 70% more carbon a year than hardwoods, and can also be harvested without the need to replant, as the root system is left intact. This all means its carbon footprint is low, even after shipping out of Asia is included. It is strong, extremely durable, naturally anti-bacterial, and resistant to insects and moisture, which makes it ideal for humid environments.

There are a number of types of bamboo flooring available, each varying slightly in manufacturing process, economic viability at source and local preference. In Asia, the most common form uses thin bamboo stems, cut as flat as possible, then trimmed to similar lengths. The wood can then be stained, varnished or left with a natural look.

Outside of Asia, it’s more common to find more highly processed, manufactured bamboo floors. These are generally made from mature bamboo poles, again sliced into strips, then skinned and boiled to remove the naturally occurring starches and sugars. The wood is then dried and planed, delivering two major naturally occurring colors, similar to beech and oak, respectively.

It’s when it reaches the lamination stage that that the eco-friendliness of most widely distributed bamboo flooring tends to be compromised. This is because it is generally bonded together using urea-formaldehyde (UF) resins, which emit volatile organic compounds, so aren’t great for air quality at the time. That said, bamboo uses much less UF adhesive than other options such as particleboard substrate.

There are, however, bamboo products and systems available that don’t use UF. These locking bamboo systems are the easiest to install, in fact, with joints that click firmly into place and allow you to create your own look using plank alignment and color.

Cork

Cork tiles or planks are made from the bark of the cork oak, which is carefully harvested from the living tree. This means it is a highly renewable and sustainable flooring resource. It is stripped from a cork tree about once every 10 years, once the tree is 25 years old. Each tree can live for up to 200 years.

In terms of flooring performance, cork has a lot going for it. It is naturally anti-microbial, is a great insulator against both noise and heat loss, and is comfortable underfoot. Its springy resilience also means it copes well with furniture placement and heavy foot traffic. To round it all off, it’s fire-resistant as well.

Cork rates high on the “green” scale too. To begin with, as a tree, it provides a living environment for other plant and for animal species. It attracts few carbon emissions in the course of harvest, and if you choose your sealant carefully, you will find there are also low-VOC options available. It is also highly recyclable once its days as flooring are done.

Linoleum
True linoleum (lino) – also marketed under the trade name Marmoleum – has been around since 1855. It is manufactured from 100% renewable sources and is 100% biodegradable.

Lino is a blend of dried and milled flax seeds (linseed oil), pine resin, ground cork and pine resin, with a jute, burlap, or canvas backing. It is fire-resistant and is also anti-static, which makes it ideal for allergy sufferers. Further, as its decorative pigments are embedded in the structure of the lino, it doesn’t fade.

Top-quality lino is extremely flexible – making it useful in environments where tiles etc would crack – and durable. There are cheaper linoleums available, but they are thinner in cross-section and won’t last as long. Just make sure, if you are opting for lino, that this is actually what you are getting. More common today is polyvinyl chloride (PVC) flooring, which has become colloquially known as “lino”… but isn’t. Yes, it wears well, but it also contains plasticisers, chlorine-containing combustion products and impurities such as free monomers, which are less than environmentally friendly.

Rubber

Rubber flooring tends to be associated with commercial and industrial spaces, but – with a bit of imagination – can play a useful role in bathrooms, kitchens and laundry rooms in particular. True rubber is harvested from the living rubber tree, and is therefore a 100% renewable resource. As a floor, it is easy to install and keep clean, insulated against sound and vibration, and is anti-static, so great for asthmatics. It should be fade-resistant too. Again, just make sure you get the real thing, though – synthetic rubber is not a sustainable material.

Carpet

This is an interesting one, given the sheer number of products from which carpet can be made. Perhaps the greatest surprise to be found here, though, is that wool carpets – although wool is a natural, sustainable and renewable resource – rate very poorly on the “green” scale, in terms of published research. This is largely due, not to the wool itself, but to the energy requirements of the carpet manufacture, the VOCs given off by the adhesives used in laying the carpet, and your choice of underlay. That said, low-VOC carpets are becoming increasingly available – or you can use tacks, as they used to do before the onset of glues. And there are also more environment-neutral underlays coming onto the market.

What are your other choices, if you’re worried about wool carpet’s eco-friendly performance? Sustainable carpeting includes that made from other natural fibers such as cotton, sisal, jute, or coconut husk. Again, it’s a case of looking into the manufacturing and installation of each individual product you are considering. One particularly “green” option is carpeting made completely from recycled polyethylene terephthalate – that’s the plastic used in food and drink containers. There’s a never-ending source of the stuff, recycling it like this keeps it out of our land-fills, and its dyeing is less polluting and requires less energy than other flooring types.

Coconut

The timber of the coconut palm is a comparatively rare flooring choice, but is one with good sustainability credentials. Coconut palms grow quickly, but the wood is usually harvested from 60-80-year-old plants that are no longer producing fruit. Coconut is a hardwood with an unusual, appealing close grain. It is cheaper than teak, and as hard as mahogany.

You should now be set to specify eco friendly fooring. There are a lot of choices and you now have the information to help make your decisions.

Article first seen here: http://www.interiordezine.com/design-articles/sustainable-floor-choices/

Sustainable Floor Choices was originally published to Expert Sanding