Cork Floor

Manufacturing Highlights

Made from the bark of cork oak trees grown in Mediterranean countries, mainly Portugal and Spain, cork floors have been around since the early 1800s!

Cork bark is a harvested resource, and the ideal sustainable material.

Learn about cork's positive environmental impact, the information is both helpful, hopeful... and good to know.

One really outstanding feature known only to cork flooring is the "natural" properties of it's composition that make it one of the most desirable floor coverings available.

There is no other flooring material in the industry that can compare to cork's "natural" preservation capabilities!

As durable as most hardwood flooring, cork also contains a natural waxy substance called Subein that make it more resistant to moisture and liquids than any other type of flooring.

It's natural resistance to moisture make it a perfect choice for kitchen or bathroom flooring where spills and moisture are always present.

Insects do not like cork and will run the other way, mold, rot and bacteria cannot survive in, or on, cork. No bacteria, no germs!

But reality is that it is suitable for ANY setting! I have seen it installed in every room in private settings, as well as high-traffic areas like libraries, museums, cafeterias, hospitals, and on and on it goes...

Cork floors have been known to last beyond 100 years! So when you hear the life expectancy is 10-20 years, that simply is not ALWAYS true!!

Manufacturing

Made from the cultivated waste of the cork wine-stopper manufacturing process, flooring is actually made of a recycled product!

No harmful toxic chemicals are used throughout the whole manufacturing process!! Only "clean" vapors are released into our environment. In essence, cork used as flooring material is a "GREEN" product. You can't beat that!

Many wine producers are now using plastic corks in wine bottles, reducing the demand for cork and threatening some cork oak forests.

By choosing cork for your flooring you will help protect these forest by ensuring their continued growth and survival.

After harvesting the cork bark the slabs are stacked for 6 months, or longer, outside where nature's elements (air, rain, sun, wind,) will trigger chemical shifts that improves the cork quality.

When the "incubation" period is over, the slabs of cork are cleaned, boiled and the rough outer surfaces stripped off, making it easier to convert the cork into many forms for different uses.

Cork bottle stoppers are made from the best part of the cork slab. Every scrap of cork bark is ground into small granules and mixed with a non-toxic resin binder, molded into large blocks and baked in specialized oven.

The end result produces both pre-finished or unfinished cork flooring, underlayment, planks, floor tile and sheets. There is practically no waste of raw materials through the whole process of harvesting the cork bark to the final products.