Cork

We are often asked by clients if we can supply foreign and Eco friendly products as part of their renovation, refurbishment or new build of course we can!

We source many products from wherever the clients want. Stoves from Belgium and Germany, windows from Denmark, stone from Spain, timber from Scandinavia.

It is far more difficult to source a good range of Eco friendly products here in Portugal I think it must be because there is only a low volume usage here and therefore people just don’t stock the quantity or range that you may be exposed to in northern Europe.

A case in point is one of Portugal’s biggest export products Cork.

insulation natural
Cork, Eco products

Natural products such as cork insulation are a “nice to use” product and I would love to use more of it. I was pricing up expanded cork insulation boards recently on behalf of a client who was determined to be as Eco friendly as possible and of course wanted to use something typically Portuguese in her new Portuguese home.

 

The packs of cork were wrapped in shrink wrap plastic (not very Eco) The glue that holds the particles together to make the boards is actually the resin that resides within the ground up cork particles which are super-heated with steam.

cork insulation
castelo construction cork

When I first saw the packs I noticed that the manufacturer was Italian and then I read further and discovered that they were in fact made in Portugal.

As I said a nice local product but beware of the high price! To learn more about expanded cork insulation and related products go to http://www.corklink.com/index.php/expanded-cork-how-it-is-made/