Go Green With These Eco-Friendly Flooring Options

Did you know choosing the right flooring can give your home the style you’ve always wanted while at the same time making a difference on the health, comfort, and well-being of your home, family, and the environment around us? Sure, your flooring must be stylish and built to last, but the materials used to make them can be more eco-friendly rather than coming at the expense of the environment around us.

At The Design House, our extensive catalog of flooring products includes green options that lead to lower operating costs (think utility bills), increased comfort throughout your home, durability, and less routine maintenance.

What does it mean to “Go Green” with flooring?

Green flooring is any flooring that is sustainable, eco-friendly, contains recycled content, is recyclable, leaves a small carbon footprint, or has low VOCs (volatile organic compounds). A perfect example of VOCs is formaldehyde, a chemical that becomes a gas at room temperature and is used primarily as a bonding agent. As a result, products made with formaldehyde will release the gas into the air in a process called off-gassing. If higher concentrations of formaldehyde are off-gassed and breathed in, it could cause serious health problems.

 Eco-friendly flooring options at The Design House use more of a water-based product to eliminate the threat of VOCs. Below are just a few of The Design House’s top eco-friendly flooring options:

Cork

Cork is a great option to consider. Cork is manufactured from the bark of the cork oak tree and grows back after being harvested. It provides insulation against heat and cold and is naturally repellent to bugs, mold, and mites.

Hardwood

Hardwood is by far one of the most popular choices of flooring The Design House offers. But did you know that it is one of the most natural products on earth, completely biodegradable, and easily recycled at the end of life when reused in new flooring projects or as fuel?

Bamboo

Bamboo is a popular choice and in a lot of ways can be a preferred solution over hardwood floors. Bamboo is a woody grass, and much of its eco-friendliness comes from the plant’s rapid growth and regenerative quality of the plants it is harvested from. A high-quality bamboo flooring can last longer than hardwood if installed correctly.

Linoleum

True Linoleum floors are probably the greenest flooring choices you can choose. All of the materials used in the manufacturing process are biodegradable. A warning to a homeowner: many retailers are still calling vinyl tiles “Linoleum,” which is false information. Vinyl is a synthetic mix of chlorinated petrochemicals that has several environmental concerns. Do your homework and call The Design House.

Carpet? Really? Yes, even carpet can be eco-friendly?

Carpet can be a breeding ground for germs and allergens, and a lot of times because of the allergens, people brush carpet aside as an old-fashioned flooring option. But there is a green option for carpet as well. Look at a carpet made from natural products with little to no chemical treatment, then consider getting a padding that is made from 100% recycled materials. It is also important to consider how the carpet is being laid down – instead of glue adhesive, try tacking the floor down or use a water-based, low-VOC for carpet install.

Call The Design House today!!

The Design House is all-encompassing when it comes to meeting your home design needs – and that includes helping you decide whether granite or quartz countertops are the best options for you and your unique space. Don’t get us wrong, some stores can do many of the same things, but none offer as much as we do under one roof.

 Our 10,000 square foot showroom is located on Colorado Blvd. near the Golden Triangle Mall. In addition to our great selection of home design options, customers get the personal attention they deserve when they walk through the door.

 We are a stone’s throw from clients in Denton, Argyle, Flower Mound, Sanger, Ponder, Pilot Point, Lewisville, Corinth, Lake Dallas, and Highland Village, but we also boast regular clients as far out as Colleyville, Graham, Houston, and all points in between. Give us a call for your next home design need. You will not leave disappointed.