flooring

Part 12 of our 15-part Q&A series on all aspects of green building from the publishers of HealthyHouseInstitute.com. Click here for the introductory post and furthur details.

Question: Why don’t you like certain types of carpeting?

Answer: Some carpets are high emitters of VOCs. Choose low-VOC types.

Question: What’s the best kind of carpet to buy?

Answer: Look for those rated by the Carpet and Rug Institute's Green Label Program. Otherwise, the best advice we can give is to look for a product with as little odor as possible. It’ll help to take someone along with you who has a good sense of smell when you go shopping for carpet and padding. This is imperfect advice because some of the chemicals outgassed don’t have an odor. If you can’t find a low-odor carpet, you can roll it out in an uncontaminated garage and let it air out there before you bring it indoors for installation. Furthermore, you should install the carpet with tack strips rather than an adhesive.

Many people believe natural-fiber carpets are inherently healthier. Sometimes they are, but that’s not always the case. Natural fibers are often chemically dyed or treated and wool carpet is routinely treated with mothproofing chemicals. Actually, some 100%-nylon carpets are less bothersome than some natural carpets. Whatever kind of carpet you choose, we highly recommend using a central vacuum cleaner to maintain it.

Area rugs may offer advantages over carpet. First of all, you can often find them locally made of cotton or other natural fibers at reasonable prices. Some may even been dyed using natural plant dyes. If they have any odor when new, they can usually be laundered in a washing machine or hung outdoors until odor-free. As a result, they're much easier to keep clean than wall-to-wall carpet. If a larger area rug won’t fit in your washing machine, you can take it outdoors and beat it over a line—but be sure and wear a good dust mask.

Question: Wood floors are always a healthy flooring choice, right?

One of the hottest trends in flooring today is the selection of environment- friendly options. Some of the top green options include cork, bamboo, linoleum, wood and wool. Additionally, recycling programs allow the flooring industry to do its part. Blakley’s Flooring, in Indiana, is one company with environment-friendly flooring options in addition to a recycling program that helps benefit others.

• Cork is the outer bark of the cork oak tree, and is used for a variety of products including engine gaskets, wine corks and of course, flooring. During the manufacturing process, much of the work is performed with traditional hand labor and most of the energy used originates from recycled cork waste. Cork is a great choice for high-traffic areas and is an excellent insulator from sound and vibration.

• With bamboo, no natural resources are depleted because it is actually a grass. Bamboo often seems like hardwood because of its rigid texture, and comes in vertical and horizontal styles. Since 1944, manufacturer and importer Teragren has been upholding a mission to help reduce the dependence on timber by manufacturing bamboo options. Also considered to be “lucky,” bamboo provides a durable and yet contemporary option.

• Linoleum is made from natural materials and is considered durable with antimicrobial properties provided through the continued oxidation of linseed oil over the flooring’s life. Linseed oil is produced when seeds from the flax plant are pressed together. It comes in several colors and is usually provided in sheets. However, it can also feature a snap-together installation method with a cork attached to the back.

• Some hardwood options come from socially responsible forests where five trees are planted for each one cut down.

• Wool is both renewable and biodegradable in addition to being the most durable and resilient carpet fiber. It is naturally soil resistant, repels water, accepts the deepest and richest colors of dyes and is flame-retardant. Additionally, wool carpeting helps improve air quality by absorbing contaminants in the air.

With each new flooring job, several pounds of flooring materials are often wasted and dumped into landfills. Realizing that this was detrimental to the environment, Blakley’s Flooring implemented a recycling program and adopted a green commitment. Each month, Blakley’s keeps 20,000 pounds of refuse out of landfills, which is enough to fill two three-car garages every day. This unique recycling program provides fuel to Indianapolis homes and businesses. If the materials were not recycled, it would take more than 1,000 years to decompose.

Blakley’s owns its own shredding machine that breaks down old flooring materials including carpet, vinyl and wood. The shredded materials are taken to Indianapolis Power and Light. IPL then converts the materials into steam, which helps power Indianapolis.

If you are interested in Blakley’s environment-friendly flooring options or recycling program, please visit our Web site at www.blakleys.com or call us at 317.576.8200 (near Castleton) or 317.575.0440 (Carmel).

The average person spends 80% of their lives indoors. Public awareness about the health effects of poor Indoor Air Quality has increased demand for building products that do not pollute the air in our home or office.

Conventional paints, finishes, flooring, adhesives, cleaning products and carpeting are known to contain Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), formaldehyde, polybrominated Diphenyl ethers (PBDE), phthalates and many other hazardous chemicals that can result in health problems like allergies and asthma, especially in children.

Using Low- or No-VOC materials, reclaimed or sustainably-harvested wood products, wood alternatives such as bamboo and palm wood, natural flooring, carpets, rugs, and decor can make your house greener.

Building with tested and proved green materials also provides an alternative to products that degrade the environment we want to leave for our children and grandchildren. In buying green building materials, you can cast your economic vote for a better world, personalize your home or office, and make the air you breathe cleaner.

Yet another fabulous shopping weekend looking at eco-friendly products for the house. We discovered the Eco-wise store, which got the Best of Austin 2007 award for the most eco-friendly, green store. Good for them!

We met a very animated, yet friendly sales guy giving us the scoop on eco-friendly/sustainable flooring, countertops and rainwater collection.

Basically, there are several types of flooring:

• Bamboo flooring, which is a fast growing type of grass that is easily grown and harvested, but shipped from China. Bamboo is hard, resilient and can be made into many different beautiful patterns. There's a variety of quality, so be careful what you pay for!
• Cork flooring, which is made from the bark of cork oak trees, and when stripped, does not destroy the tree. Advantages are that they are softer on the feet, especially in an area where you stand a lot (i.e., kitchen), and are recycled and have no VOCs (volatile organic compounds).
• Linoleum flooring, which is an all natural, non-toxic flooring made of linseed oil, produced by pressing seeds from flax, an easy to cultivate and abundant plant. They are usually warm and softer on the feet than cold tile flooring and come in a variety of colors. The problem is the look of it, in my opinion, as it has that 70s retro look that doesn't evoke beauty to me, but hey, beauty is the eye of the beholder :-).
• Local or reclaimed wood, specific to your area. Check out wood that has been taken from buildings that were demolished. You can sometimes find great deals in reusing it for your flooring, banisters, ceiling beams, etc! We are checking out using hickory, which is a near diamond hard wood that is found in Arkansas and milled locally in the Hill Country. It is a beautiful wood that can be stained to your desired color and will last decades.
• Stained concrete with fly ash, which is basically the mineral residue resulting from coal plants and when mixed your concrete, greatly reduces cement production and therefore eliminating much of the carbon emissions. They are quite fashionable in homes nowadays, as it can make your home look very modern by staining or creating patterns in the concrete. It also provide a large thermal mass for your home. A thermal mass is some sort of structure (i.e. stone) that keeps a constant temperature and thereby positively affects the temperature in your home. Concrete floors are relatively cheap, as they can be part of your foundation, and you can then stain it, and then instantly have your floor ready. You can easily repair them if they crack and are durable, but the only problem is that concrete can be hard on the feet and unforgiving if you drop something on the floor.

We also looked into concrete countertops with varying degrees of recycled glass in them or using sorghum or bamboo as a countertop as opposed to concrete. There are even countertops made of recycled paper that are even stain, scratch and heat resistant! You have a lot of options to create the look you desire.... MORE HERE...

We've just published another installment in our continuing effort to bring you in-depth information on every product, designer, material, method and expert mentioned on the show. In our guide to Episode Eight: Floors & Closets, you can learn how to build health and happiness starting with beautiful, earth-friendly materials underfoot. From high-tech concrete and natural stains and finishes, to natural carpet and recycled sheep barn flooring. Discover the possibilities alongside Kevin.

Clean your closet, clear your mind? Did you know that a clean, well-organized closet can reduce stress? Interior designer Vanessa Grant explains how to keep your home's inner life organized.

So many exhibitors, so little time.

That must be what most West Coast Green attendees were thinking this weekend. Another thought might have been: Green remodeling is on the rise.

While there were plenty of builders, and there was plenty of prefab, and all the solar power one would expect, there was also row after row of exhibitors offering products and services that are designed to help the average homeowner green their existing property.

Want to paint? We enjoyed chatting with the people at Green Planet Paints. Their mineral-pigmented, clay based paint has a uniquely soft, rustic finish. A few rows away, YOLO Colorhouse's wide range of colors were on display next to Berkeley-based EcoHome Improvement's booth (where Bay Area residents, conveniently, can purchase YOLO's zero-VOC paints).

We saw beautiful reclaimed wood flooring at TerraMai's booth, marmoleum at Forbo Flooring and a whole host of other green flooring options (recycled-fiber rugs, for one) at Marin Flooring Company.

On the less-mainstream side of things, we found The Aqus, a system that captures water from the bathroom sink and routes it to the toilet bowl so that it can be reused for flushing.

In short, we were overwhelmed by all the green building/remodeling resources. And, while we don't have enough space to mention them all right here, right now, we'll be keeping an eye on a lot of the exhibitors and reporting back here in the future.

Still hungry for more? West Coast Green may be over, but you can see a full list of exhibitors right here.

Image via www.westcoastgreen.com