Cork Flooring Nightmare!

[kp96890]

Hi Everyone,
I am wanting to gauge some opinions about cork flooring and find out if anyone is in the same boat as me...recently I had a coloured cork product laid in our kitchen, lounge and hallway. Since day one we haven't been happy with the product and the business we dealt with was initially very supportive until they found out that the manufacturer wasn't going to put their money where their mouth is so to speak. That was when we were basically told 'bad luck'.
Here are our issues:
-The floor has extensive denting from even very light furniture (I dropped a 90gram tin of tuna the other day and it dented!).
-The floor is very discoloured particularly in the joins of the cork tiles where it looks like the natural cork colour is coming through the prefinished white surface. This makes the whole floor look very dirty.
-The floor has stained, this is despite the business knowing they were laying it in a wet area.
At this point in time it looks like we are heading to VCAT (Claims Tribunal) to resolve the issue as the business who laid the floor has been quite disgusting to deal with and made the whole process extremely stressful.

Has anyone else heard of these issues or know whether this is a manufacturing issue or an installation issue? I would appreciate any assistance anyone might be able to offer.

 

[Ernesto]

What kind of substrate is this cork going over, wood or concrete ? I take it it is glued down and not the floating variety? There's alot of variables that go with this type installetion. So we need to know, substrate, prep, sealer?, adhesive type and so on.

 

[stullis]

Personally I love cork flooring.

While yes it can be dented if you drop something on it, like any floorcovering, it tends to absorb the impact better than anything else on the market.
Generally any light indentations will be less noticeable due to the resiliency of the product.

Sounds to me like you got a very poor quality cork with defective manufacturing.

 

[Jon]

I am from New Zealand and we have two cork supply companies here. May be one of these companies exports to Australia. I know they export the prefinished cork tile to USA. If you would like to mention the brand of cork I might recognize the brand.
A little while ago We laid some white coloured cork tiles. This brand of cork was just painted with no poly on the surface as the 3 coats of polyurethane is applied when the laying is finished. This brand of cork ended up with little brown spots which an independent inspector thought it was caused by the floor sander sweating when he was putting on the 3 or 4 coats of polyurethane. This lot was lifted and replaced by another cork supply companies cork.
The new white coloured cork was prefinished with the poly already on the tiles, 3 coats I think. We did notice that the beveled edges were not really covered with the white paint leaving those dark lines you mention. I think they apply the paint with a paint roller so it doesn't really cover the bevel. The supplier of the cork came down and touched up all the edges with a little paint brush. With this system the final coat of poly is put on when the laying is finished which seals the whole floor
I don't know if this has been any help to you but it might explain some things
Maybe you can tell us what the process of your job was? Did the cork tiles come prefinished with the poly already on them?
Do you know how many coats of poly were put on the cork if they were not prefinished? As I am only a layer and don't apply poly I would think the more coats of poly would give the cork more toughness to prevent the denting

 

[PaulLynch]

What needs to be remembered is cork is a natural product, therefore manufacturers don't have a lot of control over it.
There will always be natural variations in colour/shading etc.
With the advent of coloured cork a whole new buch of issues have arisen. In my humble opinion cork should never have been coloured - it's a natural product, leave it alone!
Over the years I have installed a fair few coloured cork jobs, and every single one of them there have been complaints about the product, which initially, as we all know, falls on the installer - cos it must be his fault, right!

Nowadays, I point blank will not install coloured cork.
I will install 'natural' cork, but I will not apply the polyurethane.
I believe the sanding/polyurethane is a specialist area which I am not suitably qualified to do.

Apologies for rambling on a bit.....I just do not like coloured cork.....

 

[kp96890]

Thanks for the replies. The cork tile is by Premium Floors and is supposedly a pre-finished tile. The place where we purchased the cork also installed the cork and they put one coat of sealer over the tiles, in some places it looks like it may have just soaked in. It has been layed over a timber floor and they put a masonite sheeting down first.

I agree that cork just shouldn't be a coloured product, it is not as resilient as natural cork which I assume is because it hasn't been sanding back and had numerous coats of sealer like an installer would do with natural cork. We have also started to notice that in some corners of the tiles (they have bevelled edges) they are breaking and crumbling.

I have spoken to another installer in my area who also refuses to lay coloured cork as he doesn't want his name associated with it. I also wanted him to look at our floor and write a letter which may be needed at VCAT, however the business that we are dealing with had already spoken to him and because he sub contracts out to them sometimes so it's not fair to put him in that situation. So any help that anyone could provide regarding coloured cork would be fantastic.

 

[Ernesto]

Never have liked the white cork finish myself. White anything is a poor choice and shows everything. It also wears poorly.

Cork is a resilient product. Yes it dents easily. Some furniture indentations may come back, some won't. Dents are a consumer care/maintenance issue, not the manufacturers.

 

[Jon]

kp96890 I Googled Premium Floors and their cork tiles seem to be the same system of one of the suppliers here. According to their site the MJO Cafe Collection tiles are already pre-finished with 3 coats of polyurethane, which is the same system as the replacement tiles I used on that job.
I have laid lots and lots of cork tiles with this system and the only trouble we have had was as I mentioned above about the dirty line on the bevel. All other colours we have never had a problem, just the white ones
I am not a floor sander or a polyurethane expert but I cant see what the difference is if the cork tiles already have 3 coats of poly put on in the factory as the pre-finished and a final coat when laid or the 4 coats of poly put on your floor as in the old days
I believe the cork tiles we get here are the natural ones, just painted
Re the breaking and crumbling I would guess they have been broken when the layer was trying to force the cork tiles in against the wall or around door frames
Do you have a Flooring Association in Australia who might be able to do an independent inspection for you?

 

[Twomly]

Wicanders is about the best when it comes to cork not sure if its still done but theirs use to be sandwiched between a top clear uv layer of vinyl and a white pvc bottom layer, they had many different colours but all natural and colour depended on the region the cork was harvested from nothing was ever dyed or artificially coloured.
The expossed edges of the tiles were dipped in a varnish sealing agent so when installing if you cut through the tile you had to re-seal it. They came in planks,tiles, and flags of all different sizes.
Cork is becoming a big favourite again as it ticks all the green boxes and its recently been discoverd that a plantation of only 1 achre can reduce your countrys carbon foot print by 10%.
It is a natural product and should be treated like one, there are some companies out there that are making very poor quality cork tiles then again there some making some top notch ones and have been doing so for many years these are the ones I stick with and not the ones just opened up and jumped on the band wagon, I wonder how long had they been making cork tiles.

 

[Twomly]

Still available and the best IMO http://www.wicanders.com/client/skins/geral.asp? have a look they even do a click system now.

 

[Ernesto]

USfloors makes some nice cork in the states. http://www.usfloorsllc.com/products/natural-cork-collection/

 

[VillageCarpet]

We sell ipocork but it doesn't really sell too much. It's click and also already pre finished. They manufacture US cork and floor mentioned about

 

[Jon]

These people a a fairly large player in the cork market in NZ
http://www.corkconcepts.com/
They use a similar process to what kp96890 has on their floors by Premium Floors as far as I can tell
I still reckon cork should look like cork. Not painted

 

[TheFloorguy]

Cork has to be very dry, to break and crumble easily.

 

[carpetone]

I'd encourage you to give Torlys a look. They've got a decent line of Cork as well.

http://www.torlys.com/cork

 

[LeePelletier]

Sometimes someone gets a floor before they know if they want it or not. I had a client 6 weeks ago that was complaining about the uneven lines in the marble tile we put in. Ah, Sir, that is called "marbling". That's why they call this "marble".

Cork is the "bark" of the cork tree. It is soft, and can dent. My experience is, the dents often (not always) slowly come out. That's the resilient part of the cork. But we can't blame cork for denting. That's not a quality issue. That's cork.

The light color will make the edges of the tile more visible as dirt can be more easily trapped there. Again, light colors = problem maintenance in my opinion. I've had people tell me that white carpet shouldn't get dirty and they shouldn't have to clean it. Really? Put a white sweater on the floor and walk on it for a year. Of course it will get soiled.

If the original poster is talking about the finish itself being thinner at the edges, that's a different matter.

And yes, cork can stain, as every bottle of wine I open readily attests. In fact, any floor covering can stain. ANY. Some are better than others. For instance, cork can water-mark, while ceramic tile does not. Water absorption can damage cork.

So, kp98690 has a cork floor, but is telling us that they don't like the things that cork does naturally. Perhaps a cork floor should not have been installed. The issue for VCAT is going to be representation. Did the seller represent cork as a good product for a wet area, or did the client come in and say "I want cork". That's an area I am not going to attempt to answer since I have absolutely no knowledge of that issue.

I do wish kp98690 good luck. It's no fun getting something and then realizing it's not the right thing. We've all done it. You are in good company.

 

[Guts01]

I am a cork colourest and can tell you a couple of facts, we used to colour cork with solvent based colours which gave you a beautiful cover but didn't seam right on a natural product and with the introduction off water born poly we swapped water base colours. now with certain level of skill you can do a very excellent job unfortunately skilled people in this area are few and far between. as for cork dents cork comes in 3 grades of density low medium and high, high density will dent but should reform after time. it also comes in shades as cork is baked like bread so as you cut to the middle it gets lighter and darker towards the outside. care has to be taken getting all the same shade when colouring our end result will vary. Natural cork is brown in colour being a bark and water born poly bleaches the cork to bone white after you have coloured it which also needs to be considered. as for the bevels a gain that is a skill set lacking as manufactures keep hiring cheep labour to get better returns. It is far more complicated than just rolling paint.

 

[Ernesto]

From what I have read the cork is boiled after harvesting. At what point is is baked?

 

[Ken]

I think the author is a little baked! Bazinga!