Stone and Concrete Flooring – Can they ever be Green?
In this series of articles, I look at the different types of flooring and identify which options are the most eco friendly – for you, in your situation, in your location. You can see the other flooring options here.
Concrete Flooring
Concrete is an increasingly popular flooring type, recognised for its relatively low cost and aesthetic appeal. It is very durable, and can be coloured and even made to mimic the look of marble or tiles.
Concrete absorbs daytime heat, feeling cool to the touch, then releases it at night if the temperature drops.
Concrete is made from sand, gravel or crushed stone, water, and often small amounts of various chemicals. If these materials are found locally then there’s little transportation involved.
However, the raw materials are not renewable, and often are collected in ways that are not eco-friendly. Much, much worse is the manufacturing process for cement – the materials are heated to 1450C or 2642F and this process uses huge amounts of energy and emits carbon dioxide into the air. (If you’ve ever passed a cement factory, you’ll have seen it belching).
Alternatives have been used in Europe and are gaining popularity in the USA. Fly-ash concrete is made with fly-ash which is a by-product of coal-burning power plants and used to be sent to landfills. It’s much less polluting than traditional concrete, but it contains a type of chlorine which may have health issues. Slag is another waste product which would normally end up in landfill but can be used to make concrete.
Traditional concrete then, is not an eco friendly flooring material.
Stone Flooring
Stone flooring is also not particularly eco friendly – even though it’s marketed as “natural”. However, there are ways of making it more so.
Take marble for instance. It needs to be mined (it’s often located in the belly of a mountain), and then it needs to be transported to a factory for refining, and then to you. Marble is extremely heavy, so transporting it is bad for the environment. So unless marble is mined locally to your home, then marble is definitely not an eco-friendly option for your home.
The same applies to all types of stone flooring. It’s often mined using non-eco methods, and it’s not a renewable resource. It’s very heavy to transport. You can help to offset this if you use stone which is very local to your home.
As well as using only local stone, you can also improve its ‘eco cred’ by buying stone which has a high percentage of recycled material.
Terrazzo flooring uses cement for its base and so is not eco friendly, however, the ‘pieces’ that make up terrazzo may be made from recycled marble or stone, so you can make a more eco-friendly choice by insisting on a high percentage of recycled materials.
Some stone flooring is made of agglomerates, which are manufactured by binding natural stone chips in cement, epoxy resin or polyester. So it is similar to terrazzo in terms of eco cred.
Neither concrete nor stone would be my flooring of choice from an eco-friendly point of view.
Related Articles:
Bamboo Flooring – is it REALLY eco friendly?
What about Carpets and Tiles
Are wood, cork and lino eco friendly flooring options?
The eco friendly bathroom
Bedroom lighting ideas
Light Bulb types
Photo Credits: Concrete network, hard floor cleaner
Concrete is really not an ecofriendly product at all but I do agree that it can be made at least more ‘eco’ if we are careful in how it is used. In some countries, structural engineers fees are based on tonnages of concrete and steel. It is therefore to their advantage to over design to earn a higher fee. Curiously, it takes far less time to overdesign than to design to a finer degree. Even more profit!
I had no idea that fees could be based on materials used – that seems counter-intuitive – not to mention downright warped. Thanks for that interesting information!
Have you considered hempcrete? It’s a mixture of hemp and lime and is far more eco friendly than concrete and acts as an insulator so your floor wouldn’t be as cold to the touch on those winter’s mornings.
Hi Steve, I like hempcrete – as you say, it’s miles more eco friendly than concrete / cement. The disadvantage is its lack of strength compared to concrete, so buildings have to use additional materials for extra support. I’m hoping they’re going to improve it. I like your website. Thanks for your comment!
[…] concrete or stone floors ever be eco […]
Concrete is used for the slab. These other materials are applied over the concrete that is used regardless. Concrete flooring means stain is applied to the slab rather than these other materials. These floorings should be compared to the stain rather than the concrete. These flooring materials can also be applied over wood joists and subflooring. Joists, like concrete, are structural materials and not actually the flooring. Structural materials are based on design requirements unlike aesthetic materials used for flooring. Joists and concrete slabs are not readily interchangeable.
Thank you for your comment Erick but I’m not entirely sure of your point. Yes, concrete is normally structural. And whatever is used on top – be it tiles or other flooring types – is indeed the flooring surface. I agree.
But those other flooring types generally need a structural base to lie on. Because concrete is cheap, it’s often used as that base, and therefore has to be taken into consideration in the carbon footprint of the building.
Also, concrete can indeed be a flooring, if it is simply mechanically polished, with no stain added. This is useful in hot climates as it can be be cool to the touch.
But the point of the article is whether traditional concrete, whether used as a floor base or as a floor, is eco-friendly. And it isn’t.