What lies beneath

Wood floors are renewable and environmentally friendly and can be cleaned easily without the use of strong chemical agents.

Despite the recession, the world demand for flooring and carpets is projected to climb 4% annually through 2012 to 15.2 billion m2, valued at US $178 billion. Features Editor Shikha Mishra reports.

It’s under your feet and mostly forgotten, but floors are important to the look and usability of a residential or commercial building.

From stone to vinyl, hardwood, carpets to ceramic tiles and even materials such as rubber – the scope of floor coverings has grown over the years to encompass diverse materials.

Non-resilient flooring such as ceramic, wood, laminate is by far the most popular type of floor covering worldwide, and demand for these will outpace that for both resilient flooring, which includes vinyl, linoleum and rubber products and carpet and rugs over the next few years.

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A part of the Jamal Al Ghurair Group, Porcellan’s factory in Abu Dhabi was set up in June 2007 with an initial capacity to produce 18 million m2 of porcelain tiles per year in the first phase, with the second phase kicking in
within 24 months which will double the capacity.

“Our products will be available commercially in the market by February or March. The local market is important for us as it will grow tremendously, but we also want to be global suppliers of porcelain tiles,” says Nagi Beshara, deputy general manager, sales and marketing, Porcellan.

Eighty percent of porcelain tiles are used for flooring purposes. “Flooring tiles falls into the category of a major building material and is considered as a finishing product in construction. The beauty of house or a commercial building depends on the finishing of the interior design, of which floors play a vital part. Interior designers are always looking for new trends in floors as well as walls,” says Beshara.

Porcelain tiles as a technical product has a number of advantages. These tiles have better water absorption, have anti-stain, anti-scratch and anti-slipping properties and come in a polished, matte and glossy finish.

These tiles are also an ideal replacement to marble and in terms of size can go up to 180 x180 cm.

Knock on wood
Wood is a popular flooring option, but some experts feel that in Arab and eastern countries, wood is becoming limited to only certain areas, as it is high maintenance and comes with certain limitations such as a tendency to get scratched. Wood floors, particularly older ones, also tend to “squeak” in certain places.

And then there are some such as Pauline Madani, managing director of Nordic Homeworx, who says that wood is the perfect option for floors.

Nordic Homeworx are exclusive agents in the UAE for Swedish company Kährs, makers of wood floors.
“Wood is more environmentally friendly than any other building material. It plays an important role in
counteracting climate change,” says Madani.

Kährs uses wood from forests in Scandinavia and Europe where new growth exceeds that which is felled.

“Kährs has over 3000 suppliers just in Sweden. On an average a forest owner fells and delivers oak to Kahrs once every 10 years. As per Swedish law, for every tree felled, five new ones are planted to guarantee future growth,” says Madani.