Buying Natural Seagrass Floor Covering

Guide to natural seagrass flooring including the pitfalls to watch out for and the reasons fitting is more involved than carpet.
description | wear factors | price | widths | fitting | stairs | useful seagrass links

picture of seagrass roomsetDescription - feel, colour, lifestyle

If you've never seen or handled natural seagrass flooring simply think of rush matting, picnic baskets or straw hats to get the idea. It is a harder textile to the touch compared to sisal, jute or coir but is woven with similar traditional weave patterns like basketweave, boucle and herringbone.

You will also notice a natural waxy quality which is indicative of a plant whose natural habitat is under water and therefore needs to maintain integrity of structure whilst wet.

As seagrass is resistant to moisture absorbtion it is practically impossible to dye. Colour is consequently a natural corn hue (think corn dollys and baskets) so you can have any colour you like as long as its a natural browny gold!

Attempts to make it a little different have been achieved in the weave, either by large basketweave bands or by threading coloured strands of sisal through it. Fine seagrass weaves have a greener hue to them because the plants are harvested earlier.

Seagrass being quite hard means it is not going to be the ideal choice for lying on in front of TV or in teenage bedrooms. It isn't as rough as coir or sisal - it's just harder and just as likely to give you carpet burns.

Whilst NO natural floorcoverings are ideal for kitchens and bathooms, if you simply have to have one then seagrass would have to be the choice. Staining and shrinkage will likely be an ongoing nightmare to live with in these rooms.

Wear factors - less hard wearing than wool, stain resistant, intolerant of disturbance

Whilst harder than the other natural plant floorcoverings, its hard brittleness compares less favourably than wool or nylon under foot traffic. You will likely get good wear for 10 -15 years under normal domestic conditions and the importers rate it as heavy domestic.

The natural waxy feel of seagrass consequently makes it the most stain resistant natural flooring and although it is possible to have it treated with Intec stain resistant spray it is not as vital as it is for coir or sisal (where it really is a must).

Once fitted it will not take easily to being relaid after lifting (so don't if you can avoid it). Radiator pipes and architrave will prove likely first contenders to show fraying if it's disturbed.

Price - lower cost than sisal

Natural seagrass floorcovering is around half the cost of sisal and only slightly more expensive than most coirs. If your budget is tight then seagrass will save you the necessity of stain protective treatments. Like coir and sisal, seagrass wil involve you in greater fitting costs than conventional carpet.

Widths - 4 metre (with tolerance)

Seagrass is limited to 4 metre (13') widths. A slight tolerance beneath maximum widths is common in natural fibres so don't count on 4 metres exactly.

Fitting - about stairs, gripper, underlay, adhesive and acclimatising

It needs to be understood that seagrass is fundamentally an ethnic product which would have been laid as loose mats in more basic architectural surroundings than we have in the west (i.e. huts). Western taste has demanded it be adapted to wall to wall fitting - this has been achieved quite successfully but gives rise to a larger proportion of complaints than carpet.

Fitting natural seagrass flooring is more expensive than normal carpet fitting - there is more involved - both in labour and materials.

  1. Most people tend to have seagrass fitted on underlay, which needs to be the urethane type as opposed to ribbed rubber.
  2. Gripperods are not appropriate because seagrass is hard and therefore does not sit in the gap between the gripper and wall - it tends to arch leading to soft, raised "edge bubbles".
  3. Sticking (or stapling) the underlay to the floor, then sticking the seagrass to the underlay is the preferred method of laying, and probably the only one that gets a guarantee.
  4. You can have the seagrass glued straight to the floor without underlay which will give a firmer feel more conducive to moving chairs upon (think home office/dining).

TIP: Use rubber mats for chairs with castors.

Seagrass and stairs - unsuitable and dangerous

Don't even think about seagrass for stairs. Apart from its natural resistance to bending, the hard waxy surface is considered too slippery and hence dangerous for anything but flat rooms.

Some people recommend putting seagrass onto stairs by laying it side on so the weave gives better grip - of course there is always somebody that thinks their seagrass will be OK on stairs (commonly met in the local casualty department).

Useful Seagrass links

Crucial Trading - seagrass range; get free samples

Alternative Flooring - seagrass (& mountain grass) range; get free samples; free brochure

Kersaint Cobb - seagrass (& mountain grass) range; get free samples; free brochure

Facts about seagrass - facts about its production, geography etc

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