Eco-friendly Douglas Fir flooring
Posted: January 27, 2020You love the look of Douglas Fir flooring and you want to make sure they are eco-friendly wood floors that are not harmful to the environment. You wonder, “Isn’t cutting down trees bad for the planet?”
In truth, there are a lot of factors that go into determining how eco-friendly a product is, let alone wood floors. To start, you have to determine where the flooring comes from. Carpet, vinyl flooring, or engineered wood products might be made of components produced in various locations, shipped to China, assembled in a factory, and then shipped back across the ocean to the U.S. In that case, there are a lot of miles built into that product.
Douglas Fir is native to the Pacific Northwest. If you’ve hiked a trail anywhere in the Rockies, chances are you’ve seen Douglas Fir growing in its native environment.
Knowing where your wood comes from is important to finding truly eco-friendly wood floors. According to the Forestry Stewardship Council and the Sustainable Forest Initiative, wood that comes from certain regions, especially Eastern Europe, Latin America, China, and Southeast Asia is often logged illegally and then processed and exported to North America as products like plywood and decking.
Bamboo and cork are often praised as eco-friendly choices because the plants they come from replenish far more quickly than trees used for other wood floors. However, they lose out on their eco-friendly wood floor status to Douglas Fir when it comes to the energy that is used to transport them from their tropical origins to the homes of U.S. consumers.
There’s very little shipping and manufacturing involved in creating our Douglas Fir wood floors. During the whole process, from tree to log to plank, the wood stays within the same region where it was grown.
When you’re weighing out the environmental pros and cons of a purchase, you also need to think about how long what you’re buying is going to last. You don’t have to be an environmental scientist to realize that a floor that endures for a lifetime is a more sustainable choice than one that needs to be replaced every 1 or 2 decades. Every time a floor is replaced, resources are used in manufacturing, shipping, and installation. The average synthetic fiber carpet will last about 15 years, while a higher-quality wool carpet could last 20-30. A vinyl floor, depending on the quality, can last anywhere from 10-30 years. A Douglas Fir floor will last up to 100 years, sometimes more.
When you buy eco-friendly wood floors, you know you’ve got a product that will most likely last the lifetime of your house. That one-time purchase is a more economical buy, both for your pocketbook and the environment.
If at some point a homeowner decides to replace their wood flooring, those boards can then be recycled and used again, sold as reclaimed wood flooring, where they’ll find new life in a new home. Reclaimed wood has seen a huge surge in popularity in recent years, both among folks who love the unique patina of aged wood and for people who enjoy purchasing wood knowing that no new trees were cut down. Reclaimed Douglas Fir floors and timbers are available for homeowners looking for that blend of history and green living that comes with reclaimed wood.
And if someday, the boards of a wood floor are simply too worn out to serve any more useful purpose, they will break down naturally over time. If stripped of chemical finishes, boards can be turned into wood chips and tossed into your compost pile.
Indoor Air Quality
Many household products contain volatile organic compounds, commonly known as VOCs. A VOC is any substance that contains carbon and readily “off-gases”—or turns into a vapor—at room temperature. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, VOCs can have both long and short-term health effects, and VOC levels are often two to five times higher indoors than outdoors. Carpets, vinyl flooring, and other building materials are among the many substances that emit VOCs. Carpet fibers are often coated in chemicals to repel stains or moisture, and the carpet pads they rest on and the adhesives used during installation emit VOCs as well.
If you purchase unfinished Douglas Fir flooring, environmentally-friendly low-VOC stains and finishes are available for your wood floor, to further reduce the amount of indoor air pollution. Our entire line of pref-finished floors is finished with no VOC water-based coatings.
Carpets are also known to trap dust, dirt, and allergens within their fibers. With a wood floor, a quick sweeping and cleaning removes the dust and allergens from the home. For people with allergies or asthma, having a floor that you know isn’t emitting chemicals or storing pollutants is a literal breath of fresh air.
Wood, by its very nature, is a green material. It’s non-toxic, recyclable, grows naturally, and doesn’t take any extra energy to manufacture. While illegal logging and deforestation are a concern worldwide, Douglas Fir flooring comes from legally logged forests that are managed for long-term forest renewability.
So if making the perfect choice for a green home is weighing on your mind, fret no more. You can have beautiful Douglas Fir floors and peace of mind too: they are eco-friendly wood floors and a responsible choice for maintaining a healthy planet.
If you’re in the market for hardwood floors, it’s time to take a closer look at Douglas Fir Flooring.
Our knowledgeable and educated staff is here to answer any additional questions you may have. Please call us today for a free quote: Ph# 406.642.7120 or click here to submit an inquiry online. We look forward to working with you on your next project!
Source: AltruFir