Floors

One of the constant challenges with the renovation and extension of Hillside is balancing contemporary design with our environmentally sustainable and ethical ethos. Our choice of flooring materials is one of the many areas where we have had to spend considerable time researching what is the most appropriate as a result.

For the bulk of the house we have opted for UK sourced oak flooring. Timber, sustainably and locally sourced, is by far the most environmental choice with the hard wearing properties of oak making it eminently suitable. But timber in a bathroom is not such a good idea, and for the ensuite wetroom it would be a complete disaster. So for these areas we've selected porcelain tiles. Okay, so there's some embedded energy in their production but they are made from natural materials without a petrochemical in sight, more than could be said for vinyl etc. which is banned from Hillside!

The other major floor material we've chosen, and just installed, is limestone. Used in the kitchen/diner and cloakroom this will give us a hard wearing surface in areas that get damp and/or need cleaning down regularly. We could've used oak, even in the kitchen where there is underfloor heating, but it wouldn't be ideal. The limestone, obviously a natural product, has the benefit of adding to the thermal mass of the floor such that it will help retain the heat from the underfloor heating, whereas oak is a natural insulator and would not have the same effect. Okay, so the limestone has taken thousands of years to be produced only to be used in a house for it's (relatively short) lifespan. So maybe this is one area where aesthetics wins over the environment, but only just. After all timber hasn't got such good thermal characteristics and porcelain tiles have significant embedded energy, neither of which are issues for limestone.

If nothing else this shows one of the many dilemma's we've faced, trying to balance the various pros and cons of our material choices whilst designing a house that shows sustainable design can also be contemporary.