Cork floors in the apartment, types of cork flooring, the pros and cons of cork floors
Tired of already banal laminate and linoleum in the apartment, do you want something modern, beautiful, original, eco-friendly, with all the rooms, the bathroom and the kitchen? Then, cork floors are what you need! And about what a cork floor is, what types of it exist, how to choose the cork flooring on the floor and lay it in order to experience only positive emotions from its subsequent operation, read in our article.
Content
- Cork flooring: what is it?
- Cork flooring pros and cons
- Cork flooring: types
- Installation of cork floor video video
- Cork floor photo
Cork flooring: what is it?
Cork floors these are floors lined with a cork oak bark, the very one from which corks are made to seal bottles.
Cork floors were only invented in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, although the cork coating, as a roofing material, was used by the Portuguese as a building material since the 18th century. By the way, it is Portugal that is the world leader in the production of cork floors, to date.
Cork floor it is quite prestigious, and therefore not the cheapest, flooring, but at the same time, one of the most environmentally friendly, and indeed with a lot of advantages, which should be discussed separately.
Cork flooring pros and cons
Why are they so good and what are their disadvantages, if, of course, they are?
Pros of cork floors cork is: cellular, air-filled material, and that’s why,
- one of the lightest, strongest materials: at the same time, this statement also applies to installation.
- warm, in every sense, material: cork is a good heat-insulating material, so cork floors can be laid on concrete pavements, and then calmly, because it’s warm and you can walk barefoot on the cork floor with pleasure.
- a good shock absorber, it is useful for the human spine, and also reduces the trauma of falling (children), leaves no traces of furniture (legs of beds and wardrobes, heels).
- has enhanced soundproofing properties: which is especially important if there are small children in the house, animals who like to run, jump and throw their toys if there is a cork floor, the neighbors from below will feel quite comfortable.
- non-slip, which again reduces the morbidity, especially in wet areas: bathroom and kitchen.
- It has an antistatic effect: it does not attract dust, which significantly saves cleaning time and helps to keep the apartment longer clean.
- moisture resistant and most importantly against the background of high humidity, it is not exposed to bacteria, fungi and insects, which makes the cork coating, again, environmentally friendly, and very durable.
Another big plus is the fact that the variety of colors and imitations of textures
allow you to show imagination and make the floors in your apartment original and unique.
Moreover, modern technologies allow photo printing on cork floors.
All the advantages of cork floors, if you read some reviews on the Internet, you can safely write down to the minuses, but this is only if you try to save on them or buy cork floors from an unknown, most likely non-existent, manufacturer. In the case of high-quality and therefore fairly decent-standing cork floors from well-known manufacturers. Such, for example, as cork floor wicanders, its only drawback is the price.
Cork flooring: types
Cork floors can be divided into two types:
- adhesive cork floor it is also called tiled. From the name it is clear that the installation of tiles is carried out on glue. The standard dimensions for the adhesive floor are as follows: for squares 300300, 450450 mm., And rectangular tiles: 450150, 600300, mm. The thickness of the tiles for the adhesive cork floor is very small, about 3 mm, so the floor surface on which the cork floor will be laid must be perfectly flat.
It can be used in all rooms, because it is this type of cork floor that is moisture resistant.
- floating cork floor it is also called cork laminate, because the laying method is similar to laying the laminate: spike groove, which, preferably, is additionally glued. The standard tile sizes for this floor are: 900185 mm., Thickness from 9 mm to 1.2 mm. The structure of this tile is as follows: a 3 mm cork layer is glued onto the HDF panel. For additional heat and sound insulation, a cork substrate is used (but, often, it is already pre-glued to the underside of the tile in the factory, which further facilitates the installation of such a cork floor).
Floating cork floors is not recommended for laying in rooms with high humidity: bathroom, kitchen, as their weak point is the joints-seams between the panels: under the influence of moisture they can, as in the case of a laminate, swell and deform.
Installation of cork floor
How to properly install cork pilaf of various kinds, it is better to see than to hear 100 times:
Cork floor photo
How can the apartment be transformed if you lay cork floors in it, see here!
