Natural flooring

In the projects currently underway at our firm, natural flooring is playing an increasingly significant role in our clients’ decision-making process, as it is an element of the home in direct contact with its inhabitants.

When choosing flooring for a residence, there is a very wide range of possibilities and materials. Today, we provide an exhaustive review of the types of natural flooring that can make your home a healthier, toxin-free place.

Characteristics of natural and ecological flooring

Natural and ecological floors are those that exhibit a series of specific characteristics—from their extraction process to their installation and maintenance—that make them materials in harmony with the environment and people, free of toxins during their manufacturing process and throughout their useful life in our home.

Proximity

The search for local materials, extracted near the construction site, will result in energy and cost savings for the project and the entire construction process.

Furthermore, by using materials of local origin, we can employ construction solutions already familiar to professionals, as well as ensure proper performance within the local climate.

Extraction and handling

The extraction and handling of materials used for natural flooring are also of great importance. It is essential to carry out this process in an environmentally friendly manner, avoiding damage to nature if we are seeking a sustainable cycle.

Similarly, we must avoid excessive transformation of materials before they reach their final application form, as this requires considerable energy expenditure.

Nature and recycling

Finally, it is essential that the material chosen for natural and ecological flooring is minimally processed to preserve its original natural characteristics. Additionally, choosing natural and biocompatible materials will reduce the ecological footprint should it be necessary to dismantle the floor.

Considering subsequent recycling helps us evaluate the amount of transformation a certain material requires. Along with the materiality of the base element of a floor, it is also very important to consider its finishes, such as paints or varnishes.

In this case, it is necessary for them to also be natural, breathable, and free of toxic gas emissions, avoiding synthetic paints at all times, as they do not allow the material itself to breathe naturally and generate condensation and dampness.

To achieve completely natural finishes, it is very common to opt for treatments based on linseed oil or beeswax, as they provide protection to the flooring without damaging its original properties.

Types of natural and ecological flooring

There is a great variety of materials within our reach that meet the aforementioned characteristics. What are they and what are their applications?

Let’s look at the list of natural and ecological flooring in detail!

Wood

Firstly, we would like to discuss wood, a material that brings warmth to the home, creating pleasant and welcoming spaces. As flooring, the most frequent application is wood decking or floorboards.

To achieve a natural and toxin-free wood floor, it is very important to avoid laminated wood, as it has a high glue content.

As an alternative, we can opt for natural solid wood treated with linseed oil or wax, always ensuring they do not have a cross-laminated base, as this could also contain toxic adhesives.

Bamboo or cane

Bamboo and cane are very interesting materials as they offer great strength and flexibility simultaneously. They can be used as structural elements or frameworks, but can also be applied to floors.

This is a more economical alternative to wood that allows for the creation of floating floors similar to parquet but more homogeneous, as they are not made of pieces but of fibers. In this case, we must keep in mind that these are less resistant materials, so we will avoid them in high-traffic areas.

Earth

Earth is a natural material that also allows us to create flooring; specifically, clay is used for floors. There are different methods for applying clay in natural flooring.

On one hand, we can achieve continuous flooring through the direct application of clay, properly mixed with water and sands of different grain sizes. It is not necessary to add dyes or additives, and highly polished and resistant finishes are guaranteed, depending on the needs of the floor.

Clay can be protected with linseed oil to provide greater impermeability and offers very positive properties as it is a natural regulator of ambient humidity, absorbs odors, and acts as an electromagnetic insulator.

Several companies specialize in the commercialization of clay for construction, such as Ecoclay or Embarro, who also hold workshops to show the results of projects to those who are undecided.

Alongside continuous clay flooring, we also have clay or ceramic tiles—another natural alternative, although in some respects perhaps not as ecological due to its manufacturing process.

It is common for fired clay tiles to contain glazes based on inorganic chemical products, and they also require a very high energy expenditure, reaching over 1,500°C in their firing process.

Closely linked to ceramic tiles, we have wall tiling and ceramic flooring which, in this case, always feature a decorative and waterproofing glazed face.

In this instance, we are talking about flooring that requires more treatment than simple ceramic tiles, and therefore partially loses its status as natural flooring.

Stone

Natural stone floors are a widely used alternative, especially in common or semi-outdoor spaces. However, despite being a natural material, it is not a very sustainable option as it is not a renewable material—unlike wood, which is, in the sense that wood grows back but stone does not.

Furthermore, we should avoid certain types of stone, such as granite, as it emits radiation. In fact, granite is widely used for kitchen countertops despite carrying small amounts of natural uranium.

Gypsum and lime mortars

Another natural solution for continuous flooring is gypsum or lime floors. In the case of gypsum, the anhydrite type is used, a material found on the market as “Albarracín Gypsum.” Regarding lime, we can opt for aerial or hydraulic lime mortars.

Aerial lime has very suitable properties, as its mortars have the particularity of being permeable to water vapor, which gives the flooring hygroscopic qualities to regulate the humidity of the environment.

As for natural hydraulic limes, they are also interesting since they do not contain any type of additive and possess much more strength than aerial limes.

Other alternatives

Other interesting alternatives for application in natural flooring are linoleum, cork, or coconut fiber.

In the case of linoleum, the most common, it consists of solidified linseed oil mixed with wood flour or cork dust placed on a canvas or fabric. It is a widely used option as it provides a uniform finish that can be pigmented with different colors.

Cork flooring is very suitable for children’s areas as it is a material highly resistant to humidity and insect attacks, and it also has a certain capacity to cushion impacts in case of falls, as well as providing sound insulation. It is important again to pay attention to the type of protection applied to the cork.

Finally, coconut fiber is a natural and economical flooring but is not suitable for high-traffic areas unless applied in the form of carpeting, in which case we must be careful with its hygiene.

And, after reviewing the different natural floors, we would like to provide a brief overview of those other materials that should be avoided due to their high toxic content.