What is Cork Spray ?

Introducing a new building material, cork spray.  For those of you who have never heard about it, lets begin by telling you cork spray is gaining a lot of recognition and attention here in Canada, we want to be the first  to tell you about it.    Cork spray has been in Europe and in South America for about 15-20 years and has been in Canada for at least 2-5 years.  In Europe they use cork spray on almost everything and the possibilities are endless.  Seventy percent of all cork is harvested in Portugal.   They harvest the cork bark from the cork tree never cutting it down.  The bark on the cork tree regrows every 9 year and the  cork bark is ground into small granules and added to a water base acrylic resin,  making cork spray.  

 Cork spray has tremendous value when compared to stucco. The best way to describe cork spray is, it’s a green alternative to stucco. Cork Spray resembles stucco as far as the way it  looks but, feels soft because of the cork granules in the cork spray.    Comparing it to stucco, we know, stucco is basically cement that is applied to Styrofoam insulation on the outside of a structure.  There is no actual value to stucco (cement).  All the value comes from the foam insulation behind it.  Unfortunately, stucco cracks and is very hard to repair..  Cork spray is flexible and will not crack, chip or peel.   Buildings will naturally shift cracking any traditional stucco that was applied to it.  With cork spray this will never happen as cork spray is flexible, meaning it has give.  It also has great thermal conductivity, eliminating the Styrofoam, if one chooses to.  Cork spray has a thermal conductivity level of 0.086 which is comparable to wool which is 0.056.  If you have questions about thermal conductivity check out our blog “Thermal Conductivity: Why is it the most important rating when it come to home renovation?”  The application of cork spray is a quicker application shortening job time.

Making the Canadian building envelope a more eco friendly environment is where we want to move towards and cork spray is another way to get there.  The more we educate ourselves about eco friendly materials, the better choices and healthier living we will enjoy with our families and our environment.  Our cork spray is a great way to upgrade a structure and add a thermal break to insulate the building.  Cork spray, coming soon to a Canadian city near you!