Wood as a raw material: sustainable wooden floors
Every tree, every piece of wood is fascinating and unique. We have the privilege of using this versatile, natural product to make parquet floors.
The forest has always played a special role in people's lives: it offers safety, helps us heal, and is a source of resources that are important for our everyday life. Forests are deeply entrenched in us and our culture. For centuries, their unmistakable atmosphere has served as the stage for dreams and legends in art and literature. And it is for this reason that we are proud to give trees a second life in the form of Bauwerk parquet.
Our real-wood parquet floors
The trees that are used to make parquet are not harvested until they are very old. This way these trees get a second life as floors in your home. Also, every felled tree is replaced with a new one. So, real-wood parquet is not only healthy for living, but is also the only really sustainable type of flooring.
We try to keep the supply routes for wood as short as possible. We buy 96% of the wood we use (oak, beech, etc.) in Europe, and only 3% come from overseas (walnut, maple). The remaining one percent includes (coniferous) wood, which we largely use for substructures, and which comes directly from Switzerland.
More sustainability and eco-friendliness with a natural wooden floor
The term ‘sustainability’ originates in the field of forestry and means managing a forest in a way that focuses on the natural regeneration of the forest. Through long-term partnerships, we enable sustainable management in which the very long reproduction periods for trees can be taken into account (approx. 80 years for coniferous wood, approx. 120 years for deciduous wood).
Forests are important CO2 sinks. With sustainable management, we enable forests to maintain their natural CO2 sink function. Because of this, we only purchase wood and wood products from controlled sources: either certified by third parties or controlled by us.
Fascinating facts about wood
Every tree is unique: local conditions and weather leave traces on the look and feel of this material. The wood's individual character is present in every plank of the parquet, creating a pleasant atmosphere of well-being in the room. However, the fascinating properties of wood go far beyond its popularity in interior design:
Sustainable energy source
Wood remains an important source of energy in Swiss households. Although most of them rely on central heating, every tenth residential building has individual stoves or storey-based heating that mostly consumes wood to function. At Bauwerk, the waste wood shavings from production are pressed by machine and used as fuel in the form of wood briquettes - in our case to heat the factory building. In this way, the "waste wood" that would have no other use is still sensibly utilised for energy.
Hibernation
Like many wild animals, trees experience a kind of hibernation. Everybody knows about trees shedding their leaves in autumn. At this point, the tree has already taken many useful nutrients from the leavesand built up a reserve to tide it over during the winter months. In spring, once it is again warm and light, the buds swell up and grow into new leaves.
Switzerland: the land of forests
Forests play a decisive role in the everyday lives of Swiss people. The approximately 500 million trees that grow in the country are more than just a source of renewable, sustainable timber. Forests cover about a third of Switzerland, protecting it from avalanches, rock falls and reducing water runoff. It is also a uniquely appropriate place for relaxation, healing and exciting recreation.
