Sometimes what you do for work can conflict with your core values. We have already gone through great lengths to minimize our carbon footprint at home. We teach our children about the health of our earth and then go to work and sell a product that is directly in conflict with those values.
Recently we realized that we are blessed to be in an industry that can make a difference if we only work a little harder, take some risks and be okay not capitalizing on the large financial gains of selling products from China. Once we made this decision we realized that having our work align with our home and our hearts has ignited our passion and purpose for flooring and our small part to make the world better.
There are a couple steps to offer the most sustainable flooring and we are so well equipped to do so.
STEP 1: Love What You Have
The best part about Strong Roots is that we provide a service, not just a product. And that service allows our clients to reduce using more trees and re-use the floor they already have. Of course you cannot love what you have if you don’t love the look. Because we are Floor Refinishing Craftsmen we add an element of art to achieve a colour and texture of hardwood that you can fall in love with.
Sometimes our clients have hardwood but want to add rooms. We can source product to add on and then sand all of the flooring to match. Voila! If you stain the new and old hardwood you would never know that the add on flooring was not existing.
STEP 2: Make it Last
Not everyone has an existing hardwood floor but wants a beautiful Insta worthy sustainable floor. We have pre-sourced hardwood floors that are FSC Certified. These floors come from Europe and more trees are planted than harvested. When wood comes from China illegally harvested product can be mixed in with sustainable product. It is very difficult to control what happens when no-one is looking.
Once a product is chosen the key is to be able to refinish the wood in the future. YES, ENGINEERED FLOORING CAN BE REFINISHED. A poorly made and cheap engineered flooring with a small wear layer cannot be refinished. Check your wear layer! A good veneer can be refinished two to four times in the future.
A good hardwood floor should only need to be refinished every ten years or so. We can come back in five years and do a buff and re-coat. This takes one day and is typically around $1.75 per square foot. You will reduce topical scratches and re-vitalize your finish. Some customers do not require a refinish for many years. When it’s time to refinish you likely have decided you want a new colour. Trends change fast. At this time you can change your floor colour to match whatever may be in style without ripping it out. What a great way to save money and trees.
Step 3: REPLENISH
We grew up hearing Reduce, Re-use, Recycle but as you are likely aware this is difficult to apply these days. China does not want to recycle our items anymore and thanks to packaging every thing we purchase adds to our land fills. We’ve decided it’s time to update to Reduce, Re-Finish, Replenish.
You’ve REDUCED first if you have used the hardwood you already have. You’ve re-used by REFINISHING that hardwood or by adding hardwood that can be refinished in the future. Now you will REPLENISH because we have committed to plant ten trees for every 100 square feet of hardwood we refinish.
Thanks to our partnership with Eden Reforestation Projects we are able to plant substantially more trees than we harvest. It takes a ten foot long tree that is at least eighteen inches in diameter to make about 100 square feet of hardwood. Every floor we refinish is saving a tree per hundred square feet and then planting ten. Now that is something you can feel good about.
