Wooden Flooring - An Environmentally Friendly Option for Your Home

What Types of Wooden Flooring are Available? Wooden flooring includes a wide variety of laminates as well as solid wood floors such as parquet. Although laminate is made of wood, it is a composite product with other things in it. The appearance of grain on the surface is cleverly created with a photographic image. Solid wood flooring - usually in the form of planks, is just wooden timber through and through. Popular tree species used for this are cherry, oak and walnut. More exotic choices are Acacia or Bamboo which, though strictly speaking a grass, performs much the same as wood. Engineered flooring - is still solid wood, but uses a soft wood base, such as pine, beneath a layer of hardwood such as oak. rnSustainability of Wood Flooring Unlike man made materials, wood grows itself and unlike wool, produced by sheep who are producers of carbon dioxide, trees use carbon dioxide as they grow. In the life time of your hardwood floor; there is plenty of time for newly planted trees to grow and replace the ones used for your floor. All this makes wood flooring superbly sustainable, as well as being a beautiful addition to your home. rnEnvironmentally Friendly Wood Flooring Solid wood floors are where you really win over both laminate and carpet for being kind to the environment. Locking in the Carbon - carbon dioxide gets released into the atmosphere when you burn wood and this is what is contributing to greenhouse gasses and global warming. However your solid wood floor locks in the carbon so it can't add to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Furthermore a new tree will be planted for each one used in your floor and these trees will be hungry for carbon dioxide, absorbing it from the atmosphere to help grow new wood. An average sized wood floor is locking in 170kg of carbon which would convert to 630kg of carbon dioxide if burnt. Low Emissions from Production and Transport - a well cared for wood floor could last a life time and unlike carpet often improves with age developing a rich patina. In that time a carpet is likely to be replaced 4 times or perhaps more. This keeps the emissions from transport and production down. Carbon dioxide emissions from transporting an average floor are 20kg - a paltry amount compared to the 630kg that your floor is saving from reaching the atmosphere. Save Electricity - think how often you have to vacuum a carpet, using electricity each time. Then think how easy it is to sweep a wooden floor, using no electricity at all. It's beneficial for the environment and reduces your electricity bill. You can also damp mop a wooden floor, but no harsh chemicals are required, some eco friendly washing up added to the water is enough to lift stubborn dirt. You can choose to install a solid wood floor with a clean conscience, confident that you don't have to sacrifice style for strong environmental principles.