Historians claim that cork was known in ancient Rome. In those days, amphoras were clogged with it. In construction, cork wood began to be used in the eighteenth century. It was then that the Portuguese first tried to use cork bark as a roofing material. In the middle of the nineteenth century, a new way of pressing cork appeared - the emergence of this method gave a powerful impetus to the use of cork as a floor covering.
Cork oak grows in the countries of the Western Mediterranean. The area covered by cork forests is huge. In total, in seven countries, it is more than two million hectares. The main plantations are located in Portugal (33%), followed by Spain (23%), followed by a whole group of countries: Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco (33%), and Italy and France complete the list (11%). The main enterprises for the processing of cork raw materials(more than 80%) concentrated in Portugal.
The cork oak differs from other trees in its two-layered bark. The used top layer is manually removed in the summer without causing any harm to the tree. The first time cork material is obtained when the tree is 25 years old. The average age of a cork oak ranges from 150 to 170 years.
Cork parquet is a natural covering made from cork oak bark. It has excellent thermal insulation properties. It is pleasant to walk barefoot on such a coating, it slightly springs when walking and this relieves the load from the spine. It is hypoallergenic, does not collect dust, and does not accumulate static electricity.
Cork parquet is of two types - adhesive and floating. Adhesive parquet is a 30x30 mm tiles. Such tiles can be varnished. The main disadvantage of this coating is the difficult laying of cork parquet. Careful preparation of the subfloor will be required, which must be leveled with plywood. The main advantage is the moisture resistance of such a floor.
Floating cork parquet are cork plates that are not attached to the base, but connected with locks. Tiles of this type of parquet are multi-layered. The middle layer is hard, made of MDF. The base of the tile is an insulating layer of cork (substrate), and on top is a cork with a pattern. Floating cork parquet is produced in the form of slabs 900x300 mm in size and 9 to 12 mm thick. Both types of parquet can be covered with a thin layer of varnish. If covercork floors with hardwearing vinyl, they will become much stronger, but will lose their natural softness, become colder and slippery.
Cork flooring, which is always rave about consumer reviews, with proper installation and proper care will last more than 20 years. By the way, about care. There are some peculiarities in this matter. Never use metal brushes to clean the floor, so as not to leave scratches. Glue with pieces of soft material - felt or felt - the legs of tables and chairs. But do not use rubber for this purpose, it will leave stains on the floor that are very difficult to remove.
