When it comes to flooring, bamboo is one of the greenest products available. Not only is it a natural product, with little to no chemical additives, but its fast growth rate makes it a sustainable resource. Bamboo is versatile and can be mounted on any kind of subfloor. Do-it-yourselfers interested in installing bamboo flooring should read this article from Green Building Supply, which gives a good set of guidelines. Give it a read and decide if bamboo is right for your floor.
Watching paint dry, waiting for a pot to boil, watching grass grow—these are the tedious moments of our lives. But at least with Rock Solid Floors, the time spent waiting for your floor sealant to dry has been cut from four days to 24 hours. No more moving all your junk out of the garage to the front lawn and having it sit there for days on end. It's environmentally friendly and has a lifetime guarantee not to yellow or fade. The Rock Solid Flooring mixture is made entirely of polyurea and 100 percent solids and contains absolutely no VOCs.
On June 6th, BobVila.com will give away $4,000 worth of hardwood flooring from Lumber Liquidators. That’s absolutely free—no strings attached (outside of normal contest rules)— and you get flooring delivered to your door. I wish I could enter, but I am ineligible (my wife says the same thing). You can submit a new entry every day until the sixth. Enter the Spring Floor Makeover Giveaway here. Good luck!
Engineers know that if you want a system to work efficiently, you must simplify, simplify, simplify. Well, I don't think you can get much more simple than the Cement Solution Concrete Mixing Bag. To use the Mixing Bag, dump the ready-mix concrete into the bag, add the recommended amount of water, secure the bag with the tie strap, mix on the ground for about a minute, and Voila(!)- ready to pour cement. No additional tools necessary. Mixing cement can be a messy, laborious process, but the guy in the Concrete Mixing Bag instructional video demonstrates it while wearing a shirt and tie. The bag is reusable so you can use it for your one-off cement jobs or larger projects. One customer informed the company he used it for a project involving 20 bags of ready mix concrete. A chart is printed on the side of the Mixing Bag detailing the recommended amount of water to add to achieve the ideal mix. Since the bag can become heavy with poured concrete, it is recommended customers mix the concrete close the pouring site. The Cement Solution website has an online store and a store locater so customers can find a local distributor.
As prime remodeling season here in the North races toward its close, I'm left trying to make decisions about heating and flooring before the winter months arrive. Like most homeowners, I want it all. Radiant heat, wood floors, sock-sliding glossy finishes, and an all-new look. The problem is that there's more to it than just raiding my bank account. As I read and prepare, the warnings pile up. To make a radiant hardwood floor installation work within the standard warranties, I'd need to monitor acclimation of the subfloor, installation of the wood floor, and the ongoing humidity levels in my home if I want to keep the floors from checking or warping. Ughh, I have a hard enough time taking care of routine maintenance. In this part of the country, it's hard to get humidity levels up during the cold season. We're always putting pots of water on the wood stove and such. In the warm months, we're often way above the 40%-60% recommended humidity levels. So, I wonder, what's the best solution for me? I could get a humidity monitoring system in the house, which would move me closer to my whole-house ventilation goal, or I could reevaluate the heating solution. Time is ticking... got to get that project finished before the frost. I'll keep you posted.
If you have carpet in your home, or you’re thinking of installing carpet, you’re probably aware of some of the health risks. Installing, cleaning, and removing carpet can pose some pretty serious dangers to those with respiratory problems such as asthma. Carpet can also be a nuisance to those with certain skin issues, as well. Now, I hear all this, and I understand what I’m being told, but I STILL like carpet. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a carpet that was easy to live with? Customweave thought so and did something about it. The Australian rug makers joined the soy revolution and came up with a 100% soy carpet that claims to be a good fit for those with respiratory and skin issues. Using waste product from soy-bean processing—millions of tons per year—Soy Luxe carpet has a texture of cashmere, velvet, and alpaca combined. It even comes in hand-tufted cut pile. Soy Luxe costs about $650 AUD per square meter—not cheap, that’s for sure. No word yet on availability in the US. And I thought that Tofurkey was cool.
