In this week’s property surveying blog post topic, we are going to look at sustainable floor finishes and in particular rubber flooring.
In our experience, the changing of floor coverings is one of the most common type of licence to alter work that we see hear at Stokemont. With most leases requiring Licence for Alterations procedures to be followed, we thought we would look at some of the sustainable flooring options in the market!
While rubber flooring this may sound like an outlandish option when it comes to furnishing your home, at its current technological point, rubber flooring is a hardwearing, stylish and most importantly sustainable furnishing option.
Within the rubber-flooring spectrum, there are numerous different options that exist within the market, these range from conventional industrial appearance, usually accustomed to hospitals and other commercial environments, to the modern highly stylish range that now appeals to many homeowners.
The raw material used to produce the rubber is actually old car, lorry, truck and tractor tires that have since become worn out and hence no longer have any useful life within the automotive industry. Being a fully and 100% recycled product, rubber flooring is obviously a highly sustainable product.
Within the EU, there are around 250 million worn tyres that accumulate each year, furthermore, with people becoming more and more reliant on cars; this figure is only set to grow. There are other uses for these tires, however many of them will end up going to landfill!
The recycled rubber flooring itself will usually be a mix of the recycled products, such as the tires, as well as virgin rubber. Virgin rubber is a raw product derived from trees and therefore like many other natural products has a low carbon footprint, the products that offer the highest quality finish, appearance and feel are those which mix the recycled and virgin rubber.
While rubber flooring isn’t by any means a cheap material and rivals conventional flooring options, it is none the less, more hard wearing with a much greater longevity!
If you’re planning on undertaking works to your property and would like to see if the new floor coverings will require a licence for alterations for your freeholder, give us a call today and we will be happy to assist.
