Material for the floor: types and descriptions of floor coverings

Floors in an apartment or a private house are almost the most important element of interior design. The floor covering sets the tone for the interior of the whole room, in its power to create a feeling of ease in the room or to form a ceremonial-official style. If the material for the floor is chosen in compliance with all requirements, the flooring will serve a long and high quality. The main thing is to choose it taking into account the expected operation of the room. For example, natural parquet should not be laid in a room with a high level of humidity, and large loads on the floor surface will be harmful even for the most durable and high-quality linoleum.

Types of materials for flooring

The construction market is ready to offer consumers a sufficiently large number of options for installing floors in both a private home and in industrial premises. All modern materials for flooring can be conditionally divided into rigid, synthetic, natural, wooden and carpet. Before you decide on a particular coverage, you need to evaluate the purpose of the room, the expected loads and the desired interior.

Rigid coatings

Tiles, bricks and stones - all this is a hard material for the floor. Tiles used to be used only for installing floors in the kitchen and in the bathroom. This coating is strong enough and is not afraid of humidity. Tiled floors can be washed using detergents. When the tiles get bored, you can remove it and put another one. With the advent of the installation of warm floors with water or electric heating, it was possible to arrange a tiled floor in living rooms or halls.

For the production of stone coatings, marble and granite, syenite and quartzite, dolomites and dense limestones, shale, gabbro, labradorite are used. If funds are allowed, you can lay floors from jasper, malachite or rhodonite.

Synthetics on the floor

Owners often use synthetic material. For the floor in the apartment, construction specialists suggest the use of vinyl, metal, concrete or rubber.

Vinyl is an inexpensive coating that is practical. Installation can be carried out on any smooth and well-dried surface (with a constant humidity, the vinyl coating can swell).

Concrete is a mixture of sand and cement and has good plastic properties, but is sensitive to high humidity, temperature fluctuations (especially in the larger side). It is subject to chemical and mechanical influence.

Rubber flooring material is a mixture of rubber, cement, chalk, cork and marble chips. Such coatings have a mass of merits, the most pronounced of which are flexibility, strength, resistance to temperature changes and shock loads.

As metal coatings, aluminum and steel (anodized or stainless steel) are most often used.

Natural materials

To the group of natural materials for the floor, you can safely include sisal, cork, jute, burlap and, oddly enough, linoleum. The fact is that originally this material was actually made of natural ingredients: a hot mixture of linseed oil, beeswax, tar is applied to the fabric.

Such materials can be quite expensive. During the installation, there are also features. However, such floors are eco-friendly, do not accumulate static electricity and look very impressive.

The magic of natural wood

Materials for the wooden floor are made from a wide variety of wood species. Oak is considered the most durable and representative candidate, but also the most expensive. Oak floor is able to withstand heavy loads. Maple, beech, elm and ash are also solid grades of wood, from which a durable and wear-resistant floor is made. To soft types of wood, from which a floor covering is also made, include linden, birch, cherry, pine. The disadvantages of floors from such wood include susceptibility to the influence of the biological environment (putrefaction) and a high level of hygroscopicity (moisture absorption).

One of the varieties of wooden floors is a laminate - a multi-layer material, the top layer of which consists of wood. This floor covering is protected with a special fireproof varnish. The material is easy to install and requires financial investments much less than natural parquet, regardless of the wood species.

Carpets

Today, such material for the floor as a carpet is widely spread. In a section it can be seen that the material consists of a pile, a base (a primary gasket), a fixing layer and a secondary gasket (usually latex). On the quality of fibers, carpets can be divided into synthetic (nylon, acrylic) and natural (wool or silk). A big plus of such a coating is the ease and simplicity of laying and replacement when abrasion. The biggest drawback is that in places of "high traffic" the material tends to wipe. And the myth that "carpet is harmful, because it collects dust", can be treated differently: collecting dust, carpet significantly (almost twice) reduces its content in the air that we breathe.

Preparing the floor for finishing

Before you finish the floor, it must be prepared, aligned, that is, pour the screed, which will work as a kind of base or foundation. For the majority of floor coverings, the horizontal or horizontal surface swings should not be more than 2-3 mm on the 2-meter length. At visual inspection the human eye identifies such surface as absolutely equal. The material for the floor screed is of two kinds. This may be a ready-made cement-sand mix or a building compound that is a dry mixture. The cementitious component of most such mixtures is cement. The role of the filler is usually performed by sand of various fractions (large, small, medium fraction) and various additives. They, in turn, are also subdivided into chemical and, in fact, simple fillers. The former include plasticizers, various hardening accelerators, to the second - fiber, reinforcing fibers, light fillers such as expanded clay, crumbs of foam.

Thermal insulation for underfloor heating

The system "warm floor" can act as an additional, and the main heating element of the room. Today, three main types of "warm floor" systems exist: water, electric and infrared. Materials for the warm floor - a concrete screed over the heating element (pipes with hot water, electric wires, etc.) and various types of thermal insulation under it. The widest demand for heat insulators is expanded polystyrene, polypropylene, cork, metallized lavsan film. The use of these materials significantly reduces heat loss due to the fact that the floor elements and structures are not heated below the "warm floor" level.

The choice of the material of the thermal insulation layer for the floor depends on which "warm floor" system will be selected and the assumed loads, which the flooring can subsequently undergo, are taken into account.

Modern technologies: bulk floor

The flooring is called a seamless floor covering, which can be used with equal success both in a private dwelling and in an industrial room. Materials for the bulk floor are special polymer compounds, adapted to high loads and mechanical damage. Depending on what polymer composition is used, the bulk floors can be divided into several types.

With the use of methyl methacrylate resin, the same type of floor covering is installed. With the use of other polymeric compositions, epoxy and cement-acrylic filling floors are created, the optimal locations of which are industrial premises.

However, the most universal for any kind of premises experts consider a bulk floor of polyurethane. Such a floor covering looks very aesthetically pleasing, while having a sufficient margin of strength and durability, are characterized by good adhesion (adhesion) to any base on which they are mounted. The absence of seams makes this floor covering an insurmountable barrier to an aggressive biological environment (fungus, mold), so it can without any doubt be arranged on the balcony, balcony or in the bathroom. Moisture resistance, non-toxicity and hygiene are also characteristic of such a floor. To the negative moments can be attributed a fairly time-consuming process of preliminary preparation of the substrate, which includes careful sealing of cracks, shpatlevanie and leveling the surface.