I'm planning a kitchen renovation. I have good and solid 3/4" plywood
plus subfloor with vinyl sheet flooring. It is in good shape. What
are the thoughts about cork flooring for this application? Are we
confident on it's water resistance? Is it durable enough to withstand
dropped knife tips? Does it require maintenance?

Mr. Fixit eh

Steve Nekias wrote:

I'm planning a kitchen renovation. I have good and solid 3/4" plywood
plus subfloor with vinyl sheet flooring. It is in good shape. What
are the thoughts about cork flooring for this application? Are we
confident on it's water resistance? Is it durable enough to withstand
dropped knife tips? Does it require maintenance?

Mr. Fixit eh

The following info pertains to click together floating cork floors. I
don't have any experience with glue down cork tiles.

We've got Granorte click together cork flooring in our kitchen and love
it. We installed ours directly on our 3/4" plywood subfloor. If you are
installing a floating floor, your surface should be just fine. That's
what great about the floating floor, you can put it directly on top of
your vinyl.

As for its water resistance, it's not the cork you have to worry about,
it's the HDF they use to make the panels (which could get wet and swell
if enough liquid gets in the cracks). This is something you'd have to
worry about with any click together flooring, not just cork. Some cork
companies recommend a sealer in the kitchen (which makes the floor look
very shiny and not very nice in my opinion). Our company simply said,
make sure wipe up liquids and due to high traffic in kitchens, in a few
years we may want to do a light sanding and put on another layer or 2 of
water-based polyurethane.

As for knife tips, I haven't yet dropped a knife. Most knives I've used,
the handles are heavier than the blades, so I'd expect most won't fall
and have the tip stick into the floor (unless you throw it that way!).
Anything I have dropped (forks, spoons) pretty much does a little bounce
and sits close to where it got dropped. We haven't dented or chipped our
floor as of yet.

Maintenance so far has been wiping up any spills and vacuuming. Cork
seems to hide crumbs VERY well which is good if you don't like to vacuum
often but not so good when you realize you've been carrying crumbs
around to the other rooms in the house for a week. :-) Our company
recommends washing with a mild soap and water with a squeezed out sponge
mop (so as not to have standing liquid on the cracks) whenever
necessary. To be honest, we haven't mopped ours yet since we vacuum
often and the floor seems to get cleaned when we wipe up any water
spills. Other maintenance is the possible addition of extra polyurethane
over time in high traffic areas (which would be the same for any
polyurethaned floor).

Due to the softness of cork, we were a bit worried about the heavy
appliances (fridge especially) sinking into the cork over time, then
being difficult to slide out for cleaning. Thus, we made nice, clear
plexi-glass strips to put under the legs of the fridge, stove and
dishwasher. They aren't noticeable since they are clear, and we made
additional pieces that we can set in front of the ones under the
appliances for when we need to pull the appliances out. Our worry of the
appliances sinking may have been unjustified, but we thought it better
to be safe than sorry. Also this way we don't scratch the floor if the
appliances need to move.

I hope some of this helps.

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