Sustainable Wood Flooring - Thinking Green

We all want to do our part to help save our planet. Nevertheless, most of us do not like to be told what we should purchase or what we should not consider purchasing. We have been encouraged to wean ourselves away from incandescent light bulbs, and switch to energy-saving bulbs, which we have now grown accustomed to, and in many cases have come to prefer, but what about Rubber Flooring? Fortunately, flooring is also an area where you can go green, and do so in style. It is indeed possible to have great looking wood flooring in your home without contributing to worldwide deforestation.

Wood Flooring and Sustainable Wood Flooring

Your choices are many. Going green does not have to mean going without wood floors to keep trees from being harvested. The secret lies in sustainability. When a forest is growing as fast as its timber is being harvested, it can be considered to be a sustainable resource. If your beautiful living room wood flooring has been manufactured from material coming from a sustainable resource, there is no need to experience a guilt trip every time you look at it.

Bamboo is an excellent example of a sustainable source of wood for Rubber flooring. Bamboo is sustainable to the point of being invasive. When bamboo is harvested as a wood product, the roots are left in the ground as the trees are cut. New trees quickly start to grow from these roots, and in a few short years this new growth is itself ready to be harvested.

White ash is also a sustainable species, but for a different reason, the reason being intelligent forestry management. White ash can be rather heavily harvested because the harvested trees are constantly being replaced and there are restrictions on the number of trees that can be harvested are. Some varieties of maple are considered sustainable for yet another reason, that being their sheer abundance.

Purchasing cork flooring is yet another way to save our planet and its forests, or at least save the southern European forests the cork oak is found in. The cork oak tree itself is the responsible party in this case, as the flooring material comes from bark that is shed from the tree. There is no need to cut a single tree down. The flooring material lies scattered around its base. Cork is also extensively used as core material for engineered wood flooring.

Other Types of Sustainable Flooring

Engineered wood is another good example of sustainable flooring material, since it only a small percentage of it is solid wood. The rest is scrap or recycled material. The same is true to an even greater extent with laminates. Although supplies are somewhat limited, recycled wood such as antique wood is an option. Old barn wood was once a very popular choice and still is, but old barns are unfortunately not sustainable, and are becoming scarcer with each passing year.

There many examples of non-wood sustainable flooring, including stone, ceramic, vinyl, rubber, and of course, carpeting. Many if not most homeowners like to have at least some wood flooring in their homes however. Fortunately, the choices of sustainable wood flooring are many and varied. Have no fear of going green. There are more attractive options available to you than you might think.

W. Savage provides helpful tips and advice on caring for and maintaining antique wood Rubber flooring for Wood Flooring at Savvy Cafe - your premiere online resource for home improvement and much more!