Experience Having Cork Flooring Installed? Review of the Material?
We just bought a fixer and I am looking into having cork floors installed in the kitchen and dining area. Cork seems like a great material overall (sustainable, soft underfoot, relatively durable, can get printed tiles to look like wood). But the only thing holding me back is the idea of resealing every 4 years. And supposedly pets might gouge the floors?
Anyone have cork flooring installed and want to share your thoughts? Is resealing a hassle or easy process? How prone is the material to scratching and dents really?
Thanks for taking the time!
Comentarios (30)
PROGARY FINLEY
hace 4 añosthere are many trade offs with using different flooring materials.
What is your reasoning for wanting to use cork?- PRO
GARY FINLEY
hace 4 añoscork is not the best material for general flooring. it has its place best used in a library of a space needing to cut down on sound. I read into your comments that you have pets and are concerned with wear and cleaning. If these are concerns, you most likely would be best served to use a wood floor. There is usually few reasons for not using a wood floor. Share your thoughts on using a wood floor
PROJohnson Flooring Co Inc
hace 4 añosÚltima modificación: hace 4 añosGood friends have a cork plank floor in their kitchen. It is probably 20 years old and has lots of marks and indentations, but the wife loves her high heels. They adopt former racing greyhounds and always have at least two. I have considered using it in my kitchen but not until my existing floor fails. I prefer the real thing, cork that looks like cork.
katvg
Autor originalhace 4 añosHi @GARY FINLEY Cork seemed like a more affordable and sustainable/non-toxic alternative to wood. My other options are definitely wood or bamboo. I've heard that wood is not good in a kitchen though. I suppose that is outdated thinking?
katvg
Autor originalhace 4 años@Johnson Flooring Co Inc Thanks for your feedback! Unfortunately, I don't like the look of natural cork very much. I think it might end up looking like an outdated trend in a few years.
jslazart
hace 4 añosI'm installing cork soon, for many reasons, including some of the ones you've listed. I'm not a fan of anything flawless, so I think it will be okay for me. That said, there's nothing wrong with wood in a kitchen.
jupidupi
hace 4 añosI have cork flooring in my kitchen and I absolutely love it. I chose the kind that looks like natural cork. It's warm, soft underfoot and when things drop, they rarely break (unlike having a tile floor in the kitchen, which I hated.) We're a shoes-off household, so I can't really say how it would be with high heels. I will tell you that it has faded from our sunny window, although I think there may be brands that are treated to prevent fading. But it's still beautiful, fading and all.
jslazart
hace 4 añosI went with Duro Design. I plan to wing it with the resealing. I once had stained concrete floors that were supposed to be resealed often and found that i actually liked them more when I let the sealer wear out. I'll have to do a new cost/benefit analysis to figure out what will make me happy with the cork.
jupidupi
hace 4 añosWe've had it for three years. It's a tiny kitchen and I cook a lot, so my little floorspace gets plenty of use. I have "re-sealed" it once, about a year ago. But it's no big deal. I bought a bottle of the finish that went on with a sponge and dried quickly. It was like using those floor shining products that you get at the grocery, but better quality. I did it because there was one spot, near the sink, that seemed to have lost its finish. I suspect that something may have spilled there and not gotten wiped up, or maybe been scrubbed with something abrasive. (My husband can be pretty hard on his environment. He managed to chip the granite sink and Corian counter within two months of our renovation!) The re-sealing liquid brought it right back to a shiny finish.
daisychain Zn3b
hace 4 añosWe’ve had cork in our kitchen twice. Both times stained white. We redid the finish once after about five years. It was very easy. A few years later we had a house fire and a pipe burst. Water rained down on the cork for hours, sat and froze. It still looked good after but insurance paid to replace as they thought subfloor had been compromised. That was 2015. Our new cork floor doesn’t look like it will need refinishing for awhile.
Biggest problem is one of our cats has decided, in her old age, that it makes a good scratching Pad.
katvg
Autor originalhace 4 añosÚltima modificación: hace 4 años@daisychain Zn3b Thanks for the feedback! How bad do the floors get with your cats scratching them up? Is it just like scratches on a hardwood floor? I don't mind signs of wear. But I'm imagining gouges and pieces of cork coming up like if you took a nail to a cork bulletin board. I don't think I could live with that for long.
daisychain Zn3b
hace 4 añosJust want to clarify that ours is glue down tiles not plank. So because ours is white, where the cat scratches you see the natural coming thru. It doesn't bother me too much, but I try to touch it up with stain when I have time. There is a really big patch I should take care of soon. I'lll try to post a pic later, but it just looks like wear, definitely not gouges.
daisychain Zn3b
hace 4 añosThe first pic is where a quarter size chunk of the white stain has peeled off (teenagers home alone for a week over the summer) and the next is where we get most traffic at entrance to kitchen
acm
hace 4 añosWe had it in our family room, and I loved the look and feel. But after a couple of years, we could see where the cats' hind claws had really shredded it and left dark marks (they apparently race out of the furnace closet after using the litter box, which I had never noticed), and it was pretty much ruined. We replaced it with wood when we redid our kitchen and most of the surrounding rooms a few years back. Not sitting on the floor as much since our toddler became a tween anyway, heh.
jupidupi
hace 4 añosÚltima modificación: hace 4 añosWe have two cats, but i've never seen them scratch on the cork floor. Why should they, when they have a cat scratching tree, a carpeted litterbox enclosure and of course, our furniture? We feed them in the kitchen, and the most they've done to the floor is scatter hard-to-see bits of food near their dishes. That is the one drawback (or maybe benefit) -- it's hard to see dirt because it blends in with the pattern
zmith
hace 4 añosÚltima modificación: hace 4 añosI've been using cork floors for over 10 years. Had it in the kitchen for 5 years (APC floating planks and it held up wonderfully). Had Wicanders in the living room. It was badly and irreversibly damaged by furniture legs. Beware of this as some brands use a very thin veneer (pretty layer) over MDF. Wicanders and WECork are two that I recall. APC, USFloors and DuroDesign use a thicker cork layer in their planks. The glue-down tiles should be solid 1/4". You won't have denting or chipping unless it's stained a custom color.
I still have USFloors cork plank in my dining room. If that flooring hadn't been discontinued I would have used it in my remodel which involved opening the kitchen to the family room. I loved DuroDesign's products as they can pretty much do any color. Ultimately I went with engineered hardwood. I have a feeling I'm going to regret it, because the cork held up so incredibly well with my 70# dog, and the new hardwood is already showing marks from his nails. :(
jslazart
hace 4 añosColor is definitely worth considering. I was leaning toward darker colors, but realized any gouges would show light against it. So we're going with a "natural" color, which also happens to be cheaper and will probably show less dirt too, so win-win-win.
SJ McCarthy
hace 4 añosI used to work for a cork flooring company for 6.5 years. Here is what I would tell you if you had called my shop and asked your questions.
1. Cork is DYNAMIC...it LOVES to change. And after that...it changes. And then...you guessed it it changes.
2. Cork will bounce back when hit hard. It can be PATCHED (the little chunk seen above in the photos from daisychain01). All you need is a spare bit of material, Elmer's Wood glue, and Exact-O knife and 30 minutes of patience.
3. Resealing is HIGHLY dependent on the MANUFACTURER'S requirements. Do NOT think you can reseal APC cork (polyacrylic finish = cheapest of the cheap) with anything but what the manufacturer recommends.
4. Cork floating floors (click-together planks/tiles) are welcome in a kitchen. You need to seal the floor AFTER install = a good 5 years worth of wear and tear.
5. Cork FADES! But the good news is it gets to a 'terminal' colour (Marilyn Monroe/Gwen Stefani Blonde) and then stays there.
6. I you are ANXIOUS about cork...don't use cork.
Yes...if you were my customer and I heard your questions (and assuming I heard MORE anxiety while we talked...for 2 HOURS!!!!!), I would make a recommendation to look at other flooring.
Only 1% of the word's floors are covered in cork (that includes the US Library of Congress, Gaudi's Cathedral in Barcelona and several football Stadiums in Portugal and Spain). Which means only 1% of the population can HANDLE (mentally...not physically) the changes cork goes through.
I love the stuff. Given half the chance I would have every square foot (including my counter tops!!!) covered in the stuff. I would use a beautiful 8mm cork glue down tile in the bathrooms, a 1/4" glue down tile on the counters and then floating floors everywhere else!
But I DO NOT CARE about how cork reacts. I am pretty low on the maintenance scale. Of my fellow "Type B" personalities I'm almost a "C" (minus)! That means I couldn't care one whit if my house looked like a palace or "lived in". Doesn't matter to me.
And that is the type of personality that gets along the BEST with cork. And that's why only 1% of the population can "deal" with this product. I love cork! But I HATE IT when people bash it because it doesn't hold up to THEIR expectations of 'perfection'.
Cork will NEVER be perfect. Even on 'Day 1'.katvg
Autor originalhace 4 añosHas anyone ever heard of Comfort Cork? This is the wood look I mentioned earlier:
They seem reputable and I've ordered samples. But no one ever seems to mention them.
ILoveRed
hace 4 añosWe had Natural Cork (brand) in our basement for the almost 15 yrs after we built. My twins were toddlers when we moved in and I think the cork saved us from more than one concussion.
but the floor did not hold up well to an active family lifestyle and we had nicks and exposed spots like someone posted above in their pic. Perhaps if our floor wasn’t the whitish color it wouldn’t have shown the gouges as much.
I would not do cork again.SJ McCarthy
hace 4 añosÚltima modificación: hace 4 añosI'll answer the 'direct print' cork question. This is an 'off brand' of someone else's cork. This is how these retailers get better pricing on cork. They get a name brand manufacturer to make it and put it in a white box...then they put their own data on the website.
None the less printed cork is a fantastic product. They prime the cork substrate white and then put it through the BIGGEST photocopier you have ever seen (the size of a 2 car garage). Then they apply the finishing coats and voila. You have printed cork.The direct print method is the most difficult to achieve and therefore the highest value printed cork on the market.
You will STILL need to refresh the finish from time to time. In kitchens it STILL needs sealant (you can use edge sealant if you wish). It cannot be used in bathrooms (floating cork floors should not be used in bathrooms).
It takes quite a bit of effort to damage these planks...but once they are damaged there is NO WAY to repair them other than to remove the plank and drop in another one.
There are pluses and minuses to everything. Personally I think you need to look at Fusion Cork (iCork Floor LLC) or vinyl cork. The TOUGH finish means you do not have to worry about damage or gauges.
SJ McCarthy
hace 4 añosSigh...@katvg....these are TYPICAL looking 11mm cork floating floor planks. Absolutely normal. There are VERY few cork manufacturers who make a THICKER cork layer. The TYPICAL finish is 3mm of cork on top; 7mm HDF; 1mm of cork underlayment on the bottom. Normal. Normal. Normal.
If the appearance of this ABSOLUTELY NORMAL plank makes you feel that there isn't much cork (a total of 4mm = normal = equal to a 4mm glue down tile = traditional cork thickness for that last 100 years or so).
Wicanders has a line of cork floors that have a THICKER wear layer. I believe the plank thickness is 10.5mm. The top layer of cork = 3.2mm and the bottom layer of cork is 1.2mm of cork. Of course you will NOT find these floors for $5/sf. You *might find them for $15/sf.
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GARY FINLEY