Resilient Flooring

Nico Brecher

12055884

Exam Part 1

11/11/2014

Flooring options for mayoral office and boardrooms

1.Why is it necessary to consider indoor air quality and the life cycle of materials in a green building?

The causes of poor indoor air quality can be because of pollution we tend to think that pollution is mainly outside of our buildings but we are wrong. The causes of indoor pollution vary from region to region and building to building. Contaminated air enters from outside and also from indoor sources like consumer products, construction materials, pets and insects. Poor ventilation can lead to dangerous levels which normally happen during fall and winter times as we tend to close our buildings to conserve all the heat possible. The

Some sustainable benefits are that cork as a base material is extremely sustainable as the trees are not cut down nor are they damaged by the extraction of the cork, a healthy tree can produce cork for hundreds of years making it rapidly renewable and self-propagating. Cork also very soft under foot absorbs sound and also provides inherent warmth. (Sustainable flooring). Depending on the quality it can lasts between 10-30 years. It has anti-microbial properties, its fire retardant and a natural insect repellent.

2. Resilient flooring

Resilient flooring offers a degree of elasticity for comfort and a high degree of durability and resistance to stains and water. Some of its benefits are that it is easy to clean, inexpensive to maintain and attractive. Some types of resilient flooring are vinyl, rubber and linoleum. For this project I will suggest Rubber. (Sustainable resilient flooring). Rubber flooring is made from recycled tires and is slowly making its way into the business sector as it is a beautiful lasting option with many colors and pattern options.

3. Wood

To prevent mould in a building the standards must be met in terms of ventilation and excessive moisture problems. Resilient flooring is the best performer in this case.

3. Reuse materials

Cork: Cork can be reused from one building to another if it can be removed without any damage, in some cases old wine corks can be used in flooring.

Resilient flooring: rubber for resilient flooring is from old tires that has been recycled and compressed to form rubber tiles.

Wooden flooring: this type of flooring I chose is made from by-product wood.

Reusing materials gives us the opportunity to do something that has minimum influence on the environment because we are not extracting new materials and producing more CO2 emissions in fabricating them. All three options equal.

4. Local sourcing

Cork: it all depends on where the building site is, but cork would not be easily sourced locally as it only grows in certain areas.

Resilient flooring: rubber should be easy to source locally as every town or city as car sales and a scrap yard where there are normally lots of old tires available fairly