Linoleum Flooring

Linoleum flooring is a type of resilient flooring that can be applied with adhesive over a number of different substrates (concrete, seamless floors, tile, marble, approved wood, old resilient flooring, metal). It is primarily composed of natural and renewable oils, tree resins, and fillers. The products surveyed for this common product update contained up to 30% pre-consumer recycled content in the form of linoleum production scraps and recycled wood/cork powder. Pre-consumer recycled linoleum used as filler was considered to have the same composition as the remainder of the flooring, and the percent weight attributable to it was distributed among the individual chemicals accordingly. Linoleum typically comes in 2.0 or 2.5 mm thick rolls or in tiles, although at least one product that was not considered in this review is available that can be poured and cured on site. The 2.5 mm thickness is most common in commercial products. The linoleum sheet or tile is typically comprised of linoleum sandwiched between a woven jute backing and a factory-applied UV-cured lacquer. Some products substitute a polyester fabric in place of the jute backing, or add an additional cork or polyurethane foam layer to the backing to provide acoustic insulation, or come as click tiles that include a high-density fiberboard (HDF) layer on top of a cork layer. Such products were out of the scope of this review. Linoleum comes in a variety of colors and the color runs through the entire thickness of the tile. This survey focused on white or neutral-colored linoleum sheet products; other colors will require the addition of pigments with different CAS numbers and potential health hazards. While not found to be common, some linoleum may additionally use tall oil in the binder. After linoleum has been installed most products require daily maintenance in the form of mopping, with periodic machine scrubbing and/or buffing. Some linoleum products also need to have polish applied a few times per year. Restorative maintenance may include application of a stripping solution prior to applying the polish. If properly maintained, linoleum flooring will last 35-40 years.

A historical version of this CP is available here: https://pharos.habitablefuture.org/common-products/2180592