Rubber tile

Description

Both natural and synthetic rubber have been used to product rubber flooring in the form of tiles and sheets. As early as 1853, Charles Goodyear described a waterproof flooring made from painted canvas with a rubber varnish. In the 1870s, rubber tiles were used for English courtyards to deaden the sound of carriages. The first patent was issued for rubber flooring in 1894 to Frank Furness for interlocking rubber tiles. The small tiles (about 2 square inches with dovetail connectors on each side) were held in place with friction rather than adhesive. By the early 1920s, Goodyear introduced a hard, continuous sheet rubber flooring that was glued directly to the subflooring. Rubber flooring is composed of a mixture of rubber, oil, sulfur (for vulcanization) and fillers (clay, chalk, barite, asbestos, wood and/or pigments). Synthetic rubber, used since the 1930s, provided more durability and chemical resistance.

Synonyms and Related Terms

rubber flooring

Risks

• Ozone, heat and light degrade rubber.
• Some oils (pine oil), solvents (naphtha and turpentine) can soften and stain rubber tiles.

Resources and Citations

Sharon Park, "Rubber Tile", in Twentieth-Century Building Materials, T. Jester (ed.), McGraw-Hill: New York, 1995.