Sustainability Series: Guide to Choosing the Right Flooring

Welcome back to the Sustainability Series, a series created to help educate and inspire action in becoming more sustainable. In the first week we shared 6 Easy Everyday Ways to Live More Sustainably, and last week we discussed how to furnish your home after a renovation. This week we are talking about choosing the right flooring and each one’s sustainable qualities. There are a significant amount of variables to consider when selecting flooring for each space of your home and we hope this guide helps you make decisions.

Hardwood Flooring

Hardwood vs. engineered wood vs. luxury vinyl planks (LVP) are all big topics of discussion with each client. Solid hardwood is our first instinct selection for flooring overall from a sustainability, durability, investment, and aesthetic standpoint. We consider solid hardwood flooring the more sustainable option according to its lifecycle assessment (LCA). Ideally, solid hardwood flooring starts by being grown in a maintained forest, always responsibly harvested with a new tree being planted to take its place. One way to guarantee the hardwood flooring you’re buying is responsibly harvested and produced is by checking if that company is a member of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Note, that many ethical and sustainable flooring companies are not members of the FSC and are great to use, you just have to do a bit of research.

There’s a reason you can find 100-year-old hardwood in a home in beautiful condition. It is a solid piece of wood through and through. Hardwood can be sanded down many times and refinished to extend its life. While the upfront cost is more than the other options, its lifespan in your home will make up the costs of replacing the other materials in the future.

Compatible Applications for hardwood flooring include your main and upper-level living spaces such as the living and family rooms, dining room, kitchen, home offices, and bedrooms. Hardwood flooring can hold up in entryways, mudrooms, and powder bathrooms, but rugs are highly recommended to alleviate some of the water, snow, and salt tracked in. Hardwood flooring isn’t a good choice for bathrooms and lower levels/basements.

In both the Riverwood Place and Fletcher Place projects we were able to match new hardwood flooring to the home’s original flooring and replace it where it was needed instead of bringing in brand-new everything.

Engineered Wood Flooring

Engineered wood flooring is considered a sustainable option because it offsets the waste from production. Engineered wood is constructed with a wood composite base and a thin layer of solid hardwood on top. The wood composite base is created from pieces of scrap wood. This practice can also be considered unsustainable because it is oftentimes held together with glues with harmful chemicals, such as formaldehyde. Speak to your flooring specialist to select flooring without carcinogens and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). While it looks beautiful at installation like hardwood and is a less expensive option, engineered wood can only be sanded down once or twice and will have to be replaced sooner than hardwood.

Engineered woods have the same application recommendations as hardwood, but since they don’t have as long of a life as solid hardwood, maybe swap out for tile in the entryway, mudroom, and laundry room.

Luxury Vinyl Plank and Tile Flooring

Luxury Vinyl Planks and Tile (LVP/LVT) is the least sustainable option we’re going to talk about today. Vinyl is made of PVC which emits an array of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) when it’s manufactured and installed, therefore is harmful to the environment, people making the product, and the homeowners when it’s installed in your home. In addition to the VOCs in the product itself, it requires the use of adhesives to install, which include harmful chemicals. The main ingredient in PVC is petroleum, which is not a renewable resource, unlike the other options we have. At the end of LVP/LVT’s lifecycle, it is nearly impossible to recycle.

Many homeowners are choosing LVP as an alternative to hardwood and engineered wood flooring. If used, its best applications are a lower-level living space, mudroom, and laundry room.

Carpeting

Carpet is important in MIdwestern homes, whether by use of area rugs or wall-to-wall carpeting. It is soft, comforting, and absorbs sound. Choosing a natural fiber carpet such as sisal, seagrass, organic wool, or organic cotton versus a synthetic fiber such as nylon, acrylic, or polyester is the start of picking a sustainable carpet. On the flip side of the soft carpet under your toes, is the backing that adheres it to the floor. Find a backing using jute, non-synthetic latex, or wool as opposed to polypropylene. Choosing natural materials for the face and backing will lead to lower VOCs and off-gassing of chemicals, as long as the manufacturing company does not add additional finishes. To help guide your process, look for companies with Cradle to Cradle, NSF 140 (Sustainable Carpet Standard), and CRI Green Label Plus certifications. Here at Jkath we almost always recommend a wool or wool blend option for our client projects.

Tile

Tile is a relatively sustainable product in general. Fortunately, a lot of tile is being made with recycled content these days and you should lean into those options when available. You can make more sustainable options by doing more research into where your tile is coming from. Choosing companies manufacturing in the United States or even your local city is a big plus and saves the carbon footprint of transportation.

These days tile flooring is commonly reserved for use in bathrooms, mudrooms, and laundry rooms. The variety of styles and patterns is endless, how timeless is this installation in our Country Club Project?

That was a lot of information and we hope this helps homeowners select the right flooring material for their home that not only feels good underfoot, functions for their family but is also healthy for their family and planet.

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