# Cork Flooring - Any experience?



## chrisstef (Mar 3, 2010)

For the last 4 months ive been working on a kitchen remodel and its time that I started to think about replacing our ceramic tile flooring. My wife had an idea of using cork flooring. Reading some online reviews ive gotten quite a bit of different reviews on the product. There seems to be the floating, click lock type with a HDF core and the glue down type, they come both prefinished and unfinished. Does anyone out there have any first hand experience with this type of flooring?


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## BentheViking (May 19, 2011)

PM sent


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## Hammerthumb (Dec 28, 2012)

Stef - I've done several of the different types of cork floors. I am not particular to the MDF cored click together (or glue together) types. I would rather install the 12"x12" squares. The MDF type is suseptible to problems with moisture issues causing it to cup. This could be a problem especially in a kitchen. The 12"x12" tiles are 100% cork, not cork veneer over a core. It is the MDF core that can be problematic. In saying this, the MDF core planks can be floated over an existing floor just like a laminate floor and makes installation easier. The 100% cork tiles are made to be glued to a concrete or plywood substrate using the flooring adhesives recommended by the manufacturer. Cork floors are very comfortable to walk on and are very durable. The tile type product can even be resanded if wear and tear becomes and issue. There are some floors in cities like San Francisco that have been used in a commercial environment which were installed in the 40s and 50s and are still in use today. It is still used commercially in workout rooms at health clubs and would make a great shop floor (would not have to worry about dropping tools).


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## waho6o9 (May 6, 2011)

With all due respect…

Q. What is HDF and what is it made of?

A. High density fiberboard, HDF, is basically a high-density, moisture-resistant fiber panel. It is made of wood residues (sawdust, shavings and wood chips) from wood processing factories. This ligneous material is ground into a pulp to which a melamine-urea-formaldehyde resin is added. This pulp is then dried and pressed into panels.

I did a double take and had to find out what HDF was.

100% cork is best in my opinion.


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## chrisstef (Mar 3, 2010)

Thanks for the info Paul. I agree that the HDF core is a bad idea in a kitchen. Id hate to see it cup on me and look like death. Ill be tearing up the ceramic tile that's existing in the kitchen so im really not sure if ill be able to get all the thin set up. Like a vinyl tile im sure that any imperfections in the subfloor will show through. So if ive got to lay down a 1/4" sheet good things are going to start adding up quickly. Do you have a manufacturer of any solid cork flooring that you could hook it up with?


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## Hammerthumb (Dec 28, 2012)

Sorry - I typed MDF when in reallity it is HDF that is used. Still, agree with waho - 100% cork is best.


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## Hammerthumb (Dec 28, 2012)

WECU is a manufacturer that I have used before. Type in We-Cork in your searchfu browser. We-Cork is the name of the product. I looked for the number, but must have it in the rolodex at home.


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## chrisstef (Mar 3, 2010)

Jackpot …. thanks Paul.


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## Hammerthumb (Dec 28, 2012)

Yeah - been doing commercial flooring for a long time. Installation, distribution, project management, and finally I am with a large commercial tile & stone company. Seen and used a lot of products in my time.


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## chrisstef (Mar 3, 2010)

With that said ill continue to ask more question 

Final finishing …. water based polyurethane? au natural? prefinished? other suggestions?

Obviously the kitchen floor takes a good beating with food particles, drips, baby vomit, etc so id like it to be protected and not stain when the inevitable happens.


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## Hammerthumb (Dec 28, 2012)

By the way, I believe the tiles are 5/16" thick and do not transmit imperfections thru them like VCT and sheet vinyl does. If you get most of the thinset up and then rent a Clark buffer with a hardplate, you could sand off the residual thinset with 20grit open coat.


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## Hammerthumb (Dec 28, 2012)

By the prefinished. It is easier to install as you dont need to do any finishing, and the adhesive cleans off of it easier when you're installing. Flooring adhesive is like roofing mastic in the sense that if you get a little bit on your elbow, it will eventually migrate to your face, $ss, knees, and the top of the flooring.


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## AnthonyReed (Sep 20, 2011)

^Hahah.


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## chrisstef (Mar 3, 2010)

Yea it seems that they come in 3/16 and 5/16. Glad to hear it wont transfer the imperfections. Also happy to hear that prefinished is acceptable, itll keep the boss happy and less work for me!

Ive had roofing mastic on my a$$ .... you probably don't wanna inquire much further.


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## OggieOglethorpe (Aug 15, 2012)

I put engineered cork in my own kitchen two years ago, over existing VCT…

It's inexpensive, looks good, hides dirt well, was simple and fast to install, and is comfortable to walk on. It does not transmit texture of the VCT below.

Unfortunately, our brand new dishwasher had an incorrectly installed door seal. The leak swelled and stained some of the flooring in front of the dishwasher. The good side is that the damaged sections will be inexpensive and simple to fix, the bad is that it needs fixing. The rest of the floor has held up well, even though it's the main path to the garage and our cleaning lady can get a bit spirited with a mop.

I think the leak would have also damaged wood, and possibly stained grout lines. I don't think the leak would have damaged linoleum or VCT.


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## chrisstef (Mar 3, 2010)

Like you Barry, our kitchen is the main path in and out of the house. Besides the day that we moved in I don't think ive used the front door. I think that no matter what you put down its going to have its pros and cons. Thanks for the first hand user info.

A little searchfu has turned about about a dozen retailers of the WeCork flooring in the area. That's good news as im sure wifey and I will want to put her hands on it before any sort of purchase. I like tangible.


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## theoldfart (Sep 9, 2011)

Stef, when you come up with a product and prices let me know. One of my clients is a flooring company and I can verify pricing for you.


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## chrisstef (Mar 3, 2010)

10-4. Much thanks Kevin.


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## 489tad (Feb 26, 2010)

Chris you doing the tear out? I'm hating that already and I'm not even doing it.


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## chrisstef (Mar 3, 2010)

Sure am. Luckily I know a guy in the demolition business with all the right tools at his disposal. Ceramic is never any fun to rip out but could you imagine the crap id get for farming it out?


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## AnthonyReed (Sep 20, 2011)

And if you get to a part that you can't figure out you can always get the wife to do it for you, like you did with your countertops….


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## chrisstef (Mar 3, 2010)

That's pretty damn impressive that you could come up with a burn this early in the morning. Its 5:30 am your time. I applaud your service to the humor of mankind sir.


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## WibblyPig (Jun 8, 2009)

I'm finishing a cork floor for a customer right now. It was 12×24 sheets (actually a little smaller since they're metric) and is a glue down. The glue is a contact cement so you can only do so much at a time. It comes prefinished with one coat of water based poly and then they recommend another 3 coats after installation.

I can't remember where she got it but am going over this morning to do the first coat of poly and will find out. They sell everything as a system so you buy the tiles, the glue and the poly from them so you know it will all work together.

I will definitely be doing one in our kitchen when I have some spare time.


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## OggieOglethorpe (Aug 15, 2012)

Chris,

Let me know what you think of that stuff! Since I have to fix the leak damage, and the current floor was pretty cheap, I may consider replacing it.

Thanks!


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## Hammerthumb (Dec 28, 2012)

Sorry Stef - me telling you to get a buffer and a hardplate with open coat. Forgot you were Mr. Demo. Maybe you will get lucky and find cement board screwed down under the tile. I hate demo. Glad I don't do it anymore. In commercial work, the GCs pay companies like yours for that kind of work.


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## ShaneA (Apr 15, 2011)

What, the wife can't do porcelain tile? You need to have the talk with her. Tile is damn near bullet proof, why are you hating on it?


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## AnthonyReed (Sep 20, 2011)

He does what he is told Shane….

Just let it go.


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## chrisstef (Mar 3, 2010)

Good stuff Wibbly. Good to hear first hand accounts, I appreciate it. If the owner doesn't mind, could you take some pics of the seams in the finished product. Wife has a concern that its going to look like sticky tiles and cheapen the overall scheme of things.

Barry - will do. I talked with the boss on it last night and were/she is on the fence about it. We're gonna take a look at it in the store and go from there. In the end this is mostly for resale value so were trying to cater to the mass market and with wood countertops we don't want to put off too many buyers with another wrinkle in the mix

Paul - no worries buddy. Most of the stuff we tear up is on concrete as we don't do a ton of residential work so it was actually a helpful tip on the buffer. I woulda busted out the hilti chipping gun and just beat on it until it, or I, gave up. The slogan around here is "Brute force and ignorance".

Not hating on the tile Shane, well, yea I am. The existing tile we have is cracked, grout missing, and overall pretty heinous so its left an impression. I also despise doing tile work, something always goes wrong on me. Whether its the substrate sucking up all the thin set, the subfloor being out of level, or the grout failing, one way or another tile effs me.


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## OggieOglethorpe (Aug 15, 2012)

Shane, my wife hates tile too…

In her expert opinion, it's cold (looking and feeling), doesn't cushion walking, slippery, hard on accidentally dropped items, and the grout harbors dirt. It's also expensive enough where she feels guilty if her tastes change, and since it is so durable, she feels more guilty replacing it than other products.

I don't mind tile, even though I prefer a bit of give under my feet, but I enjoy living here… ;^)

Back in the day, I used to install tile. I'm kind of glad I didn't have to tile the kitchen, as our floor has a good amount of bounce and undulation.


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## ShaneA (Apr 15, 2011)

Man, for a guy who sells tile for a distributor for a living you guys are bringing me down. They have made advances in grout in terms of stain and crack resistance. Heated floors are out there, improved thinsets and substrates. Plus, given that you went outside the box with the countertops, the tradition of tile is the safe play.


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## brtech (May 26, 2010)

I've installed a good quality engineered (MDF substrate) cork floor in my kitchen and its holding up well. It's about 3 years old at this point. Some scuffs and scrapes, but no water damage, and we occasionally have drips, spills and such around the sink and dishwasher area. I have two coats of poly over it. I looked into the solid cork and decided it was way over the amount of work we would have needed to take up the existing sheet vynil floor, sand or put down another subfloor, glue and finish, not to mention a hefty price bump.


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## Hammerthumb (Dec 28, 2012)

Hey Shane - what distributor do you work for?


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## chrisstef (Mar 3, 2010)

Shane - not tryin to hate. There's a lot of nice tile out there and the industry has made great strides in the product offered but I feel that for a DIY project tile can be one of the harder things to make look good for your normal Joe Homeowner. If things are level and sound there's a lot of work that goes into fixing that. Id be willing to bet dollars to donuts we go with a ceramic of some sort and farm out the work along with the 2 bathrooms.


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## Norm192 (Nov 26, 2013)

We built our house 6 years ago and I installed 5/16 glue down 12×12 squares in the kitchen, living room and hallway. Over 700 sq ft. Two teenagers later the floor still looks great, only some dimples from bar stool legs. I don't remember the company but I bought it online ( from Texas I think ) . It was prefinished . The instructions recommended applying polyurethane after installation. I never did and I have no complaints. Awesome floor. I'd do it again!


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## WibblyPig (Jun 8, 2009)

Here's the finished floor. The tiles are laid in a running bond so you don't get the peel and stick look. As long as your joints are tight, you really can't even see them. The entire floor becomes one homogeneous surface. When looking at it, the only time you can see a line is when there is a big piece of cork that suddenly stops and the pattern changes. Joe Blow off the street (or your wife) probably wouldn't even notice.

And from the other side:


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## chrisstef (Mar 3, 2010)

Cant thank you enough Steve! Ill have the wife take a look at the pics and see what she thinks.


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## HarveyM (Nov 11, 2012)

We went with the engineered click product in our kitchen three years ago. We were nervous about the chance of water damage, but considering the small size of our kitchen (10' x 10' open concept) we decided to try it. So far it's held up well, and we're very happy with our choice.


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## MrRon (Jul 9, 2009)

One house I lived in years ago had 100% cork flooring. It was durable and gave a cushioned feel. I really liked it. It is normally used over a concrete slab.


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## Jontaylor (Jul 12, 2019)

No!! Not about cork flooring, but wood-flooring is best.


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## therealSteveN (Oct 29, 2016)

Possibly you have read this, but a good non sales point of view here, showing the pros, and cons.

Cork itself is an easily degradeable product. Unless it was sandwiched in between two hardier substances it would be torn up pretty quickly, especially in a kitchen. When you are speaking of all cork flooring, you are looking at ground cork, that is reformed with resins, and spit out into rolls, squares, or whatever. Think of particle board, wood and glue mush, that is rolled into 4×8 sheets.

Buy the best you can afford, and it will be a 15 year floor. Compared to something like Bruce hardwood, it is more money for a fraction of the useful life. Note the article says it's an old floor surface, that is coming back into vogue. Not that it's been reinvented, and is drastically better.

I like their guilt example, are we not the cattle barons of using these same resources every time we build? I never flirt with woods listed by CITES as endangered, and wouldn't think of buying a hardwood floor using something "not renewable" so their example kinda sux, but most of the rest is truthful enough. Under disadvantages they just missed the reason it went away, it was always a poor value.

Trendy though.


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## bigblockyeti (Sep 9, 2013)

Rumor has it Stef finished the remodel over half a decade ago.


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## chrisstef (Mar 3, 2010)

Hell i dont even own that house any more lol!

Good info on the cork though.


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