Sound control in the flooring industry is a thankless job. Think about it, if the product is installed and functions properly the end user never even knows it’s there. No concerns, no complaints and, most unfortunately, no pats on the back.
A new, and somewhat controversial rating system, a keynote address by the former First Lady and Secretary of State, and a sense business is once again growing helped energize the approximately 28,000 people who came out to the City of Brotherly Love for the annual Greenbuild.
Laminate is a fascinating product because it is environmentally friendly from start to finish—from its composition to installation to maintenance. It is a quality, durable product that is easy on your conscious.
Today, it is well understood a wide variety of environmental concepts need to be considered when evaluating product sustainability. Gone is the need to evaluate single-attribute sustainability claims like recycled content or low VOCs (volatile organic compounds).
Solid black rubber material is over 90% post-consumer waste from old tires and has been used as flooring for many years for athletic facilities. The next step in the product evolution was to add small amounts of color to the mix, but that mostly black material is still widely used today.
In the last several years, there has been a great deal of focus on the environmental impacts of building materials, and resilient flooring has become more widely recognized as a sustainable selection.
Mohawk upped the ante in the synthetic fiber area a couple of years ago with the introduction of SmartStrand, bringing built-in soil and stain resistance and new levels of durability to carpet, not to mention putting sustainability in the industry on a new plane.