By: Fabiola Grosshan
Submitted: 2010-05-28 06:40:33 | Word Count: 412
Hardwood flooring is elegant and much more flexible as a decorative element in your home than, say, carpet. However, when you buy hardwood flooring there’s the chance that you might be contributing to the growing problem of deforestation. After all, hardwood is a limited natural resource, and it is difficult to regulate its sustainable use in a world market. To make sure you’re contributing to the green effort next time you purchase new flooring, here are a few sustainable hard flooring options to consider, along with some local San Diego floor retailers where you can find them.
Engineered Wood
Engineered wood makes use of a top veneer layer made of real wood backed with layers of cheaper plywood. It looks like wood and feels like wood, but uses a lot less wood than actual hardwood flooring. Plus you get some additional advantages, like the fact that engineered wood flooring is more stable and less susceptible to temperature and humidity changes. Balboa Flooring is a good local San Diego flooring store with a wide selection of cork and plywood backed engineered wood.
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Laminate
Laminate flooring’s powers of impersonation are pretty impressive. It’s backed by plywood and/or compressed fiber layers, but its top layer is made with a plastic coating that’s been applied over a photograph to create an ultra realistic impression of hardwood and even stone materials. Also, laminate flooring is among the most low-maintenance and easy-to-clean kinds of hard flooring on the market. Cole’s Fine Flooring and Express Floors To Go are two great San Diego laminate floor retailers to check out. (For San Diego vinyl flooring, Cole’s Fine Flooring and JC Flooring are your best options.)
Bamboo
Bamboo has for several years now been advertized as a green alternative to hardwood building materials and products, including flooring. And it is true that bamboo is one of the most resilient and renewable natural resources we have, being not a type of wood, but rather a type of grass, which can be harvested regularly without damaging its plant’s root system. However, a lot of natural resources and fuel are used in the process of importing bamboo. Make sure that when you shop for bamboo flooring, you pay attention to what kind of processing it has undergone and that it comes with SFI or FSC certification.
