April 2007 - Home Builders Association of Virginia

Hardwood floors are still No. 1 as far asresale value goes and many manufacturershave simplified the installation process. (Photocourtesy of Anderson.)myself: Maybe these people are guardinga secret. Maybe the dirt floor works outbetter than we give it credit.Now granted, this was before I found outabout Triatoma dimidiate, but think about adirt floor: it’s renewable, recyclable, cheap,natural, no one cares if you track in a littlemud, no danger of a shortage and you canharvest mushrooms in a corner.For an instant, I had visions of corneringthe market for dirt flooring in the U.S.This is great, I thought. I’m having anoriginal idea but, alas — out there onthe fringes of “green” architecture andnatural building, reported in the liberalpages of treehugger.com and The New YorkTimes — someone was already remodelingfloors with dirt. To be precise, not makingdirt floors but earthen flooring. Which isdifferent in that only dirt from earth isused. But more about that later.Booming businessTalk to most real estate agents, andhardwood still wins out on resale value.An often-quoted statistic is that 11 percentof the single-family homes built in theUnited States in a year have hardwoodgreatest sales increases are expected inthe laminate lines.As installation methods and coatingsimprove, wood floors are developing areputation of being more practical thanbefore. At the same time, engineeredwood has made gains in durability andwater-resistance, and remodelers are ableto satisfy a desire for wood and naturalsurface (including tile and stone) floors inbasements and in less expensive homes.Laminate and engineered product installationis based on joining sections together, whichcreates a strong, solid surface. A foam mat,or underlayment, cushions a laminate floorfrom beneath, giving it the comfortable feeland the name of “floating floor.” No glueis used to hold it in place.Through the research and developmentof companies like Anderson and ArmstrongFloors (which also owns Bruce), people arelikely to remodel with more exotic-appearingwood. It comes from that human impulseto differentiate ourselves from the crowd,an impulse just slightly stronger than theone to fit in.Several of the press releases for this(See floors, page 25)rem o d eli n g roundtableThe dirt on floors by J. Ray Grayfloors (Source: NAHB’s “Housing Facts,Figures and Trends 2004”). However,the prediction for growth in the flooringindustry is leaning toward laminates.The pronounced improvement in laminateinstallation methods has made it easy forremodelers to use natural products andvery natural-looking products to createwarmth and character in a home. Mostof these can be installed directly overvinyl or other floor coverings.In this country, hard-surface flooringis a $6.3 billion industry that continuesto grow. Builder News (January 2006),referencing a study by the FreedoniaGroup, says the demand for hard-surfaceflooring will increase 5.5 percent annuallythrough 2009. High-end products likehardwood, bamboo and laminate flooringhave the highest market penetration. TheI was making small talk about my floorremodeling plans, and the taxi driver quipped,“Most of the world sleeps on dirtfloors.” That’s just crazy talk, I thought. Ican’t track a grain of dirt into my housewithout infuriating management, and this guyclaims most homes have the dirt designedin from the ground up. Not just a few, butmost of the homes in the world.Studying his taxi ID, I replied, “SoOswaldo (his real name), is that how itis in Costa Rica?” He looked at me inthe rear view mirror and just smiled aswe pulled up to the curb.Could it be true? Just minimal researchusing the demographics available fromsites like Inter-American DevelopmentBank, Amnesty International and Habitatfor Humanity shows country after countryas having a majority of shelters with dirtflooring. Take Peru, for example. Nearlyall of the rural shelters are on dirt, andeven in urban areas, 77 percent of thepeople live in slums and make their bedson dirt as well. In Bolivia, 69 percent of allhomes have dirt floors, which representsanother several million people. I thought toExotic wood floors are in this year and userfriendlylaminates that have captured that exoticlook are in high demand. This Merbau look alikefrom Quick-Step’s Elegance line gives homeownersthe visuals they like without the high cost andupkeep of an exotic wood floor. Shipped in threelengths, the product features three very slight toneshades that realistically mimic the species.April 2007 Virginia Builder 21