I work as a flooring specialist for Home Depot. I have a lot of customers who are interested in cork flooring but although we have the ability to special order it, we do not have anything which will help us to sell it. Basically, we have no samples, no pricing, no literature of any kind, and no training. Apparently, it’s a very new product (at least in our district). I should be able to get pricing with a bit of work. But, the literature and training will be harder.
So, do any of you have it? If so, what do you like about it? What do you dislike? Do you wish you never installed it? Is it hard to maintain? Does it look like cork? Anything?
Is it for a child’s room or something? Maybe it’s soft and people like it for safety reasons? Or maybe they just like to pin important papers and notices to their floor?
I know that **Mother Earth ** or another Hippie Backwoods Granola magazine wrote about them in the last 10 years. ( I subscribe to Mother Earth.) I am interested (not to purchase as killing a perfectly viable oxygenating tree is good enough for Chateau Ujest rather than purchasing a renewable, sustainable good for the enviroment thing.) but I am interested in this kinda thing.
Essentially, this post is useless.
The samples I have seen at a Home Depot, actually, were nice. They don’t look like corkboard, but the pricing was a bit higher than hardwood. The fact that it is renewable is pretty key. Hit the “green” customers.
I find it weird that you can’t get store samples for products you sell.
Well, until fairly recently, it’s never been an issue. Now that people are actually starting to show an interest, we’re a bit under-prepared. I saw a very small display in a CT store but the people in that store didn’t seem to actually care that they had it and weren’t helpful to me. I’m sure I could get the stuff I’m looking for but I don’t know the proper channels. With the massive understaffing problem we have at the moment, I feel bad pushing the issue when my boss has more important things to worry about.
Anyway, what do you mean it’s renewable? And why is it that I can’t find anything on the net?
Supposedly, the reason why dancers loved to dance at Roseland (a NYC dancehall thats been around since the WWII era) was because it has a cork underflooring. They never got tired. Maybe you should be pitching to ballroom dancers.
By renewable, I mean that what they use to make cork products is skinned off of the cork producing trees. It’s like maple syrup, in that you get a product without cutting the tree down.
But I thought the Mediterranean droughts had put a horrible squeeze on the worldwide cork industry…to the point that cork oaks are becoming rare. So how is this stuff coming to market?
There were droughts that affected harvest in the mid or late 90s, but according to the Cork Quality Council, the industry has shown expansion in cork production over the last few years.
Cork flooring and other misc. cork items (not wine closures) are made from the virgin harvest of a tree at around 30 years or the second harvest nine years after that, since the cork is not at the wine stopper quality level yet. Or they’re the by-product of wine stopper production, the cork industry’s cash cow, where most if not all of the better quality cork is used.
There is a winery tasting room around here with cork flooring. I think the style they have resembles natural cork, and looks really lovely, but I haven’t seen it recently, so I can’t speak for the durability. It felt just like hardwood flooring to me though.
You might find some useful info on this website with flooring made by Amorim, one of the leaders in the cork industry.
I used to live in a house with cork-tile flooring in the kitchen and adjacent dining-area, and it was BRILLIANT.
The people who lived there for 5 years before us had four young children, and had the floor installed for comfort and durability. It was quite ‘warm’ and soft underfoot, unlike ceramic tiles or lineoleum, and the sealer they had used ensured that anything that fell on it almost bounced off.
We lived there for another 6 years (also with four kids), and in all that time there was only one little ‘nick’ in the cork itself, and the finish was almost as shiny as the day it was applied. Cleaning it involved a quick whizz over with a mop and a splash of kerosine to bring up the gloss.
As I said, looks good, feels good and is bog-easy to maintain.
Hey, I should be an ad-writer for the product, yes??
