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In
the making of natural cork floor tiles some of the cork bark is ground up and
sorted into a variety of granular sizes, some is broken into a variety of chunk
sizes, and some is cut into small blocks of varying sizes. These particles, chunks,
and blocks are used alone and/or intermixed to form a variety of styles.
Some tiles, primarily those with small to medium particles,
are produced as solids where the pattern of the cork style
continues right through the entire flooring tile. Others
which contain large pieces or show the cork more naturally,
are produced as veneers due to cost and limited availability
and are agglomerated to a sheet of granular cork to produce
the final flooring tile.
Temperature, humidity, pressure, curing times, and standards
and controls employed during the manufacturing process
are all important factors that affect the quality of the
final product. The floor tile brands produced by a variety
of manufacturers range in quality. It is important to
know the quality of the tile brand as the quality will
affect your final results.
Our natural cork floor tiles are of a very high quality. The following
are important factors that affect the quality of natural cork floor tiles:
Our tiles are stabilized during a carefully
controlled manufacturing process monitored by an on-site laboratory and by a carefully
controlled aging and curing process to withstand on-site relative humidity levels
as high as 50% during installation.
Our tiles are 4 mm of all natural cork including
a generous layer of veneer. On the popular medium bevelled tile the substrate
of the tile does not show.
Our tiles are compressed to produce a firm yet resilient flooring while maintaining
the maximum benefits to be expected from the natural cork. Resiliency is one of
cork's natural qualities. Cork will give and then slowly rebound in whole or in
part depending upon the weight of the object, the length of time the object is
in one location and the size of the area making contact with the floor. A cork
floor gives slightly from normal walking and recovers to its original shape. Cork
is one of the softer type flooring coverings and it is recommended that flat felt
pads be applied to the bottoms of furniture and similar items to spread the weight
and reduce the indentations as much as possible.
Our flooring tiles have a smooth yet porous surface
allowing for maximum binding of the finishing liquids
to the cork.
Our flooring tiles are pure natural cork with only
the proper amount of resin added for the binding of the
cork particles.
The particles and pieces in our flooring tiles are
tight to each other as is expected with each cork style.
West
Cork currently carries 6 styles of natural cork floor tiles as listed on our current
retail price list. All of our 100 series tiles are solids, i.e. the pattern of
the cork style continues through the entire thickness of the tile. All of our
200 series tiles are veneers, i.e. the cork style is a veneer layer agglomerated
to a substrate of cork.
The 100 series tiles vary in shade from light
to dark and are sorted into average shade groups of light, medium, and dark. There
are natural differences in shade from tile to tile. Sorting is done to avoid any
dramatic shade differences in a floor.
The 200 series tiles vary in shade. No two floor tiles
are exactly alike.
Full sheet tiles 300mm x 600mm (nominal 12" x 24") are only available
with square edges as they come from the factory.
All cut flooring tiles processed by us are available with
the following edge detail options:
- Square cut
edges as produced from cutting
- Optional small bevels of approxiamately
1.0 mm
- Optional medium bevels of approxiamately 1.5 mm
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