Everyone wants hardwood floors these days, for obvious reasons, its beautiful, easy to clean, and a lot more hypoallergenic. The only real problem with hardwood is the cost. Good hardwood floor can be upwards of $6-$10 a square foot. Then you have to have it installed at around $1-$2 a square foot, so for a 1000ft of hardwood installed, you can be looking at somewhere from $8000-$12000. But installing brand new hardwood flooring is not green at all. Even engineered hardwood is not green. Not only does hardwood have to come from trees at least 100 years old, but they also contribute to deforestation.
So you want hardwood floors, but you don't want to pay an arm and leg and you don't want to kill a forest. Well there are many choices of flooring out there that is much more green, and wallet friendly. From laminate, engineered, to reclaimed hardwood.
Laminate hardwood floors like Pergo or Armstrong click-lock flooring both can be green. They usually come from 10% or more of post-consumer waste and they do not contribute to deforestation since they are not real hardwood. However the process to create these laminate floors does create a lot of CO2, much more than real hardwood.
Price for laminate: Around $1-$3 sq-ft or $1000-$3000 for 1000 sq-ft.
*Another benefit of click-lock flooring is that it is incredibly easy to install, since pretty much the only tool needed is a saw. Click-lock laminate does not require nails or glue, and some even come with under-layment build in.
Engineered flooring like some Bellawood flooring has a layer of actual hardwood on the top layer over the engineered layers. Therefore it is greener than full hardwood flooring, but they do still have to harvest hardwood forests for the one layer, and they also still have to process the other materials for the engineered layers.
Price for engineered: $3-$8 sq-ft or $3000-$8000 for 1000 sq-ft.
Reclaimed hardwood is by far the greenest way to get hardwood flooring, since it has already been harvested and installed in one house and then getting reused in another there is no need for anymore processing or deforestation. The major problem with reclaimed is that you might have to have it refinished. Refinishing hardwood isn't really all that expensive though, usually around $1+ sq-ft. Another difficulty with reclaimed is that it can be hard to come by. Around the DC-Metro area there are a few places to get quality reclaimed hardwood such as The Rebuild Warehouse in Springfield, VA, The Community Forklift in Edmonton, MD and other architecture salvage stores.
Price for reclaimed: $1-$6 sq-ft or $1000-$6000 for 1000 sq-ft.
Another option that is commonly used lately is bamboo flooring. Bamboo is an incredibly fast growing grass as opposed to an actual hardwood. Therefore for bamboo to fully mature it only takes about 3 years instead of 100+ for trees like oak or hickory. However, with the sudden onslaught of everything bamboo, bamboo farmers have been ripping up entire forests to plant it. It is similar to what corn farmers have done here in America, in the sense that a lot of them have stopped growing produce for us to eat, and have switched to corn production for ethanol. Also, nearly all of the bamboo used in all the bamboo related products are from China, it also has to be shipped here from China, so from a green aspect that isn't green at all. It costs a lot of money and also requires a lot of fuel to ship all of that bamboo to America.
So in my opinion, if you are looking for hardwood floor and you want to save yourself some money, try to find some reclaimed hardwood from a salvage store. You will save yourself some money, help reduce landfill waste, and when it is said and done you will have floor with history, and perhaps even a good story to tell you visitors.
