![Oakey Dokey
Today’s blog should rightly be about The Windows Problem and Consequent-Month-Delay-To-The-Project - Aaaagh!!! But I’m hoping that if I ignore that, it will resolve itself…
So instead, I’m going to concentrate on the positives. Our wood floor is in and looks beautiful.
Wood flooring can be a very eco-friendly option as it is durable, renewable and takes little energy to produce. However, it can also be a very bad option if you choose a wood that is not from a sustainably managed forest. Trees suck up carbon dioxide as they grow and release oxygen back into the atmosphere. If a forest is harvested for wood which is not replaced, the carbon dioxide that was previously locked up is released and there is less forest left to continue absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. There are also associated problems of threats to biodiversity, soil stability etc.
You can go some way towards lessening the impact of your wood floor choice by restricting the source country of your wood (i.e. European sources are generally a safer option as forests in Europe are protected by legislation which requires a minimum requirement of replacing trees that are harvested and limiting volumes that can be harvested). However, that is not necessarily a foolproof approach.
The best way to ensure your wood is eco-friendly is to look for certification which tells you your wood is from a sustainably managed source. The most reliable certification scheme is offered by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).
The wood we have ended up with is solid board oak from The Natural Wood Floor Company (NWF):
1. Eco-credentials
The oak provided by NWF is sourced from a sawmill in Romania which is FSC certified (we checked this out on the FSC’s certification checker.) In addition, the NWF promises that “a strict policy is followed throughout the manufacturing process to ensure that the company’s products are produced with minimal impact on the environment. [NWF ]operates a zero waste policy throughout the whole production process… The entire tree trunk is used … By-products, such as sawdust and bark, are then used to power the wood drying kilns, as well as to heat the factory buildings. Anything leftover is made into bio-fuel and sold.” So that all sounded pretty good to us.
Price
We looked at a few wood flooring providers in the London area and none could compete with NWF in terms of price, except for ones which sourced their wood from China without certification (and therefore raised questions about sustainability), and ones which could only offer narrow widths (i.e. less than 150mm). The price we paid was £28 (exc VAT) per square metre for unfinished 175mm-width planks of solid board oak. For that price, we are expecting to last forever!
3. Style
Lovely simple wide-board oak. What more could you want?
Okay, so we played it a bit safe style-wise. We did toy with two alternative ideas which might have been a bit more radical. One was using reclaimed wood and the other was using bamboo (which is, botanically speaking, actually a grass rather than a wood). However, we discounted reclaimed wood because of lack of time – it requires a bit more hunting around for the right batch and is generally trickier to install (although no doubt it a very rewarding search to do if you have time as you end up with something unique and with its own special history). Bamboo we discounted because we were not entirely convinced by the narrow-striped look of it, although no doubt in the right context it is looks great
Right now, we are just enjoying the fact that, in spite of other delays, some things are continuing to come together. Even if it means we will be camping in a window-less shell with a newborn baby and toddler, at least the floor we are sleeping on will be lovely.
PHOTO - as far as we know, this isn’t the tree that our floor comes from, rather a pic taken from flickr…if you’re the photographer and object, please let us know!](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l75crmElfu1qahvfeo1_500.jpg)
Oakey Dokey
Today’s blog should rightly be about The Windows Problem and Consequent-Month-Delay-To-The-Project - Aaaagh!!! But I’m hoping that if I ignore that, it will resolve itself…
So instead, I’m going to concentrate on the positives. Our wood floor is in and looks beautiful.
Wood flooring can be a very eco-friendly option as it is durable, renewable and takes little energy to produce. However, it can also be a very bad option if you choose a wood that is not from a sustainably managed forest. Trees suck up carbon dioxide as they grow and release oxygen back into the atmosphere. If a forest is harvested for wood which is not replaced, the carbon dioxide that was previously locked up is released and there is less forest left to continue absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. There are also associated problems of threats to biodiversity, soil stability etc.
You can go some way towards lessening the impact of your wood floor choice by restricting the source country of your wood (i.e. European sources are generally a safer option as forests in Europe are protected by legislation which requires a minimum requirement of replacing trees that are harvested and limiting volumes that can be harvested). However, that is not necessarily a foolproof approach.
The best way to ensure your wood is eco-friendly is to look for certification which tells you your wood is from a sustainably managed source. The most reliable certification scheme is offered by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).
The wood we have ended up with is solid board oak from The Natural Wood Floor Company (NWF):
1. Eco-credentials
The oak provided by NWF is sourced from a sawmill in Romania which is FSC certified (we checked this out on the FSC’s certification checker.) In addition, the NWF promises that “a strict policy is followed throughout the manufacturing process to ensure that the company’s products are produced with minimal impact on the environment. [NWF ]operates a zero waste policy throughout the whole production process… The entire tree trunk is used … By-products, such as sawdust and bark, are then used to power the wood drying kilns, as well as to heat the factory buildings. Anything leftover is made into bio-fuel and sold.” So that all sounded pretty good to us.
- Price
We looked at a few wood flooring providers in the London area and none could compete with NWF in terms of price, except for ones which sourced their wood from China without certification (and therefore raised questions about sustainability), and ones which could only offer narrow widths (i.e. less than 150mm). The price we paid was £28 (exc VAT) per square metre for unfinished 175mm-width planks of solid board oak. For that price, we are expecting to last forever!
3. Style
Lovely simple wide-board oak. What more could you want?
Okay, so we played it a bit safe style-wise. We did toy with two alternative ideas which might have been a bit more radical. One was using reclaimed wood and the other was using bamboo (which is, botanically speaking, actually a grass rather than a wood). However, we discounted reclaimed wood because of lack of time – it requires a bit more hunting around for the right batch and is generally trickier to install (although no doubt it a very rewarding search to do if you have time as you end up with something unique and with its own special history). Bamboo we discounted because we were not entirely convinced by the narrow-striped look of it, although no doubt in the right context it is looks great
Right now, we are just enjoying the fact that, in spite of other delays, some things are continuing to come together. Even if it means we will be camping in a window-less shell with a newborn baby and toddler, at least the floor we are sleeping on will be lovely.
PHOTO - as far as we know, this isn’t the tree that our floor comes from, rather a pic taken from flickr…if you’re the photographer and object, please let us know!
