Selasa, 25 Oktober 2011

Types of Floors

By James Morrison


There are many different types of flooring, each with its own benefits and drawbacks. Some of these types of floors are ancient and have been used by humans for thousands of years, while others are much more recent inventions.

The first floors were dirt. People lived in caves or homes they had made, and requirements for the floor were that it had to be relatively flat and durable. Packed dirt is comfortable to walk on with bare feet, and requires nearly nothing in the way of maintenance. It can be swept clean, and if a patch of dirt floor gets too soiled, it can be easily dug up and replaced with clean dirt. However, dirt floors have several drawbacks. One obvious drawback of dirt floors is that they are dirty. The room will always smell a little earthy, and feet and shoes will track the dirt around. Dirt floors make for dusty or muddy living conditions.

Another ancient flooring material is stone. While not quite as ancient as dirt floors, stone shaped to fit together have been used as durable, attractive flooring for thousands of years. Sometimes using mortar and sometimes simply fit exactly, even today, stone floors can make for an excellent flooring material. However, stone is not perfect. Because it is a natural material, it has to be quarried and hauled from some distance in most cases.

Stone's major drawback has usually been its high price. Stone's durability translates to difficulty in shaping it into usable floor shaped pieces. Stone's stable nature as a flooring material translates to a difficulty in getting it from the quarry to the building. In a world that transports items by the pound, stone is decidedly not economical to move from place to place. Because of this, stone tends to be more popular in areas that produce it. For example, Arizona has a large variety of stone that is suitable for flooring. Scottsdale, Arizona understandably has a large amount of homes with stone flooring. Carpet Scottsdale often mimics the colors of Scottsdale stone flooring.

Wood is another popular material. Although susceptible to rot and insects, wood is still usually very durable and will last many decades with proper care. Lighter than stone and just as attractive, wood is lower impact and easier on the knees and back than harder floors. Wood is often used in bedrooms or living rooms where tile or stone would seem too hard and uninviting. It is also often used in kitchens, but care must be taken to clean it well or water could cause damage. The kitchen tends to be one of the harshest rooms in the house, in terms of impact on flooring, so if a household contains a large number of people or any number of small children, wood might not be the best choice.




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