flooring basics

There are a large set of flooring options - ceramic, stone, wood, linoleum, cork, engineered woods, laminated woods - each one with several alternatives. The best flooring option depends, obviously, on the intended uses, rooms, or preferences... 

See, for details:

Selecting a tile flooring
Bathroom flooring
Kitchen flooring
Basement flooring
Living room and bedroom flooring

Ceramic tile flooring

Ceramic tile flooring is growing in popularity: ceramic tile is a natural, durable, relatively inexpensive and easy to care product. Ceramic tile flooring includes several options, mainly: common glazed and unglazed tile, porcelain tile, quarry tile, pavers tile and brick tile.

See for details:

Ceramic Tile
Tile flooring basics
Selecting a tile flooring
Porcelain vs. other ceramic tile
Brick tile
Quarry tile
Paver tile
Tile Flooring Installation

Non-ceramic tile flooring

Besides ceramic tile flooring there is also - in the tile flooring family - stone tile flooring and cement tile flooring.

See, for details:

Natural stone tiles
Cement tile

Bamboo, cork and eucalyptus flooring

Bamboo is a grass – a giant grass, not a tree – with a very short maturing time, allowing natural and sustainable options. Besides, bamboo flooring is price competitive and yields a floor indistinguishable from other hardwood floors, and as resilient as traditional hardwood alternatives.

Cork is also a natural and sustainable option for flooring, with excellent acoustic and insulation properties.

Eucalyptus flooring is an option you may think about: like bamboo, eucalyptus has a short maturing time, and produces an attractive hardwood flooring.

See:

Bamboo vs. hardwood flooring
Cork vs. wood flooring
Eucalyptus vs. hardwood flooring

Linoleum flooring

Linoleum is an in expensive flooring option, very durable, and environmentally-friendly.

See, for details: Linoleum flooring

Recycled and green carpet flooring

Many billion dollars of carpet are replaced each year all over the world, and since most of it isn’t recycled, that represents a huge negative environmental impact. To minimize it, if you intend to use carpet flooring, prefer a green one, eventually a recycled content carpet.

See: Recycled carpet flooring

Hardwood and Laminated flooring

Laminated flooring is booming. It’s much cheaper than hardwood, looks like hardwood, is moist resistant, but… it isn’t real wood.

See: Laminated flooring vs. Hardwood

Engineered Wood flooring

Engineered wood flooring is a good compromise between hardwood and laminated flooring. It has a layer of wood, and can be sanded, but most of the strip is made of wood fibers.

See: Engineered flooring vs. hardwood

Radiant heating and floor coverings

Ceramic tile is a very common and a very effective and energy-efficient floor covering for radiant floor heating. Other solutions aren’t as effective.

See, for more details: Radiant heating floor coverings

FSC woods

When choosing solid wood flooring, look for Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified woods. FSC certified woods are a guarantee of sustainability and proper forest management.

See, for details: FSC certified wood

Recycled woods

For rustic and old style flooring lovers, recycled hardwood is an option to consider. It diverts wood from landfills, reducing the need for harvesting forests and fabricating new flooring products. But there are cons you should also consider.

See: Recycled hardwood flooring

Floors and thermal mass

Some types of floors (concrete, cement or brick tile and other hard floors...) are sometimes used as a mean to provide passive solar heating to the rooms, due to their high thermal mass.

See:
Basics on Thermal Mass
Thermal mass in floors and walls