Forbo Linoleum & Custom Designs With Water Jet Method

Water Jet Cut linoleum for a Texas end-user. We can do this for your commercial application as well.

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Eco Brokers, real estate and green flooring

by Chris Moline, LEED AP

If you are an Eco Broker, I want to talk to you!
You may even be a guest “blogger” if we can determine a newsworthy post topic.
Let’s send the “green washers” home!

If you want to know more about eco-friendly homes and real estate services, kick off the conversation with a comment here.

Chris

Christopher Moline
Residential Group Manager
Commercial Carpets of America
Alexandria Carpet One Floor & Home
703-370-0000

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Hugging more than trees!

Chris Moline, LEED AP
703-370-0000

Cork Flooring – Warm, Resilient & Easy On The Planet.

by Chris Moline, LEED AP

I’ve had cork flooring in my sun room and kitchen for almost two years now. What’s the verdict?
Well, my wife and I, along with our children ages 7, 8 and 11… and our 75-lb German shepherd… absolutely love it. In fact, we recently installed it in her home-based physical therapy office as well.
We’re active (to say the least) and there is so much about this type of flooring that goes with our lifestyle. In fact, cork has been used for flooring since the mid-1800’s. Stop by some of Frank Lloyd Wright’s homes and you’ll see cork everywhere from the kitchen to the bathrooms.
Cork is well-suited to commercial applications, too. Chicago’s First Congregational Church, the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, and Lafayette College in Easton, PA, are just a few of the places you’ll find it.

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Here are some great reasons to look into cork for your flooring choice:

It’s warm
- Our 300 s.f. sunroom is built over a crawl space. It’s also got a 12-foot cathedral ceiling and I didn’t want to run ductwork for heat. So I installed R-45 insulation, radiant subfloor heat and the cork.  We do not have a problem staying warm, even though the three sides of the sunroom are all glass (triple-pane, Low-E).
Here is a picture of our sunroom:

It’s quiet
- Cork is the most efficient insulating material. Humans have tried, and failed, to make something better. But cork’s bajillion-cell-per-cubic-inch structure (ok, so I’m not a numbers guy) insulates wonderfully well against the sound of 3 kids and a dog when the adults are trying to relax.

It’s great camoflauge!
- Ever notice how hotels and restaurants always have patterned carpet and other types of flooring? It’s really quite simple to explain. Every floor will get dirty, but if you can’t see it, the time-lag to cleaning doesn’t bother you as much. Cork definitely offers that hands-down.
The natural appearance of cork is very, well, varied. Heaven forbid that I drop something small on the floor… it’ll be hard to find! And that, my friend, is just what I need given our hectic lifestyle.
But even though it’s great for hiding spills and other household ills, it also cleans up very easily. Personally, I use Windex for spot-cleaning, and Alba, our cleaning person, for weekly cleaning. Alba, however, uses Mr. Clean for hardwood floors. Cork, after all, is made from the the bark of the Cork Oak tree.

Cork is very green
- Cork comes from the bark of the cork oak tree. It is a renewable and sustainable resource with a very small carbon footprint. In cork oak plantations the first cork bark is not harvested from a tree until it is 25-30 years old.  The process of stripping off the bark in sections is traditionally done by hand, the way it’s been done for hundreds of years. The tree is not damaged and the bark regrows completely. The bark is harvested every nine years and a cork oak can live for 150-200 years, so it can be safely harvested up to 20 times during its life cycle.
According to Natural Cork, “Cork’s structure is very similar to that of a honeycomb: each square centimetre is composed of 40 million cells (a more accurate figure than a bajillion). These cells, as well as the spaces between them, are filled with a gaseous mixture similar to air. That is what makes cork so remarkable. The unique structure of cork creates the three most important characteristics in its application as flooring: Thermal Insulation, Sound Reduction and Elasticity.”
That’s why you can place a grand piano on your cork floor and it will bounce back when you move it.  Also, if you do happen to gouge it, repairs are much more easy to conceal since the finish is so varied in color and texture.

We’ve just installed a hundred square feet of cork in our showroom in Alexandria, Virginia. Come on by and give it a walk. Go ahead, take your shoes off!

Chris

Christopher Moline, LEED AP
Residential Group Manager
Commercial Carpets of America
703-370-0000
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Installation of Marmoleum Click floating flooring into our Alexandria, Virginia showroom.

Marmoleum is the only flooring certified by the Asthma and Allergy Foundation.
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Christopher Moline, LEED AP
Residential Group Manager
Commercial Carpets of America
703-370-0000
Email Blog Facebook Twitter

Green Flooring – what’s on your mind?

Perspective from a LEED AP:

After over 11 years in the flooring business, I think I’ve heard it all. Then, someone inevitably comes along and says they’ve heard something from a flooring retailer that proves me wrong.
If you’ve heard something about green flooring and it either sounds crazy or too good to be true, post a comment here and I’ll do some research for you. “Green washing” is a practice used by less-informed folks in the industry to cover their lack of knowledge at best. At worst, it’s a way to persuade a customer with good intentions to purchase flooring that doesn’t measure up.  We’d like to put a stop to that.

Ask your average flooring sales person what GBC stands for and you’ll probably get a blank stare.
If they’re quick on their feet and think a smile will get them through, they may  make something up like, “Gotta Be Cool” and expect you to laugh it off and forget about it. But GBC stands for the Green Building Council, creator and monitor of the LEED program.
LEED stands for Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design, the worldwide standard for measuring energy efficiency in building design. Check out this youtube video for a nice explanation of LEED by Tracie Hall, Executive Director of the Upstate NY chapter of the USGBC -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggRGgeCj7Wc

Further on, they may think a carbon footprint is something you leave on the floor after walking through some coal dust… but check out carbonfootprint.com and you’ll learn more.

Keep checking back for more as we add to this blog daily.

All the best!

Chris

Christopher Moline, LEED AP
Residential Group Manager
Commercial Carpets of America
703-370-0000
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