I have cork in my home-office. Warm in winter, cool in summer, resilient but tough. The chairs roll easily and the dog likes it too! Best choice ever for that space.

How durable Cork and is it ok in living room areas?

I can say that it's soft enough that pet claws can really wreck it, as I learned the hard way. [sob] otherwise, seemed to hold up well to regular traffic.

There are different grades of cork. The snap-lock material in my office is pretty dense and backed with hardboard. A mastiff and a great dane have failed to injure it. The area under my rolling office chair has, after 10 years, begun to show discoloration that does not easily clean up.

I installed cork in my bedroom and I love it. Cat claws have not scratched it, it's quiet and warm. It is blue and beautiful!

We installed cork in a Pacific Northwest mountain cabin, think snow! We have loved it- never for a second regretted it- going on 12 years now. It's in every room, kitchen too, except bathrooms. We just use a sharpie for any scratches- very rare! We used to baby it but we have dogs and now even wear our cross country ski boots inside- no problems. Also appreciate the high R value. Love how soft and quiet it is too. We used Solida cork- Corsica java. It's the snap lock with backer.

Just be careful of the final finish coat on some medium cost cork. Mine is coming off in high traffic areas and as the finish color is darker than untreated cork the lighter color is now showing. I have been using wood stain to treat areas that are worn thru. Not the best solution but it will do for now until we replace it.

@amirault58 - How old is your cork and which brand did you buy? I've sold cork for 6+ years and know that many cork floors can be refinish (but other's cannot). It all depends on the brand the factory finish.

A traditional cork finish (water based polyurethane) can and should be refreshed (more product added without removing the old finish) every 5-7 years. If the old finish is coming off, it means it is time for a refresh (the refresh also seals in the colour patching you have been doing as well).

What cleaners have you been using? There are several common cleaners that will damage the finish much, much faster. I would love to know so I can help you figure out what would be the best option for you.

Sincerely SJ...formerly known as Cancork.

SJ - my cork flooring is Torlys and is approx. 8 years old. The color is Vintage Western Saddle. Where we stand in front of the sink and a bit near the stove the top wear layer is gone and shows the cork underneath. What is the product that you use to recoat this? We have been using a good quality floor cleaner recommended by the company we bought the cork from.

Hi amirault58 - this one could be difficult. Here's the link I'm using to show what you have:

https://www.torlys.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/specs_cork_florence_premier_en.pdf

If you look under the subject .2 number .3 you will notice the finish is listed as "Urethane Finish with Aluminum Oxide"

Traditionally the Aluminum Oxide finishes are super tough to get a new finish over top. They are also poorly coordinated to go with cork as the Urethane Aluminum Oxide (UAO) finishes are quite brittle which means they have a hard time dealing with the flex of cork itself.

The UAO finishes normally cannot be refreshed...but I could be wrong. They normally require FREQUENT application of the Torlys "Floor Dressing" (it is a polish like product that must be applied every 6 months or so and then stripped every 5th application....for as long as you own the UAO finished cork).

https://www.torlys.com/residential/customer-care/product-care/

https://www.torlys.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/maintenance_brochure_en.pdf

Torlys is super-sticky about their maintenance products. The warranty only allows the Torlys Cleaner, Dressing, Sealant and Stripper to be used with their floors. Anything else and you lose the warranty immediately. Please check the cleaner that you are using. If it doesn't say "Torlys" on it, your warranty is void. But you may still be able to repair this floor. Or at the very least you can use some of your left over boxes to repair the damaged area and then continue on using the appropriate dressing/cleaner combination from here-on-in.

The Dressing is used BEFORE the floors show wear through (as in your case) and they are used to prevent wear through. The Dressing is supposed to take all the abuse while the actual finish sits nice and healthy below it. This is the one drawback of Torlys "super tough" finishes. They require the Dressing to prevent the wear through you are describing. Sadly, I have never met a Torlys Licensed deal who KNOWS this is part and parcel of this type of finish (the sales people rarely have enough training to sell cork let alone know how to maintain it for the 25+ years you should get out of them).

https://www.torlys.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/maintenance_dressing_en.pdf

https://www.torlys.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/maintenance_stripper_en_fr.pdf

Here is a link to their "cork sealer". Just in case you are allowed to apply new finish over this floor, here is the link to the appropriate sealer (should be urethane but without the Aluminum Oxide). I HIGHLY recommend you contact Torlys directly to help you sort out the situation. They will be the final word as to whether or not the Premier finish is allowed to be used with the Cork Sealant.

https://www.torlys.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/maintenance_cork_sealer_en.pdf

Good luck. Please list the name of your cleaner. It could be upsetting the whole apple cart (*sigh...darn dealers!).

I put in Forna engineered cork flooring suppled by Cancork 5 years ago in my kitchen. I chose the interlocking planks because I could not find anyone to install the tiles in the area where I live. Cancork supplied the planks I bought. It was sold as a possible DIY, but I had a remodeler do it anyway. The floors do dent, but it hasn't bothered me at all. It is a busy pattern and the dents are really not ugly. Of course, we have a more rustic style in our kitchen. The thing that bothers ma A LOT, and that I would be careful of is that the cork surface chips off and it's apparently not covered by warranty (although reading the warranty, you wouldn't know that--it's only when you ask that they "interpret" the warranty to exclude the chipping and flaking issue.) These are not gouges, they are chips. We used the very expensive Lobo polyurethane that they recommended and applied it exactly according to directions and it immediately peeled up and hasn't protected the floor like they said it would. Disappointed with Cancork and their product, but I still really love the cork. I like the way it looked, the way it felt--just think this is a poor example of the material.

The Loba peeling is very rare - especially on a properly prepared surface. The Loba 2K Supra AT (which was not sold 5 years ago) should stick very very well.

The cleaning, light abrasion and then another clean is all the prep the surface would need. Then the finish is applied and then second coat....let cure for 5 days and you should have a 7-10 year surface.

If you feel the chips are getting worse, you are welcome to put on a new coat of finish. This is what is normally needed. The finish will continue to require a coat of refresh every 5-7-10 years (depending on traffic and wear patterns).

If you continue to refresh the finish - as is normal for this type of cork - you will have a floor that will last 25+ years.

We went through this for weeks with Cancork when we installed the floor. The floor was meticulously prepared per Cancork and Loba instructions. I personally watched the installers do it. If it wasn't done properly, then it was falsely sold as something that could be done outside a factory. It started peeling within a couple of months. No one told us that the floor would chip--especially when we put three coats of Loba on! Cancork keeps saying it's a durable floor and keeps repeating "put on the Loba, reapply the Loba, etc." Well, it didn't even keep the Loba finish in the first place and it chipped within 5 years, so I don't know why you ("formerly Cancork") keep telling us to do the same things that never worked in the first place! Here is a photo of a sample tile that I kept in a drawer--it's chipped! Certainly not gouges or heavy wear!

Cancork says "Our cork flooring has a structural warranty. The finish, or wear surface is not part of the warranty." yet when I go to the link to the warranty it says: "FORNA Residential Installation Warranty DOES NOT COVER:

1. Damage to Forna products due to scratches, gouges, scuffs, punctures, cuts, indentations, burns, accidents, lack of proper furniture rests or any other intentional or unintentional misuse of the Forna products." It says nothing about not covering flaking! We expected to have to protect against gouges and we expected to have to deal with dents. I have felt pads even under our recycle basket to protect that floor. We take our shoes off when we enter that room. We knew gouges were a potential problem, but these flakes are a different matter.

The photo shows an unprotected edge on a sample. These are dry and will chip because of the nature of samples.

And gouging = flaking = same thing.

Can you show photos of the floor a little further back? It looks like Brown Salami. Dark floors will show more damage (visibly) than a natural coloured floor. I've seen Salami (the natural colour/pattern without any stain) take 10 times the beating and NEVER show the damage. The damage is THERE...but it is invisible. The dark stains take more effort (just like any other dark stained wood floor) to keep looking good. And have you purchased some touch-up stain (like a stain pen) before you reapplied the finish?

Show some photos of your floor...not a sample that is dried out and cut with a ragged blade that has been shuffling around in a drawer. Some samples come out of the "sample cupboard" looking like that. It is what cork does when it gets cut.

It's sunny ripple. There are no stains, no dark stains. Gouge and flaking are simply not the same thing unless you get to be in charge of definitions. A sample sitting in a drawer should not be flaking. That's the point I'm trying to make to these other unaware buyers--no sensible average person would say that a gouge and a flake are the same thing. No sensible average person would expect a "tough" flooring product to flake without any wear. And you're saying that shuffling around in a drawer of tea towels is more wear than walking on the floor would be? Fine--but warn potential buyers about how delicate a floor must be to flake/chip "shuffling about" in a drawer of towels. And perhaps you should warn these potential buyers that since cork flakes when it gets cut, they ought to be prepared for flaking edges on their tiles. We have not reapplied a finish. The floor is just now 5 years old! Of course I haven't used a stain pen. The point is not discoloration, it is flaking! I was prepared for dents, gouging, scuffs, and scratches. Not flaking. What about this is so difficult to understand?

Not a gouge, unless sock feet can gouge this floor. It is flaked. The very light part where the flake goes deep into the cork is surrounded by a shallower area where the darker/blacker part has flaked as well. There are two layers of flaking there (which is hard to see from the photo)--not one deep gouge.

Here's a super close up.

It flaked into the medium brown layer and then on down into the light brown layer.

All of this is fine. There is no perfect floor, but Cancork needs to tell its potential customers all the pitfalls and not make it look better than it is. That way people can make an informed decision.

Wear through....time to refresh the finish. A cork floor can receive as many as 5-7 refreshing events over 25-30 years. Time to purchase a colour pen and some Loba 2K Supra AT to add more finish. This is NORMAL wear in high-traffic areas. No warranty will touch this.

These flakes (def: A flat thin piece or layer; a chip.), not gouges (def: A groove or hole scooped with or as if with such a chisel.) actually showed up a year ago. Because of extended cancer treatment away from home, we are only now able to address them. So, although we bought the floor 5 years ago, the flakes appeared after 4 years. "Wear through" was never defined to us (and is still not defined on the Cancork website) as "flaking." Again--a normal average person not trying to be deceptive by redefining words would never equate "wear through" with "flaking off." So we needed to refinish areas that are not high traffic after 4 years now? Because of water damage on another part of the floor due to a broken hose that had water on the floor for 10 minutes and buckled the flooring, we will be replacing the entire miserable thing. You just need to make sure that as you "counsel" these poor people on this site that you give them the entire story:

1. 1. Flaking = gouging= wear through to be expected
2. 1. Begin planning to refinish every 4 years even if your are extremely careful and the floor does not get a lot of wear
3. 1. The "super good" refinishing product is $180/gallon. You will need 3 coats the first time. Who knows how many the second?
4. 1. The warranty conflates the words "wear through" "flaking" and "gouging" so that Forba ensures nothing will be covered.
5. 1. Even with meticulous preparation and following of instructions the Loba might very well not adhere and will peel off requiring another $180/gallon reapplication, and Cancork and their former employees will blame the customer

That's all. Just be honest.

As before, I wish you luck with your next floor. A porcelain tile floor will do very well for you. No wear visible. No maintenance needed.

SJ McCarthy--as before--this is not about my new floor. It is about being honest and transparent with potential buyers from the beginning, which Cancork has never been, and it seems that you have absorbed their deceptive culture although you no longer work for them. Cancork told my flooring professional today that the Loba 2K Supra AT should be reapplied every year. If that's true--at $180/gallon--are new customers told about that expense? So, when I bought my floor, it was every 10 years, then you said every 5-10, but my floor failed after 4 years, and now Cancork says every year? I think Cancork and you are using Houzz to sell a shoddy product without fully disclosing all the problems with this product. I'd like to see just one customer (who wasn't a Cancork employee) who loves this product.

We have Torly's Cork in our family room (7 years) and kitchen (2.5 years). Florence Burled Sandstone Plank.
It has held up incredibly well and is warm underfoot and when the kids were younger they would sit on it to play.

At my workplace they used cork in the kitchen areas and I watched it have heavy use for 8+ years and it looked just as good in year 8 as in year 1.

I would put cork in again as I did in the kitchen as I find it has held up to kids, dogs and every day life and isn't hard or cold like tile and hardwood that I have in other places.

macmartha - I've never met anyone who needed to apply the Loba 2K Supra AT every year. Your professional is incorrect. As I no longer work at Cancork, I cannot tell you who you have spoken to there. Is it possible you have been speaking with iCork Floor?? The iCork Floor employees are more cautious in their approach.

And the Loba WS 2K Supra (a different product) has been used every two years - but not on my advice. It is normally a "personal" decision or a decision made because the cork is in a commercial area. The iCork employees will suggest every 2 years for the lower grade WS 2K. They are fully aware that the US client is traditionally harder on floors (or more demanding of appearance of their floors - is a more accurate statement) than Canadian clients.

Again, I've yet to hear "every year" from anyone who has a long working knowledge of the Loba 2K Supra AT. You may be confusing the two products. Both are "Loba". Loba 2K Supra AT is the HIGH END product with ceramic infused nanobeads. The Loba WS 2K Supra is a traditional polyurethane that is NOT scratch or abrasion resistant.

If you feel so slighted, feel free to move forward with a complaint. It is your right to do so. Again, the person you should be speaking to is Julia at Cancork.

So, is it true that cork in bathroom is a bad idea?

SJ McCarthy, my flooring professional received the advice about the Loba AT in an email from Cancork. As for your assertion that the reapplication would be a "personal" decision--that might be true, but the target keeps moving. If a homeowner applies every 5 years, you indicate that any problems we might have are due to not applying every 4 years. If you tell us every 10 years, we are told that we should have re-applied every 5. Now you say every 2 years from the iCork people, but the very expensive yearly application recommended in an email to my flooring professional by Cancork is too much. There is no way to have warranty coverage of your product with these kinds of vague maintenance recommendations. I just want anyone thinking of using Cancork products to know how difficult maintenance is because of the vague and changing recommendations we receive. The company is not transparent from the beginning and leaves the consumer holding the bag.

Audrey P.--I would definitely not use the engineered cork in the bathroom, based on my experience in my kitchen, and if I did, I would use a very reputable local flooring contractor who would stand behind the product. Under no circumstances would I use the mail order Cancork products. Every contractor I have had in to look at my kitchen floor has pointed out problems with how Cancork instructed us to put the floor down, finish it, and maintain it. These criticisms are from a USAA-preferred contractor, the USAA adjustor, and an independent flooring contractor and installer. I have not found anyone who is willing to refinish/restore the floor using the Loba products recommended by Cancork because they see it as so terribly expensive and fussy with no support in warranty from Cancork, so they are unwilling to work with the product, even though they are familiar with it.

Christine Hatt-Pyne--your flooring is Torlys, which is a different brand than the Forna I used. Did you have a flooring professional install it? How do you maintain the material in the kitchen? Is the kitchen flooring solid cork tile or the engineered cork material?

A glue down cork floor can and should be used in a bathroom. It is 100% cork (top to bottom). It is what is NEEDED in a bathroom. The click-together cork is not a good idea in bathrooms. The HDF core will eventually swell and puff and then become spongy/wet feeling. We've seen this happen in as little as 3 years (low-end product out of big box stores) and as late as 10 years (high-end products worth $10/sf or more).

SJ McCarthy, you said you've seen swollen HDF.

Have you (or anyone else) seen positive results with glue down cork in a bathroom?

Yes I have seen positive results. So to have the Portuguese in their soccer stadiums. And the Spanish in their cathedrals. And the Americans in the Library of Congress. All are glue down floors. All are water proof. All have survived HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of feet passing through every year. And I'm guessing a few dropped drinks along the way (soccer stadiums often smell like breweries after a game).