“X‑ray check” for the floor structure

Look­ing beneath the sur­face is advis­able in every situ­ation of our lives – even in our own four walls. When installing tiles, par­quet or oth­er floor cov­er­ings, a mul­ti­tude of ancil­lary products is used. Vari­ous install­a­tion mater­i­als are con­cealed under the wear lay­er. Once installed, these are prac­tic­ally invis­ible. Nev­er­the­less, they may con­tain harm­ful sub­stances that can pol­lute the air inside the room. If you want to be sure that the mater­i­als used for the entire floor struc­ture are low in emis­sions, you should take a close look or ask a pro­fes­sion­al floorer for advice. The EMICODE^® qual­ity seal for “clean” build­ing products provides use­ful guid­ance.

People spend around 90 per­cent of their lives in enclosed spaces – the lion’s share of it inside their own four walls. A healthy indoor cli­mate is there­fore of vital import­ance. Reg­u­lar vent­il­a­tion is cru­cial to ensure a con­stant exchange of air. How­ever, atten­tion should also be paid to the use of low-emis­­sion build­ing mater­i­als. Even water-based products are not auto­mat­ic­ally healthy: Low solvent does not always mean free of harm­ful sub­stances. Adhes­ives, for instance, can still con­tain volat­ile organ­ic sub­stances that pol­lute the indoor air and have neg­at­ive effects on the res­id­ents’ health.

The Europe-wide recog­nized qual­ity label EMICODE^® helps con­sumers identi­fy wheth­er all lay­ers of the floor struc­ture are low in emis­sions. Apart from fin­ish­ing products like par­quet var­nishes, also floor­ing adhes­ives, lev­el­ling com­pounds (fillers) and primers are used for pro­du­cing the floor struc­ture. In addi­tion, there are inter­me­di­ate lay­ers such as under­lays and oth­er mater­i­als such as joint seal­ants. If these products have been gran­ted the EMICODE^® seal, they are reg­u­larly spot-checked for their emis­sion levels.