What Is Cork Flooring? Pros, Cons, Cost, and How It’s Made

It’s true: Cork can do a lot more than keep your favorite wine fresh. Since the early 1900s, natural cork—which is the bark of Quercus suber, or cork oak tree—has also been used as a flooring material. Offering a comfortable, soft surface to walk on plus easy maintenance and longevity, cork is an increasingly popular alternative to traditional flooring choices like carpet, hardwood, or tile. Here’s what you need to know.

What Is Cork Flooring?

Cork flooring is—you guessed it—flooring made of cork, which is a natural substance harvested from the bark of mature cork oak trees. Cork flooring can be purchased in click-together planks or glue-down tiles (though the latter isn’t as DIY-friendly and is better suited for professional installation). Fully waterproof options are available, too, which means you can use cork flooring in just about any room you desire, from the bathroom to the bedroom to the foyer.

All cork looks at least a little bit like, well, cork, which may not work with everyone’s home aesthetic. However, these days, there are many different finishes available to choose from, offering you plenty of customization options for various living areas. 

Cork Flooring Pros and Cons

So, how has cork wound up outside of wine bottles and on floors across America—and beyond? 

For starters, cork is far softer underfoot than many other traditional flooring options, like tile and hardwood. Along with making for a more comfortable step, cork is also naturally sound-absorbing, which can dampen noise and reduce echoes in noisy households or those with small children. It might even offer some protection when you drop a water glass or your phone.

However, cork doesn’t have the damage resistance of hardwood flooring options, and pets and furniture can easily cause scrapes or unsightly divots in the material. Plus, cork is prone to fading with prolonged sun exposure, so keep that in mind when deciding where you want to install it. 

Here are some more cork flooring pros and cons to consider:

How Much Does Cork Flooring Cost?

Cork flooring costs between $5 and $10 per square foot, with professional installation adding $2 to $4 per square foot. If you choose to use glue-down tiles instead of click-and-lock planks, the cost doubles, but it’s still likely to be cheaper than the cost of hardwood flooring.

Cork Flooring Maintenance

Maintaining cork floors is very similar to maintaining wood floors. You need to regularly sweep and mop cork floors and use felted feet on sliding furniture to help keep it from scratching the floor. You’ll want to hire a pro to resurface the polyurethane finishing coat once every three to 10 years, depending on how much traffic the area sees.

How Is Cork Flooring Installed?

Cork flooring first needs to acclimate to your home. The retailer will deliver all the materials, and the boxes will be left open and otherwise untouched for a few days. Then, you or a pro will need to clean the subflooring and ensure it’s level. Leveling an uneven floor isn’t a DIY job, so if you notice issues with your floor, call in a local flooring company to fix it, even if you’re DIYing the final installation. Next, you or your pro will install a moisture barrier before moving on to the cork plank installation. 

Click-together planks are very simple for DIYers to handle if you want to save on labor costs. But keep in mind that flooring jobs are labor-intensive, so it may be worth it to hire out for this project and save yourself some back strain. Additionally, the adhesive on glue-down cork planks sets very quickly, and it can be difficult to line things up perfectly flat and straight. Definitely call in a pro if you opt for glue-down tiles. 

Is Cork Flooring Environmentally Friendly?

Eco-friendliness and responsible harvesting are huge issues in the flooring industry. Some types of flooring aren’t very eco-conscious. For example, ipe, a popular hardwood, is endangered according to the CITES Appendices and may be the victim of illegal harvesting practices, according to a study from Chalmers University published by Phys.org. 

However, cork doesn’t have those problems. Cork harvesting doesn’t permanently harm the trees, which are evergreen. The flooring is harvested from their bark, and harvesters do not need to chop down the trees to collect the bark. Additionally, it takes only 10 years on average for the trees to regrow their bark.