When it comes to eco-friendly flooring, hardwood is the greenest option available. Trees are the raw materials used for its production, and they can be regrown after being cut down. Some species take decades to reach maturity, while others take centuries. So, felling a tree that took 200 years to grow will require another 200 years for a new one to mature, despite the high demand for wood. If you're looking for an eco-friendly flooring option, there are several alternatives you can consider.
These include recycled wood, bamboo floors, reclaimed wood floors, cork floors, palm wood and hemp. Reclaimed hardwood is sourced from old houses, military structures, warehouses or freight cars. The material is disassembled and converted into flooring material, helping meet market demands and reducing the need to harvest more trees. Reclaimed wood is still in its natural state and may have fallen in a forest or need to be removed for construction. When you build with environmentally sustainable materials, it means that it's also energy efficient.
This translates into long-term cost savings during and after construction. Using hardwood floors for homes is an energy efficient option, especially in a tropical climate where humidity is high. Wood is a poor conductor of heat and does not transfer outdoor heat to rooms, making them cooler during the day. Douglas fir and pine are the most sustainable soft woods for flooring due to their fast growth rates. Black cherry, maple and oak are sustainable hardwood flooring options because of their durability and abundance.
Bamboo, cork and palm are sustainable alternatives similar to wood. Bamboo is one of the most sustainable types of wooden floors out there. Floors take up more space in your home than almost any other material, so choosing your floor is not an easy task. Other alternatives to flooring use aggressive glues and adhesives which can have a negative effect on the environment and domestic air quality due to emissions over the life of the floor. Oak wood flooring is the most common type of wooden floor due to its aesthetic appeal, durability and easy maintenance, but it is not necessarily known for being sustainable. One way to evaluate the sustainability of wooden floors is to analyze their life cycles and evaluate the sustainability of each stage.
Hardwood floors tend to last longer than softwood floors when used a lot because they can be dense and tough. An SFI certified wooden floor certification would ensure that the wood in your floors does not come from old forests. Hardwoods are one of the few flooring options that can be used more than once for flooring and other construction projects. We offer an impressive range of wooden floors which can last more than 50 years if they are well maintained and cared for. Innovators are trying to incorporate a lot of green flooring ideas to produce environmentally friendly flooring materials.
