#suberin

[kisstothehips-blog]

"Best Place to Live"

[sustainableflooring-blog]

Why Buy Cork Flooring?

Cork flooring might sound like a cheap and flimsy type of flooring. It is cheap but it is far from tacky or short-lasting. The oldest surviving cork floor dates back to 1898. It is in a church near Chicago.

Cork flooring can be found in a number of styles. It is easy to stain and maintain and can look really good in a room. It also feels good because it is soft and warm. You can sit on cork flooring comfortably.

The softness of cork flooring is due to its honeycomb structure. It springs back to its former shape when heavy weights are removed. Cork flooring can deal both with high traffic situations and heavy furniture.

Furthermore, the structure of cork flooring makes it a silent type of flooring that muffles the sound of footfalls, so it is ideal for an upstairs room. The structure also provides thermal insulation as well as sound insulation.

The suberin in cork makes it anti-allergenic and fire retardant so cork flooring is a safe type of flooring. Indeed the more you look into cork flooring the more you will change your mind about it. Cork also makes a great natural underlay material.

[sustainableflooring-blog]

Suberin and Cork

The cork oak tree or Quercus Suberin, nautrally contains the substance suberin. It is a waxy substance found in plants and trees. Suberin is hydrophobic and is used to regulate the water supply to a plant or tree. Mangroves that grow in salty waterv conditions use suberin to limit the amount of salt they intake.

In the case of the cork oak that grows mostly in the Mediterranean area, suberin is found in the outer bark or phellem and is used to retain moisture. It is an area renowned for its dry spells and suberin is vital to the tree.

The bark of the cork oak tree can be peeled off when the tree has reached maturity in 24 years and then every 9 years. Peeling the bark off the cork oak does not damage the tree.

The bark from the cork tree is ground down and compressed with adhesive to make cork flooring and cork underlayment.

Because cork flooring contains suberin it is a type of sustainable flooring with a number of useful properties:

1) the suberin in cork flooring makes the flooring water resistant. This is great in the case of spills and accidents, as the water sits on the surface and can be easily mopped up without damaging or staining the flooring. It is also good to stop damage caused by high relative humidity.

2) Cork flooring is fire retardant because of suberin. It is very difficult to set fire to cork flooring; and, if there is a fire, no noxious fumes are emitted from cork flooring.

3) Suberin is antimicrobial and repels insects. This makes cork flooring an extremely healthy type of sustainable flooring that is good for people who suffer from various allergies.

Cork flooring is similar to bamboo flooring in that it is not only an ethically sound type of flooring but also in that it has a number of benefits for the consumer.

[sustainableflooring-blog]

Coconut Flooring vs Cork Flooring

Coconut flooring comes from senile coconut palms that have stopped producing coconuts. This usually happens after 50 to 70 years of coconut production. The reason why coconut flooring is considered sustainable flooring is that coconut palms take only 5 or 6 years to reach maturity.

Cork flooring comes from the bark of the cork oak tree. The bark grows back after 9 years.

In both the case of coconut flooring and cork flooring they come from renewable resources that can keep up with demand.

Both types of flooring are geographically limited in their production. Most cork comes from the Mediterranean area and coconut palms cannot take frost and only thrive in hot and humid climates. Most coconut flooring is made in Indonesia and the Philippines.

The appearance of the two types of flooring are quite different. Cork flooring is soft underfoot and springy. It has a light mottled appearance. Coconut flooring in contrast is hard like hardwood and has a dark striped appearance.

Despite these differences both types of flooring can last a lifetime if properly maintained. They are also both anti-allergenic. Cork is superior in that the suberin in cork flooring makes it mold and fungus resistant and also fire retardant.

Despite the differences, both cork flooring and coconut flooring are cheap and good alternatives to hardwood flooring