Laminate is not wood, nor is it a floor, it is a floor cover made of chemicals and composites. Imagine a photocopy of real wood chemically bound to particle board or cheap composites. Made with synthetic materials or very thinly sliced pieces of wood, laminate equals replica. Made to look like wood grain by using a method similar to printing a photo, i.e. designed to fool those not paying attention.
What Is Wood Laminate?
So, in simplest terms, you print a layer of wood-colored plastic and then adhere it to a composite wood substrate like particle board. Laminate manufacturers use a wide range of materials including dangerous chemicals. The chemicals used in manufacturing laminate are dangerous and they are the fastest growing component of our landfills.
What is a VOC?
Volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, are gases that are emitted into the air from products or processes. Some are harmful by themselves, including some that cause cancer. In addition, they can react with other gases and form other air pollutants after they are in the air. Furthermore, because it contains toxic VOCs like formaldehyde and takes decades to disperse, laminate is a health risk long after replaced.
Laminate and single use floors
These compounds continue to produce VOCs after they are in your home. Formaldehyde was found in a major retailer laminate a few years ago. Sixty Minutes did a shocking story, they promised to do better. However, the main manufacturers of this material are in China and Vietnam. Standards, for end products shipped back to the U.S. are nonexistent. For more about this issue contact us today.
The best part about the SYP Direct philosophy, it is so easy; “One House, One Floor”. We have grown our business organically with referrals and repeat business. Old school customer service, personal and without any sales pressure. In fact, most of the time we are validating what you already knew but because of all the nonsense you hear when shopping for a floor you begin to think; “is laminate just as good as real wood”?
Adding age not buying itSalvaged southern pine
The SYP Direct Philosophy- “No repeat business unless you move or add on”.
Why do we sell a product that has zero support in the industry? Furthermore, unfinished wood floors have small margins; in addition it is very long and heavy requiring far more work that something you stick down by peeling of the back. Because the SYP Direct Philosophy is about creating value for the homeowner, and frankly, we do not want to lie to every single customer that called us. If we sold laminate, LVT or 2mm engineered flooring, every caller would hear the same garbage you hear in box stores.
Southern Yellow Pine Direct – “No small print, hidden fees or unhappy customers”.
Our success and growth has been organic, not repeat business and certainly not advertising. Imagine, your being told to buy that creates a future liability rather than investing in your home. It is disgusting and it all started with laminate, read my rants for more on this transfer of wealth, from you to shareholders and executives option packages. A+ BBB Rating.
And ask were they “engineered” you floor, somethings are better as imports but not your floors.
LVT, engineered and all floor covers are man made and end up in landfills one day. Our floors are solid wood; engineered by Mother nature and designed to outlive the house. Real wood flooring, i.e. 3/4 or more solid, can be re-invented several times. Real wood, not engineered floors increases the value of your home. In the market today, misinformation and single use floor coverings are praised as “better than real wood” for a number of reasons all of which 100% untrue. So we cut through the nonsense and our customers like that about us, for sure.
What is an investment floor?
Is flooring an investment or a product? A product is designed to be used for a period of time, i.e. LVT and laminate. An investment floor, while it may fulfill the same purpose as the product such as walking on the floor, it is not designed to fail one day. An investment floor provides a return as well as a function, i.e. increased home value. Real wood floors are an investment, single use floor covers are just a lease. Yes a lease, you are paying to use a product that will have no residual value. On the other hand, a real wood floor will last forever, saving you money every seven years or a dividend of sorts, like a bond or preferred stock.
Laminate = landfills
Future landfill
One house, One Floor mandates no person should ever have to buy laminate or engineered floor covers because they have no local real wood options. 4,000,000,000 lbs of landfill materials is produced every year in the United States with somewhere between 200,000,000 and 250,0000,000 lbs of it singe use floor coverings, including carpet. Laminate and (more every year) engineered flooring, will be close to 30% of this by 2025. We consider this not only an environmental issue, but also the greatest wealth re-allocation from so many to so few in the history of the modern economy.
Green & Eco-friendly, and using any other terminology indicating ‘good for the earth’ cannot be used in the same comparison with solid real wood. Unfortunately, our site is one of very few that will tell you the truth because it is not profitable for those marketing flooring. Not profitable with regards to repeat business, ease of installation and so many other factors all designed to rob your home equity, from someone if not you.
What are floor covers?
Any floor created to be replaced and or not salvaged is a cover, not a floor. LVT, laminate and engineered wood with very few exceptions are all the new carpet, i.e. they are manufactured with ‘planned obsolesce’. Real wood floors, as in 3/4 solid will be the last thing of value left in your home and salvaged one day, imagine them becoming an accent wall and lasting anothere 100 years or so.
One House One Floor
Southern Yellow Pine Direct welcomes all of you homeowners told solid wood is too expensive or cannot be glued down. Welcome to a place where logic still exist, we tell the truth. For example, warranties,worthless, and engineered floors cannot be refinished. It all comes down to this, real wood takes time and since time is money, most floor covering companies choose to sell single use floor coverings because every seven years they get repeat business. Our “one house one floor” promise is not popular with most contractors especially if they sell covers such as carpet, engineered floors, vinyl or laminate.
Engineered to fail
Does anyone remember the phrase planned obsolescence? To refresh your memory, it is by definition; “a policy of producing consumer goods that rapidly become obsolete. This is done by frequent changes in design, termination of the supply of spare parts, and the use of non-durable materials.” In an update (2023) of sorts, we do an amazing source for 3/4 solid engineered Walnut, unfinished with a 6mm wear layer. And yes, it can be refinished and you finish it the first time, which we advise since it cost so much.
Laminate is the new carpet
Laminate and LVT are the new carpet for the industry. And like carpet, these fake floors allow retail shops to keep a steady supply of repeat business. With floor covers such as engineered and laminate; you are really just leasing the floors. The question of engineered or real wood floors is easy to answer. Real wood will be the last thing of value salvaged from your home one day. Whereas, every single piece of engineered flooring will end up in a landfill. In fact, laminate is huge problem, as it remains in landfills for up to 1000 years
Research and compare engineered versus solid wood floors; throw in LVT and laminate floor covers for kicks. As a buyer, online marketing and most local stores will have you buying covers not floors. What do we mean? Real wood is floor you buy whereas engineered and the rest, a floor cover. Comparing engineered versus real wood floors and you are comparing an investment to a product designed to fail. Yes, some are better than others, but all floor covers have planned obsolesce in the blueprints. Want to read more- Investment Flooring. No matter how you keep score, engineered versus real wood is an unfair comparison. Hailed as a great innovation for homeowners, engineered floors are more popular than ever. Flooring companies love them because of the repeat business, huge margins and time savings compared to real wood.
Solid versus engineered
Solid versus engineered wood floors should be rhetorical, but not today. The market has convinced buyers that veneers glued to composites are a better way to go than real solid wood. Plastics that will end up in landfills handle moisture better than real wood, give me a break. Repeat business demands reusable products and engineered floors are perfect in the role. Real wood last forever, engineered, laminate and others all end up in landfills.
Marketing in disguise
Remember, the “media” or resource pages such as Angie’s List are paid for by marketing dollars paid by people wanting to sell you LVT or laminate. Therefore, the research articles you read are 100% generated by someone with a product behind the posts, a sponsor of sorts.
Baseball, Apple Pie and Southern Pine
It has to be real wood. Southern Pine, real wood, is the most Eco-friendly choice for your floor, period. The exceptions, of course, are endangered or illegal timber, but that is not relevant to our discussion. Our New Heart Pine is not farmed and take from private landowners. While our Yellow Pine is sourced from North Louisiana, farmed timber. That is great information but the reason the real wood is green? IT LAST FOREVER. In […]
Box store pine floors are not as good as ours and they are more expensive. Let me repeat, apples to apples they way more expensive. And even their cheaper stuff is stupid expensive for what it is, or certainly what it is not. In world where laminate and hardwood are regularly used to market some floor cover, you might want to use a healthy skepticism when floor shopping. Rule number 1- or at least the […]
2024 Dog Friendly Floors Update Dog friendly floors are all about the finish. Of course, you will here that real wood is not good for big dogs or even dogs in general. This is simply not true, at all. However, before we talk about the finish, we should address the question of Southern Pine and if it is a dog friendly floor. There is so much confusion regarding pine because there are so many variations [...]
How long does acclimation take? Asking how long does acclimation take has no honest answer only experience and product knowledge. Acclimation, sometimes called conditioning, is the process of allowing wood to reach its equilibrium moisture content (EMC) within “normal living conditions.” It is also one of the most important steps of hardwood floor installation. How long does acclimation take? My installer said 2 weeks! How long does acclimation take? Acclimation is not about time but [...]
Green, eco-friendly floors are about longevity Our company offers homeowners the power to choose an investment versus a product. The difference? An investment increases in value when a product is designed to wear out and then replaced. One outlives the house, the others on average, about 7 years. So I ask, which is the green floor? But wait don't you cut down trees to get real wood? Yes, once and it does not involved any [...]
Our company offers homeowners the power to choose an investment versus a product. The difference? An investment increases in value when a product is designed to wear out and then replaced. One outlives the house, the others on average, about 7 years. So I ask, which is the green floor? But wait don’t you cut down trees to get real wood? Yes, once and it does not involved any plastic or formyldehyde.
Marketing is not accurate information not anymore
Today, most of us will choose the product best for the environment provided the price is reasonably close to the other choices. In fact, some of us will choose the green product even with a much higher price. So why is the opposite true when green floor shopping? Simple, most of us are not given the information necessary to make that decision accurately. Want a good example, look no further than recycling.
LVT can be recycled just like carpet- FALSE!
Carpet cannot be recycled despite the propoganda, try it some time. Laminte is just chemical “goo” with zero value after ruining your home. And now LVT is the fastest growing component of our landfills. It absolutely cannot on any scale be made into anything useful! So, instead of the nice recycling thoughts you knew it was going to spend the next 100 years contaminating your groundwater, would that play a role in your decision?
Because most carpets are made from plastics sourced from the petrochemical industry, they can take centuries to breakdown. As these carpet fibers break downbreakdown in landfill, they release methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gasses, into our atmosphere. Meanwhile, toxic chemicals from the carpet can leach into the surrounding environment, especially in landfills that aren’t properly managed.
Plus: Have you ever taken up an old carpet? How about when pets were living on it? It is disgusting, no matter how clean you think you keep it.
Salvaged heart pine
Carpet is NOT King
For decades, carpet was king. Home remodeling took off with the advent of those little synthetic fibers. A small percentage of carpet wore out, but most was replaced when it became outdated, or the house changed hands. Today decomposing carpet holds an impressive and increasing percentage of total landfill tonnage. The E.P.A. estimates that every year, about 5 billion pounds of carpeting go into landfills. That’s 1 to 2 percent of the total U.S. landfill contribution, or 17 pounds of carpeting per person. (Don’t Sweep Carpet’s Eco-Impact Under the Rug – The New York Times (nytimes.com).
5 Things to help you buy an eco-friendly (Green) Floor
Engineered floors are not eco-friendly
Real wood is the only green choice
Engineered “hardwood” floors are created using a veneer measured in Millimeters. In case you are curious, 1 MM = .039 inches. So, a 2 MM wear layer is .117 inches thick. The veneer is glued to backing that may be ⅜ to ⅝ thick and created from a huge variety of materials, which is why you see dramatic differences in prices. It is like advertising just the word Car, with various prices and no other information. Makes a comparison almost impossible, which is precisely by design, trust us we know people in the business. (Humor attempt). – Green floors are real floors.
Quality engineered flooring has a minimum 4MM Wear Layer
Engineered Flooring cannot be refinished without a minimum of 4 MM ‘wear layer’ (veneer).The average lifespanlife span for a quality engineered floor is 7-10 years, then it heads to a landfill including the chemicals used in manufacture. So, where it is made and with what materials are information key to this decision, but so elusive. Terms such as hard scraped and brushed are used interchangeably and the only time you hear the species that comprises the backing is when it is good, not the other way around.
Want a green finish? Moncoat by Rubio
War-anties what are they good for?
We bought it because of the warranty. Please NEVER Buy for the warranty. For the record, all of our prefinished floors come with a warranty on the finish but that addresses manufacturing defects, not every day wear and tear and certainly not all the claims made concerning durability.
Tough standards
Read the warranty, the actual document and these “hard to meet” criteria jump out quickly. When claiming water damage for example, if exposed to standing water for more than 20 minutes your claim is in-valid. Question: How is the amount of time verified or proven? Of all your relatives that havehas multiple jobs a year, are anyany of them a certified independent flooring claims specialist?
The truth about real wood
Resistance to moisture real versus faux
LIE: Compared to solid hardwood, engineered wood floors have superior resistance to slightly lower and higher moisture levels, which makes them more ideal for use in damp basements or regions with higher or lower than standard humidity levels.
Truth: Buyers are told how a compressedhow compressed particle board with an unknown adhesive handles water better than real wood? The fact is that Southern Pine handles moisture better than any engineered floor. We build decks out of the stuff because it handles moisture on a microscopic level based on the relative porous nature of the wood.
In fact: Moisture is absorbed and released (expansion and contraction) without the breakdown of the board’s integrity. Ask your pro this question. What if you put poly on the bottomon bottom of real wood during the installation? Simple logic and a solution very few professionals even know and much less share.
According to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, researchers believe that nasal allergies affect about 50 million people in the United States alone, and that number is increasing every year. Allergies affect as much as 30 percent of the adult population in the U.S. and about 40 percent of children. Hypoallergenic means a product contains few allergy-producing substances known as allergens, and in our world, VOC’s. More on that later. So because there’s no agreed-upon scientific or legal definition of the term, the word “hypoallergenic” printed on a label doesn’t necessarily protect you.
Real wood reclaimed one dayReal wood is green
Volatile Organic Compounds, aka VOC.
VOC stands for volatile organic compounds, which turn into vapor at room temperature and enter the atmosphere through off-gassing. In turn, the VOC off-gas process creates that fresh paint smell, for example. Depending on the compound, VOCs can severely impact indoor air quality and result in negative health consequences. While short-term issues might be irritation of the eyes, nose or throat, or nausea and dizziness, some VOCs have the capability of causing liver or kidney damage, or even cancer.
Hypoallergenic has no real meaning and Zero VOC is just a rating.
Tung oil on wide plank caribbean heart pineReal wood is green
As the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) writes on its website; “There are no Federal standards or definitions that govern the use of the term ‘hypoallergenic.’ The term means whatever a particular company chooses, i.e. how they market the product. It is a marketing term in that it provides no real information about the product and how it performs. Our unfinished floors can be toxic or hypoallergenic, the finish is up to you.
Monocoat by Rubio- The green finish
7″ rustic caribbean heart pine.
Rubio Monocoat uses a unique molecular bonding technology to adhere to the topmost fibers of the wood it is applied to. Rubio Monocoat unique molecular bonding technology also allows for a one-coat finish. This means there is no need to continually apply oil or build up layers of polyurethane like with traditional finishes.
Carpet is the worst source for allergens
Carpet is king, of our landfills. The EPA estimates that there is 15 lbs of carpet for every citizen of the United States, in our landfills. It does not decompose quickly or even safely, and no it cannot be recycled, no matter what you read. Try to find a center that takes your carpet, not gonna happen.
Laminate and LVT
Laminate and Vinyl are the fastest growing components of our landfills. It’s difficult to quantify what chemicals, will leach from laminates once they hit the landfill versus the emissions if placed in an incinerator. To put it simply, this stuff doesn’t decompose, because of all the chemicals and glues, the material never breaks down organically.
What flooring is best for allergy sufferers?
Solid wood floors are the only true green, hypoallergenic flooring choice.
What type of floor is the worst for allergy sufferers?
Carpet is the toughest to clean while manufactures have been fined for having too much formaldehyde making a bunch of people very sick.
How can you tell if Formaldehyde was used in your own floor?
You can check if formaldehyde was used in your floor by looking for ULEF (ultra-low emitting formaldehyde) or NAUF (no added urea formaldehyde) labels. This is not hypoallergenic flooring!
What is Laminate?
Laminate is a thin layer of wood-color plastic, adhered to a composite. The processes use a variety of chemicals including formaldehyde. What is Laminate? How about what it is not, it is not green; in fact, it is the opposite of green. Laminate has a huge carbon footprint based on the manufacturing process, which can include dangerous chemicals in the manufacturing process. Laminate is not renewable or recyclable and every bit of it will end up in a landfill.
Sustainable timber, i.e., timber that has been harvested and replenished which may occur naturally or farmed. ‘Sustainable Forestry’, however, involves more than just planting a tree when you cut one down. Sustainable timber management or forestry means doing no ecological damage to the surrounding environment.
Plant a tree
To those who want to help stop Global Warming- buy a real wood floor and plant a tree.
Healthy, sustainably harvested timber creates forest that become more resistant to wildfire, insects, disease, and the impacts of climate change. Like so many things, the message that the timber industry and sustainable forestry are contributing to climate change has gotten distorted. When you consider the replacement products we use instead of wood, i.e., petroleum-based vinyl, composites, and plastic the eco-friendly product is obviously real wood. What about concrete and steel? “As conservationists, we make building materials that store carbon and require far fewer fossil fuels to produce compared to steel and concrete.” (Forest2Market.com September 2022).
Sustainable timber means green
As trees grow, they absorb carbon dioxide CO2 from the atmosphere and release oxygen. We learned this in junior high. Not only do trees sequester or hold carbon, but they also put it to use. Great but what happens when you turn this tree into a floor? Wood flooring is about 50 percent carbon by dry weight. Wood products continue to store much of this carbon indefinitely. In the case of buildings, the carbon is kept out of the atmosphere for the lifetime of the structure—or longer if the wood is reclaimed and used to manufacture other products.
Plant more trees
In national parks and designated wilderness areas, the federal government is prohibited by law from sustainably harvesting and replanting trees. According to U.S. Forest Service-Forest Inventory and Analysis data, lands set aside from active forest management – such as parks and wilderness – serve as a carbon source because trees are dying at faster rates than they are growing.
Sustainable timber create floors that last forever
No matter what else you hear while shopping, solid 3/4 floors should outlive the house, i.e., be salvaged one day. On the other hand, all ‘floor covers’ with very few exceptions, everything else ends up in a landfill. Seriously, the bathroom counter-top you see here was produced by a novice salvaged decking.
No clear cutting
To be clear, we are not talking about clear cutting or harvesting non sustainable forest. Anti-forestry activists cling to the flawed assumption that old trees will sequester and store carbon. As if old trees are immortal and should be forever untouched. Not so fast! The science is that younger trees sequester carbon at higher rates than older trees, yes. Even worse, when older trees die, they emit carbon and methane.
Failing to clear dead trees causes wildfires
Conservationists are not to be confused with anti-forestry activists, even though the media often gives them that label. Anti-forestry activists reject Indigenous knowledge and experience that comes from thousands of years of managing forests, while raising millions of dollars to perpetuate the idea that the United States risk deforestation. Far from scarce, many western landscapes, “have overstocked stands with more trees than the forests can support”.
Why do people buy ‘single use’ floors? (A product designed with planned obsolescence ridiculous promises and useless warranties.)
LVT MARKETING- Waterproof- Lifetime Warranty-and Luxury in the name.
Homeowners buy it because the marketing is amazing and frankly trying to find real wood wears them out over time. Hand it to the majors, they’ve created a repeat customer product line; a new one about every decade or so. The industry is a mess everyone wants fake wood or vinyl or plastic; whatever can be torn up and thrown in a landfill one day to make room for another ‘single use’ cover. Manufactures and their distributors have four conventions per year and one huge one just to talk about all the new and latest technology that they are going to sell homeowners. All of this is to perpetuate a population of consumers and salespeople buying into a false premise, fake is better than real.
Real wood is Green
Repurpose real wood
Repurpose real wood – salvaged or reclaimed. We want everyone to repurpose real wood. With that in mind, please enjoy this video which cost us $75.00 six years ago, We are “thrifty” like most of our customers, but the content is good. Salvaged is ‘saved’, reclaimed is repurposed; and not the kind of repurposing we are talking about with our folk art. The video should clear it up and if you are shopping for reclaimed […]
In reality, you can glue down Southern Pine in standard 3/4 thickness. No problem, you want to glue down Southern Pine you use Bostiks Best. It has a built in moisture barrier and is urethane based so that is allows movement like a nail. But today, in this blog glue down Southern Pine is 1/2 inch, with the long lengths up to 14′ an option. SYP Direct does not sell anything but real wood and […]
Welcome to our blog post on how to identify heart pine. To be clear, we are talking about how to identify New Heart Pine. In this informative guide, we will provide you with valuable insights on recognizing heartwood, and in a broader context, ‘heart content’. Both of these are essential for those homeowners (installation professionals) looking for quality New Heart Pine. Quality is easy to define, with the end result being an installation and a […]
It has to be real wood. Southern Pine, real wood, is the most Eco-friendly choice for your floor, period. The exceptions, of course, are endangered or illegal timber, but that is not relevant to our discussion. Our New Heart Pine is not farmed and take from private landowners. While our Yellow Pine is sourced from North Louisiana, farmed timber. That is great information but the reason the real wood is green? IT LAST FOREVER. In […]
In 2018 SYP Direct was named Houzz Hardwood flooring dealer of the year in South Carolina, but North Carolina was the #1 state for sales. In fact, the two Carolina’s have both been in our top 5 states by sales volume for 14 years in a row. The reasons are not all about style and taste because when are talking about North Carolina and ‘her’ sister to the south, the population varies dramatically from coastal […]
Box store pine floors are not as good as ours and they are more expensive. Let me repeat, apples to apples they way more expensive. And even their cheaper stuff is stupid expensive for what it is, or certainly what it is not. In world where laminate and hardwood are regularly used to market some floor cover, you might want to use a healthy skepticism when floor shopping. Rule number 1- or at least the […]
2024 Dog Friendly Floors Update Dog friendly floors are all about the finish. Of course, you will here that real wood is not good for big dogs or even dogs in general. This is simply not true, at all. However, before we talk about the finish, we should address the question of Southern Pine and if it is a dog friendly floor. There is so much confusion regarding pine because there are so many variations [...]
When you are deciding between prefinished or unfinished floors the first consideration should be your experience, or a trusted professional with the experience. Prefinished hardwood floors have had all the work done to them before they arrive in your home and are ready to be installed. In most cases this means sanded, stained, and finished with a UV aluminum oxide coating as a topcoat. On the other hand, unfinished boards require; acclimation, finish, drying time, […]
The answer is that very few of us know they exist in almost everything manufactured for mass merchandising. Volatile Organic Chemicals (VOCs) can be used to produce products and created as biproducts. VOC’s can be harmless; they can be dangerous but the majority of just the “unknown” as is not enough information to make a determination. Paint, wood-finishing products, lacquers, hydraulic fluids, petroleum fuels, adhesives, pesticides, cleaning supplies, building materials, furniture, and electronic equipment such as printers all contain VOC’s.
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What is the difference between reclaimed and salvaged? If you were in the flooring industry someone might say $15 a square foot, and they wouldn’t be far off. So, if you’re shopping for reclaimed oak or heart pine it’s important to know what you’re looking at it’s important to know where it came from or its provenance.
Salvaged Heart Pine Accent Walls
Salvaged is something like an old floor being taken up trimmed out and turned into an accent wall, as seen on the left. (If you are interested in Salvaged dirty top wall skins click the pic) But back to the question at hand what is the difference between salvaged and reclaimed? Reclaimed means to be repurposed reclaimed, i.e., when beam turned into flooring.
New is Reclaimed and Reclaimed is Salvaged, that is the definition of Green.
Accent Walls?
Learn more- easy to install and to make look “cool”. If I can do it anyone can.
Laminate is not wood, nor is it a floor, it is a floor cover made of chemicals and composites. Imagine a photocopy of real wood chemically bound to particle board or cheap composites. Made with synthetic materials or very thinly sliced pieces of wood, laminate equals replica. Made to look like wood grain by using a method similar to printing a photo, i.e., designed to fool those not paying attention.
Laminate is not wood- what is it?
So, in simplest terms, you print a layer of wood-colored plastic and then adhere it to a composite wood substrate like particle board.
Laminate = landfills
As we will discuss later in our post, the variety of substrates used differ widely in quality and components. Chinese laminate manufacturers use a wide range of materials including dangerous chemicals. First, China leads the world in carbon pollution by a large and growing margin. Second, it has virtually no regulations regarding products imported and shipped back the United States.
What is in it?
The chemicals used in manufacturing laminate are dangerous and they are the fastest growing component of our landfills. ’s difficult to quantify what chemicals, will leach from laminates once they hit the landfill. Not to mention the emissions from incineration. To put it simply, this stuff doesn’t decompose, because of all the chemicals and glues, the material never breaks down organically.
Laminate is not wood imported it is re-imported
Laminated wood is a rimport, a re-imported bi product of our timber. We ship our trees to China only to bring it back home full of toxic chemicals. We send them solid wood, which requires no toxic chemicals to produce, and in return we get plastic ‘wood like’ composite garbage. Today upwards of 10% of Americans have laminate flooring or some type of vinyl. Every bit of it will end up in landfills poisoning the groundwater and damaging the air quality.
Laminate is not wood nor is it a floor- it is a floor cover
Laminate and Engineered floor covers are filling our landfills. Over the next 4-5 years, deposits into landfills will double from current levels of 300,000,000 lb. per year. Laminate & Engineered, add in LVT too, are a leased floor covers which rot forever on public lands? LVT, laminate and engineered floors are not green, they are not even biodegradable. Environmentalist scream about deforestation, but what is “greener” than One House, One Floor.
Have your floors reclaimed instead of landfilled
If we put the entire carbon footprint of Southern Pine flooring into the carbon footprint single use floor covers, and their chemicals products it would be like putting a BB into a boxcar.
What a great question? The answer is that very few of us know they exist in almost everything manufactured for mass merchandising. Volatile Organic Chemicals (VOCs) can be used to produce products and created as biproducts. VOC’s can be harmless; they can be dangerous but the majority of just the “unknown” as is not enough information to make a determination. Paint, wood-finishing products, lacquers, hydraulic fluids, petroleum fuels, adhesives, pesticides, cleaning supplies, building materials, furniture, and electronic equipment such as printers all contain VOC’s.
The footprint of fake wood
If you listen to most “enviromental” warriors, logging and timber is the equivilent of fossil fuels when accessing a carbon footprint. This is ridiculous. Managed timber doesn’t lend itself to wildfires and real wood doesn’t end up in the landfill. If every house only had one floor over its lifetime, how many tear out and installations would that save, the house? Real wood floors will outlive your house. In fact, one day they will be reclaimed or salvaged as they are reinvented a century later. Try that with laminate.
Real is good
'Pure' on CHP
Moncoat "Pure"
Do not blame others
The manufacturing process no longer occurs in the United States and there is no possible way to regulate the number of vendors sending VOCs into the U.S. However, do not blame the countries doing the manufacturing because they are not the sellers! Consumers depend on the manufacturers to protect their health, first and foremost. Unfortunately, a large majority of retailers continue to use VOCs despite their harmful effects. Why do they continue to use VOCs? Demand for cheap goods always gets the blame, and while it plays a part; that demand was created by the cheap manufacturing processes not vice versa.
