Floors are the walking surfaces of buildings and vehicles. Flooring refers to permanent floor coverings and includes materials like carpet, resilient flooring such as vinyl, and hard surfaces like wood, ceramic tile and stone. Floors must meet building codes for safety and require adequate strength, insulation, fire resistance and installation. Common flooring materials include brick, stone, concrete, glass, tiles, linoleum, marble, mosaic, carpet, cork, rubber, asphalt, terrazzo, plastic, and wood. Requirements of good floors include strength, damp resistance, fire resistance, insulation and proper installation.
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Flooring Design and Materials
2. A floor is the walking surface of a room or
vehicle.
The levels of a building are often referred to
as floors and are described in the article
storey.
4. Flooring is the general term for a permanent
covering of a floor. Floor covering is a term
to generically describe any finish material
applied over a floor structure to provide a
walking surface.
Materials almost always classified as floor
covering are carpet, area rugs, and resilient
flooring such as linoleum or vinyl flooring.
Materials commonly are wood flooring,
ceramic tile, stone, terrazzo, and various
seamless chemical floor coatings…
6. In modern buildings the subfloor often has
electrical wiring, plumbing, and other services built
in. Because floors meet many needs, some essential
to safety, floors are built to strict building codes.
7. Requirements of a Good Floor:
Adequate strength and stability
Adequate damp resistance
Adequate fire resistance
Sound installation
Adequate thermal insulation
11. Brick is one of the oldest kinds of flooring,
and remains one of the most attractive and
durable.
, the floor you lay won't be of full-sized
bricks, but rather brick-face tile, which
looks like full brick from the front (and is
the same material) but is thinner, so it can
be laid like standard floor tile.
14. Stone flooring is a type of floor covering
carved out from natural solid rock. Stone is a
rock that has been quarried polished. Unlike
other types of floors, stone flooring improves
with age.and cut. These blocks of rocks are
cut into slabs which are sent to a processing
plant to be re-cut, shaped and
16. Limestone:Limestone is carved out from
sedimentary rocks.
Granite:Granite is quarried from igneous
rocks.
Marble and Slate: Marble and slate are
produced from metamorphic rocks.
18. Concrete floors provide an alternative to
moisture-sensitive flooring materials.
. With fast construction schedules, concrete
may not have time to dry adequately prior to
placing an adhered finish.
There are many ways to color
concrete,before it hardened the Integral
pigments are mixed into fresh concrete to
create through-body color. Alternately,
stains, tints, or dyes can be applied to
hardened surfaces to impart color.
21. A glass floor is a transparent section of
a floor, found most often in buildings.
Usually made of a reinforced glass, the most
common use is as a tourist attraction. Glass-
bottom boats are popular for allowing a
better view into the water. Glass as a
flooring material is used in both residential
and commercial structures. Special
hollow glass blocks known as glass pavers are
often used in combination with
a metalframe.
24. Granolithic floors can support a great deal of
weight.
Granolithic flooring offers a visually pleasing
alternative to traditional concrete.
. Although granolithic flooring can
sometimes make a room feel cold, modern
technologies can restore warmth to this
building material.
27. The most waterproof type of flooring is
ceramic tiles, they can be used as floor tiles
or counter tops, indoors or outdoors.
For outdoor flooring, the unglazed finish is
preferred because of the possibility of
standing water.
Ceramic tiles are particularly suitable for
underfloor heatings due to their ability to
store and conduct heat.
30. Linoleum (informally abbreviated to lino) is
a floor covering made from renewable
materials such as solidified linseed oil
(linoxyn), pine rosin, ground cork dust, wood
flour, and mineral fillers such as calcium
carbonate, most commonly on a burlap or
canvas backing; pigments are often added to
the materials.
The finest linoleum floors,are extremely
durable; they were made by joining and
inlaying solid pieces of linoleum.
33. Vinyl composition tile (VCT) is a
finished flooring material used primarily in
commercial and institutional applications.
Vinyl tile is favored over other kinds of
flooring materials in high-traffic areas
because of its low cost, durability, and ease
of maintenance.
. Tiles are available in a variety of colors
from several major flooring manufacturers.
36. Marble is a non-foliated metamorphic rock
composed of recrystallized carbonate
minerals, most commonly dolomite.
The term "marble" to refer to
metamorphosed limestone; however
stonemasons use the term more broadly to
encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.
Marble is very durable, like many other
stones, it has a strong resistance to cracking,
chipping and can withstand large pressures if
laid on an even surface.
39. Mosaic is the art of creating images with an
assemblage of small pieces of colored glass,
stone, or other materials. It may be a
technique of decorative art, an aspect of
interior decoration, or of cultural and
spiritual significance as in a cathedral. Small
pieces, normally roughly cubic, of stone or
glass of different colors, known as tesserae,
are used to create a pattern or picture.
42. A carpet is a textile floor covering consisting
of an upper layer of "pile" attached to a
backing. The pile is generally either made
from wool or a manmade fibre such as
polypropylene, nylon or polyester and usually
consists of twisted tufts which are often
heat-treated to maintain their structure.
45. Cork is an impermeable, buoyant material, a
prime-subset of bark tissue that is harvested
for commercial use primarily from Quercus
suber (the Cork Oak), which is endemic to
southwest Europe and northwest Africa.
Sheets of cork, also often the by-product of
more lucrative stopper production, are used
to make bulletin boards as well as floor and
wall tiles.
48. Rubber flooring is flooring which is made
from rubber. There are a number of different
formats for rubber flooring, ranging from
rubber tiles which are designed to be
installed as a permanent flooring solution to
rubber pads which can be overlaid onto
existing flooring.
. Rubber flooring specifically designed for
the purpose of easing strain on the feet and
legs is sometimes called anti-fatigue flooring.
51. Asphalt also known as bitumen, is the sticky,
black and highly viscous liquid or semi-solid
present in most crude petroleums and in
some natural deposits; it is a substance
classed as a pitch.
Other main uses are for bituminous
waterproofing products, including production
of roofing felt and for sealing flat roofs.
The primary use of asphalt is in road
construction.
54. Polyvinyl chloride, commonly abbreviated PVC, is
the third-most widely-produced plastic, after
polyethylene and polypropylene.[2] PVC is used in
construction because it is cheaper than more
durable longer lasting alternatives such as ductile
iron.
(P.V.C.) tiles are a commonly used floor finish.
The tiles are made of a composite of PVC and fibre,
producing a thin and fairly hard tile.
57. Terrazzo is a composite material poured in place or
precast, which is used for floor and wall
treatments.
It consists of marble, quartz, granite, glass or
other suitable chips, sprinkled or unsprinkled, and
poured with a binder that is cementitious,
chemical or a combination of both. Terrazzo is
cured, ground and polished to a smooth surface or
otherwise finished to produce a uniformly textured
surface.
60. Wood flooring is any product manufactured from
timber that is designed for use as flooring, either
structural or aesthetic.
Bamboo flooring is often considered a form of wood
flooring, although it is made from a grass (bamboo)
rather than a timber.[1] Wood is a common choice as
a flooring material due to its elasticity and
flexibility.