Finish Flooring
Finish flooring, speaks to types of finish flooring, what is finish flooring, why use finish flooring.
This speaks to the functions of this flooring, as well as common flooring materials and the common terminology used in this industry.
Functions of Flooring
Floors have a lot to do with our visual and tactile appreciation of a building. We sense their colours, patterns, textures and the underfoot feel and the noises they make in response to footsteps. Floors affect the acoustics of a room, contributing to a noisy quality or a hushed quality, depending on whether a hard or soft flooring material is used.
Floors also interact in various ways with light with some floor materials give mirrorlike reflections while others give diffuse reflections or none at all. Dark flooring materials absorb most of the light incident upon them and contribute to the creation of a darker room, whereas light materials reflect most incident light and help create a brighter room.
Floors are also a major functional component of a building. They are its primary wearing surfaces, subject to water, grit, dust and the abrasive and penetrating action of feet and furniture. They require more cleaning and maintenance effort than any other component of a building.
They must be designed to deal with problems of skid resistance, sanitation, noise reduction between floors of a building and even electrical conductivity in occupancies such as computer rooms and hospital operating rooms, where static electricity would pose a threat.
Like other interior finish components, floors must be selected with an eye to combustibility, fire resistance ratings and the structural loads that they will place on the frame of the building.
Flooring Materials Considerations
Concrete, stone, masonry, ceramic tile and cementious mortars and grouts are chemically inert and generally free of emissions.
Organic adhesives used in tiling and resins used in thinset terrazzo may be sources of emissions.
Sealers applied to hard flooring materials to provide a water repellant surface with protection from staining are potential sources of emissions. Solvent based sealers generally have higher emissions than water based products.
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