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Am intrigued by cork flooring. It’s a renewable resource, can be sealed, doesn’t outgas (cf. Sick House Syndrome), and is durable. It isn’t widely used yet, but as a test area, the garage work area seems ideal–with one drawback, and I don’t know how big a drawback it is: The concrete floor would first have to be made
i perfectly
even (although not necessarily level). Is this step a
b major
undertaking?
(One DIY show did this by pouring on a self-leveling coating, but that was in a basement room with four walls and a threshold to contain the liquid. In the garage it would leave a ministep at the garage door.)
Any opinions on cork flooring for a garage workshop? Practicality, ease of installation, maintenance, etc.
Resilient flooring is more comfortable to stand on–but can you get the same comfort level on a concrete floor by wearing running shoes?
Janet
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Janet, Garage floors are designed with a grade outward to the main door. Comes in real handy when its raining and you wash your car in the garage.
Seriously, If you float the floor you will have a larger step at the garage door. But the bigger problem is that once you float the floor don't plan on putting anything heavy weight on it. The float slurry I've used is designed for human traffic and not strong enough to stand up to a car or heavy machinery.
Running shoes help a lot, just make sure your buying running shoes since they are designed to absorb shock. However, running shoes do little for the spine since standing is not a position common to running. Does that make sense?
What you need to create is a floor that will sufficently absorb the intital energry of your step. This will ensure that the resultant reactive energy is not transmitted back up through your spine.
The best item for this is the rubber mat with holes all the way through it. The problem with that is that it gets full of sawdust and is a bear keep clean. The top sealed version of the same product is easier to keep clean but not nearly as effective.
You next best alternative is to lay down sleepers to achieve level then put down a wood floor and if needed, possibly the cork.
I currently have my shop carpeted with a thick jute pad underneath. This works great for me but it doesn't sweep up very well so I had to by a used commercial floor style vacuum cleaner. I left about 20% without carpet and thats where I do all the messy stuff. I've had it this way for about a year now but I'm seriously thinking about going the sleeper route.
*What is a sleeper?
*Janet,Cork flooring really isn't a "new" idea. Many industrial floors have a rubber "cork" flooring, very common in machine shops....Last I knew, real cork is hard to get these days, at least the kind preferred for wine bottles, unless of course you're into Boones Farm or Ripple.b ;-)Other than Steves excellent post, you might also want to check out a fairly recent discussion here on shop flooring, lots of good info there: Click hereDano
*I've specified cork flooring for high traffic locations in museums with success but I don't think that you'd like the results in a shop environment.It's not as durable as other materials such as wood or resilient flooring. When I say not as durable I mean that it's fine as far as foot traffic scuff and wear is concerned but does not handle impact or heavy objects nearly as well as others. Cork is finished like wood so the choice of finish will impact the wear and tear from walking, but you're machinery and dropping boards with nails, and other impact circumstances will leave it damaged.Cork is usually layed in 12x12 tiles with adhesive. With the temperature fluctuations in a garage and some shops you may have separation issues.Cork isn't placed directly on top of concrete. You'd need a new floor (see sleep note below).In my opinion I'd not put my money into this type of flooring and go with industrial rubber mats as mentioned above. Think of all the tools you could buy with the saved bucks!Also, should you look to sell the place the new owner may very well want the garage as a garage and would have to tear out the new floor. This could end up costing you for the install and the demolition.Best,SethSleepers are generally 2x4s placed 16" apart running parallel to each other on a subfloor such as concrete. Plywood is generally placed on top of the sleepers to create a new subfloor that can receive carpet, hardwood, cork, etc.. Most people insulate between the sleepers before putting down the new plywood subfloor. Sometimes a vapor barrier is also used depending on the situation.
*Janet,FWIW, cork flooring was a very popular choice for kitchens and general work areas in this part of the world (Australia), about 20-something years back. As sated above, it may not be suited to workshop flooring, which gets far more abuse than your average kitchen. As kitchen flooring, it's great stuff - good to stand on, easy to maintain and restore (which it doesn't seem to need very often - it's amazingly durable in that role). It has been a lot less popular lately, probably due, primarily, to changing fashions, but also perhaps to cost. I considered cork for my own kitchen, which I'm currently rebuilding, but will probably settle for vinyl-on-underlay, partly because it ends up about 1/2 the cost.IW
*What the heck is cork flooring? I do know about cork grout which is used in building dutch floors which where very common in machine shops. I have removed many a metal working machine from many shops and all were either concrete or dutch flooring. Dutch flooring is where the floor is tiled using tiles made by slicing timbers like a loaf of bread. The rings are visible from the top view. Cork was used to grout this stuff. Without getting into flooring, dutch tile was the best flooring material used in machine shops and my new metal shop will have dutch tile on concrete.
*Dev,Try:http://www.corkfloors.comThis isn't cork grout. It's cork tiles.Best,Seth
*Cork flooring is commonly used in Australia and UK, in the form of tiles, for mainly Kitchen and Bathroom floors. A high proportion of it is DIY as the laying and finishing is very easy.It can be laid directly on to concrete but the sub-base must be smooth since any ripples will telegraph through.It has an excellent abrasion resistance and its impact resistance is far better than hardwood flooring since being resilient it will recover from dents.IMO it is one of the best floor coverings, its only drawback a bland appearance, although it can easily be colored and stencilled. Here is a link to laying instructions on my sitehttp://www.gilhamid.btinternet.com/manuals/cork/corkfloor.html
*I have just realised I used the wrong suffix for the server in the URL. Here is the corrected version.http://www.gilhamid.btinternet.co.uk/manuals/cork/corkfloor.html
*Ian,Now you have me curious as I've not seen or specified cork for shop environments (mainly on the advice of a cork distributor that felt it was not appropriate for this). If you have first hand experience with cork in shops I'd be interested in hearing about long term durability.Also, I like your concrete moisture testing method, but I'm not certain how well that would work in many parts of the US where seasonal temperature/humidity fluctuations are great outside and in a semi finished shop environment. In general we use a vapor barrier/retarder between flooring and concrete pad in much of the US when there are humidity issues. You mention on you website that if moisture is present then something may be wrong with a membrane under the slab. Al least in my part of the country (and I think most of the country), most slab on grade applications don't have a membrane of any kind i under the slab.Thanks for you counterpoint. Please let me know if you have any techniques down-under that we aren't using around here.Best,Seth
*Ian and Seth-I'd be interested in any input you can give me on a cork flooring nightmare I have at my house. I put down a floor in my kitchen of (approx) 12x24 tiles. Followed all manufacturers recommendations, used latex based contact adhesive as they suggested. Finished with waterbased poly. We loved how it looked, finish is holding up fine...BUT...Seasonal movement has turned the floor into a real headache. Gaps open around the tiles of up to 3/8" in areas. If the gaps were even it would be one thing, but they are not: tiles can have a 1/8" gap on one side and 1/4" on the other side. One corner of the floor seems to be hold better, but otherwise its fairly consistently bad. Not only does it look terrible, trapping all kinds of junk, but it feels nasty underfoot. In summer when the humidity goes up the gaps largely close (and you better have the detritus vacuumed out of the gaps when they do!.)The dealer says I have an adhesive failure, but tiles are not lifting so I dont really see how this is the case. They offered to replace the tiles..but since its a DIY the rest is up to me. Because of my complicated cabinet set up which is already in place I dread having to redo the floor (which was already fairly expensive.) One idea was to rout even "grout lines" between the tiles when they are shrunken and put something contrasting into the gap. I'm afraid this will cause buckling however. One thought was perhaps the compressible stripping that goes between the wood on boat decks, not sure what that is or if it would work indoors.All in all a big drag....any advice from folks with more experience with the material would be a great help. Thanks!
*Hot,Terrible! Ian might have better advice that I do about this as it seems this is his livelihood. I don't install, I mainly specify. Here are my thoughts anyway:Something is moving, obviously. It's either your subfloor (you didn't mention what it is - plywood, hardwood, etc.) or the tiles themselves or both. Determining which may be useful.Those gaps seem i very large - 3/8"!!! If you're willing to wait before you take action here are two suggestions for figuring out what's going on:1.) Floor movement. Take yard stick (metal?) and put a hole in end and a 3" slot in the other. Put the ruler across the grain direction of your floor. Drive a nail part way into the hole and another in the middle of the slot. Mark the position of the nail in the slot with a marker and wait. You can monitor the movement and determine what's going on.2.) Tile movement. Cut out a template of say, plexi, that's 12 x 24. Lay it on top of a sampling of the tiles on your floor monthly to monitior movement.Let me ask an out there question. Is your furnance or other heat/moisture source under part of the kitchen possibly causing the uneven changes? Any other environmental issues that could contribute?As for your grouting - I like the idea but I too am not very familiar with the black expansion material that's used in boat decks. I think anything you put between the tiles may become part of the problem if the cause of the expansion/contraction isn't figured out. If you put, say wood strips between the tiles you'd possibly cut the difference in half, but as you say it's not even all the way around anyway.Hope this was useful.Next at bat. Ian?Best,SethPS. Take the replacement tiles. Use them? Sell them? Wait until you figure out whats going on? But take them while they're offered.
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