Archive for the ‘Sustainability-Green’ Category

Going green…staying green…MAKING GREEN

Okay, time to put in new floors. Why are unfinished wood floors the greenest choice? We know all the choices, we see the cheesy box store offerings, we have had the sticker shock at the boutique, so now what?

Lets make this easy, shall we?

We KNOW we want to be sensible and be as green, Earth friendly as we can be…so no carpet, vinyl or laminates. We know we love natural products, so lets focus on ceramic, stone or hardwood. We know we hate hard and cold and the Doctor has told us that its why our back hurts…so hardwood.

Okay, we love hardwood…now what? Read the rest of this entry »

Why Unfinished Hardwood Flooring and why now more then ever?

In the 1950′s housing starts were booming and most all of the homes had unfinished hardwood flooring.  It was beautiful, abundant, inexpensive and structurally sound. It was what one expected in a home. For the next two decades, it WAS the flooring of choice.

Then the late 60′s and early 70′s…wall-to-wall carpet hit the scene in a big way. It was quiet, soft, felt good on bare feet and could be had in many colors. Builders liked the fact that it was cheap, fast and covered up ‘less the perfect’ sub floors. Hardwood flooring was still used but only in high end homes or in just a room or two, it was still considered better in most every way…but we as Americans LOVE to have what’s the newest, latest and greatest…we just can’t help ourselves.

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Are we using up our Natural Forests by buying unfinished hardwood flooring?

United States Forestry facts:

FACT:  Forests cover over one third of all land in the United States.
FACT:  Over 72% of hardwood forests in the United States are privately owned.
FACT:  Over 70% of forest land that was here in 1600 is still forest…over 737 million acres!
FACT:  In 1952 the volume of timberlands in the US was 184,090 (in million cubic feet)
FACT:  In 1999 the volume increased to 335,722 (million cubic feet) an increase of 82.4%
FACT:  Forests in the US are increasing at an average rate of 5.27 BILLION cubic feet per year AFTER mortality and harvesting!

Total growth…12.22 Billion cubic feet
Mortality……..<2.50> Billion cubic feet
Harvest……….<4.45> Billion cubic feet

FACT:  Harvest has over doubled (102%) since 1952 and we are STILL showing growth in our forests.
FACT:  There is 82% more growing timber in the US now then in 1952
FACT:  Over 1.5 billion trees are planted in the US every year…that’s 4.1 million seedlings per day!
FACT:  Each year 6 trees are planted for every 1 that is harvested.
FACT:  43,700 companies in the US employ 1.75 million workers.
FACT:  Wood is recyclable, biodegradable and durable, lasting often for centuries and can be returned to the earth at anytime with a benefit to the earth!
FACT:  Wood is renewable while stone, iron or coal once used is gone forever.
FACT:  Wood makes up 47% of all industrial raw materials used in the US yet require only 4% of the energy used to produce these materials!
FACT:  Steel structure materials require 3 times as much energy and 16 times as much clean water to produce then wood.
FACT:  As an insulator, wood is 16 times more efficient as concrete, 415 times as efficient as steel and over 2000 times as efficient as aluminum!

We hope these facts ensure your stance that along with beauty, value and ease of maintenance…UNFINISHED HARDWOOD FLOORING will always be the right thing to do for our world.

Impact of different floor coverings on our environment

Unfinished hardwood flooring is classified as environmentally green.  And everyone is environmentally aware these days, and rightly so. As we learn more about our surroundings and our effect on them, we come to learn the importance of many of the little decisions we make and the long term ramifications of them. One such ‘small’ decision is in our choice of floor coverings for our home or office.

Carpeting
One choice that has been popular since the 60′s is wall-to-wall carpeting. A huge industry that is doing a good job of trying to police itself and move towards making a smaller impact on our environment. The chemicals that make up the vast majority of yarns used in the manufacturing process as well as some of the primary and secondary backings are fossil fuel derived. The industry has made large strides into using recycled plastics in the development of modern yarns, but more yet can be done. The foot print of waste carpet in the landfills has also come to light. Discarded carpet has a very long life after it is discarded and even causes trouble by getting caught up in the equipment working the landfills…bottom line…not green, but better then it was!
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The Benefits of Wood Flooring for your Health and Your Wealth

As we become more informed, we can prosper. We learn from our mistakes and we strive to not make the same mistakes again.

Wood Flooring - Why?

Obviously I could be talking about hundreds of topics, but today I’m speaking about wood flooring! We have learned about the beauty and durability of wood flooring hundreds of years ago. Then we got tired of the labor of waxing and we were covering up all our wood in the late 60′s and early 70′s with wall to wall carpet. Not long after we replaced or carpets for the ump-teenth time, we started to hear about the ease of maintenance of the new poly urethanes on the market. We KNEW the value because anyone that appraised a home or considered buying a home ALWAYS wanted to know if there was hardwood under the carpet! So back to wood we all went…but wait, there is cheap ceramic tile, how about that?
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