Bamboo Flooring for Idiots
Posted on December 11, 2008 in the Renovating category
You’ve probably heard about bamboo flooring recently. After all, this interesting type of flooring has been getting a lot of attention.
However, you might not know exactly what is meant by bamboo as a flooring material. While you’re pretty sure it’s not a series of round poles, it can be hard to envision flooring made from bamboo if you’ve never seen it.
Unlike hardwoods used for flooring like oak and walnut, bamboo is classified as a grass, even though it doesn’t look much like one.
That’s because bamboo is one of the biggest grasses in the world, and can be mistaken for a tree. Some species can grow up to a foot across and a hundred feet high.
Despite its grassy classification, you’ll find that flooring made from bamboo still has a lot in common with hardwood as a floor material. Maintenance is done in the same way, and this flooring offers a similar look.
Like wooden floors, tile, linoleum and other hard, smooth surfaces, you’ll find that bamboo is hypo-allergenic, offering no place for allergens to hide. However, unlike tile and linoleum, it’s much warmer feeling, and often more attractive.
This durable material is ten percent harder than floors made from red oak, so it’ll last a long time. Installing bamboo flooring can only increase your home’s value.
Bamboo flooring is made by splitting bamboo stalks. These split stalks are then flattened using enormous amounts of pressure and laminated together.
What results from the process looks a bit like a hardwood laminate floor – prefinished, multi-layered and with an easy installation method. Some people can even install these even, regular planks on their own.
In addition to being strong and beautiful, bamboo’s environmental record also gets a lot of press. Most of us have heard that using bamboo as a flooring material is very environmentally friendly, but we might not know why.
This is because bamboo grows very quickly, and needs little in the way of fertilizers and pesticides. To create a bamboo floor, plants need to grow for only five or six years, and regenerate quickly after they’ve been harvested.
That’s why bamboo is considered a sustainable, renewable flooring option. However, buyers should take care when choosing their floors.
Since bamboo is so popular, some have decided to use unnecessary fertilizers and pesticides in the growing process, and make flooring using lower quality techniques to get a quick sale. Anyone who’s worried about how long their floor will last or its environmental impact should avoid using these products.
Fortunately, this isn’t difficult. Good distributors and manufacturers of bamboo flooring want you to know all about the benefits of their floors, so avoid extremely cheap flooring and people who don’t want to talk about the source of their bamboo flooring materials.
Bamboo flooring makes an excellent investment for your home’s beauty and value, and for the environment. Since much of our yearly waste comes from the housing industry, choosing an environmentally friendly floor can make a big difference.
When the time comes to choose a floor covering for your home, think about bamboo. Bamboo flooring is beautiful, durable, and natural.
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Bamboo flooring is good material provided that the bamboo is of the right maturity. Unmatured bamboo will easily rot. also, make sure that it does not get soaked in water for long periods. Some of the best bamboo flooring materials are from China. You may try to source it from there or from an importer in your locale.
I think bamboo is good enough material for flooring. I see some traditional homes use it. And the bamboo decorated floor is smooth and stay for long lasting