What to look for and ask about when shopping for green flooring

ROB Chewning has noticed a trend over the past few years: more and more customers who enter his showroom have more than simple flooring on their minds and while they’re looking for green options, it’s not a colour choice that drives their decisions.

What they’re looking for is flooring that has a gentle impact on the environment and their own health. Many types of carpet and flooring can negatively affect air quality by emitting volatile organic compounds (VOCS.) These compounds can be especially harmful to people with allergies and upper respiratory conditions.

Some customers don’t have adverse health effects from traditional flooring options, but they’re intent on buying locally made or renewable products. The solution for both groups of concerned customers is what’s commonly referred to as “green” flooring.

“There are two things you want to look at,” said Lisa Joss, a representative for California Carpet.

“Is it good for the home environment and the family, so they’re not breathing in these fumes or off gases? The other thing is, are you being good to the Earth?”

Wool carpeting is a renewable resource and a healthy alternative to nylon or other synthetic carpets. Wool from New Zealand is chemical free, Joss said. Grass-made carpeting – often produced from seagrass, sisal and hemp is also all-natural and renewable. Bamboo and cork are popular options because of the source materials’ ability to regenerate quickly.

There is a carbon-footprint drawback to bamboo and cork, though. Because both of those products are manufactured and shipped from overseas, those transportation costs diminish the overall green benefit.

Hardwood flooring is renewable but some is considered less Earthfriendly because the trees that provide the wood must be cut down and re-growth takes many years. Recycled hardwood flooring, though, is an environmental win-win.

“What I recommend to people is they think about doing something that’s local and recycled,” Chewning said. “The most eco-friendly floor we could install here is a floor that comes out of an old cotton mill. There’s one in Virginia that’s been harvesting wood beams for five years. Wesand them and finish them with a water-based polyurethane. So it comes from within a few hundred miles with materials that were harvested 100 years ago, you’re not destroying new growth now and are using a low VOC to coat it.”

“Five years ago, all this stuff was just going to a dumpster and now every bit of it – from the padding to the edging to the carpet itself – gets recycled,” Joss said. — www.angieslist.com/mcclatchy-tribuneinformation Services