Bamboo Flooring

A relative newcomer in the industry is bamboo flooring. Its natural beauty and strength make bamboo one of the most elegant and versatile flooring choices available.

Unlike wood, bamboo is actually a grass, making it a more environmentally friendly choice over hardwood floors due to its quick growth cycle. Bamboo Flooring is also very durable and able to compete with oak and other wood species with some Janka hardness ratings of over 2400. Because bamboo is a natively tropical plant, it is resistant to moisture and less susceptible to expansion and contraction as compared to hardwood floors.

Unique to bamboo flooring is its natural color variations through a process called carbonization. While laminate flooring is artificially colored, a carbonized bamboo floor gives a honey brown elegant look without the use of dyes or finish. Natural bamboo floors give a light tan softness to any room accentuating open areas and light. Whatever the design, bamboo floors could prove to be the perfect flooring choice for you.

What is Bamboo?
Bamboo grows in many regions of the world especially in warm climates where the earth is kept moist with frequent monsoons. Twenty percent of the world’s bamboo grows in China, much of that in the wild. Today, due to increasing demand, it is being cultivated more and more in managed forests. In this region, bamboo is emerging as an important agricultural crop of increasing significance to struggling economies.

Bamboo is a member of the grass family. This fact goes a long way toward explaining several of bamboo’s unique characteristics. Like grass, cutting bamboo does not kill the plant. An extensive root system remains intact, allowing for rapid regeneration. There are many species of bamboo.

Natural CORK Bamboo uses only bamboo with 5 years of maturity, selecting the base of the stalk for its superior strength and hardness. Nothing is wasted in processing bamboo. When it comes to the environment, cork and bamboo are a perfect combination. Both are renewable, are harvested with no harm to their natural habitat, and produce materials that promote a healthy human environment.

Manufacturing Process
After harvesting, bamboo is cut into strips. These strips go through a sterilization process before being placed in large drying ovens to hasten their curing time. Selected strips are stacked in layers and glued with an environmentally safe adhesive prior to being put through a press to form panels from which flooring planks are milled.
For convenience and durability Natural CORK Bamboo flooring is pre-finished. The aluminum oxide finish is unsurpassed in the industry. Six coats of finish ensure superior wear resistance.
Natural CORK Bamboo Flooring is ecologically friendly, a healthy alternative to off-gassing surface flooring products, extremely durable, naturally beautiful, suitable to most any decor, and of the highest premium quality.

Interior Design Trends Favor Bamboo Besides that part of the light spectrum between blue and yellow, “green” has many diverse meanings. For example, one less fortunate might be “green with envy,” where one with payments due might need to “make some green,” and one who plays golf might be “on the green in one” – though highly unlikely. But no meaning of “green” could be more important than its most recent application: “green products.” No, that does not mean their color or their level of maturity. It means that they are environmentally-friendly.

Over the past decade, there has been a growing trend toward designing and building with green products. In fact, some of the larger design firms have received green-design requests from many of their corporate clients. According to author Susan E. Haberle, companies like Starbucks, Nike, Guess and Donna Karan have already completed design projects utilizing green products. Haberle’s article on the American Society of Interior Designers website states that these internationally-established corporations have chosen bamboo as the green product for their floors. But big business is not the only driving force behind the green trend.

Every day, more and more retail consumers are jumping on the conservation bandwagon. They are demanding homebuilding and remodeling products that are not only aesthetically pleasing, durable and safe, but also made from materials that will not unbalance the ecosystem. Thus, as with the companies already mentioned, bamboo flooring has become the consumers’ green alternative to hardwood.

In order for a product to qualify as green, it must have certain characteristics, and bamboo flooring qualifies with more than one. But certainly its most important characteristic is that it is resource efficient. Bamboo is a sustainable material – and rapidly so. It replenishes itself up to twenty times faster than some hardwood trees, repeatedly sprouting from the same plant to maturity in just 4 to 6 years.

Another green characteristic of bamboo is its durability. Species harvested for flooring are actually harder than Red Oak and Hard Maple, and that means reduced maintenance and replacement costs. Additionally, because bamboo grows in tropical climates, it is naturally resistant to moisture and thus to stains. It is also less likely to gap, cup, or warp because of its laminated construction.

With all these positive attributes and green characteristics, it is no wonder that bamboo flooring has become such a hot, growing trend – one with no end in sight.

Bamboo Flooring Features and Benefits Bamboo has recently become the hottest trend in flooring. The reasons for its popularity surge are many, but they can be divided into three basic categories: aesthetics, properties, and environmental benefits.

The Aesthetics

Because bamboo is a grass rather than a tree, its finished appearance is very distinctive. Most distinctive is the eye-catching pattern of slightly darker bands produced by its nodes – a feature that clearly sets it apart from wood. Bamboo’s other aesthetic features include the tightness of its grain and the uniformity of its color.

Generally sold pre-finished, bamboo is available in its light, natural color or in darker shades produced by carbonization. Carbonization is a manufacturing process that subjects the bamboo to steam and pressure. This causes a darkening of the sugar content in its fibers resulting in a honey-brown color. The shade of the color is dependent upon the length of the process.

Appearance of the finished product is further enhanced by the various plank constructions. Choices include vertical or horizontal solid construction, engineered construction, and woven stranded construction.

The Properties

Amazing as it may seem, this hollow, grass-family plant is actually stronger than most hardwoods. Some species of bamboo have obtained Janka hardness ratings higher than maple and nearly double that of red oak – the benchmark of hardwoods. Besides its hardness quality, bamboo is also very resilient and can take a greater impact than most hardwoods without denting. Hardness and resilience: a dynamic duo for durability.

Other outstanding properties of bamboo are its dimensional stability and moisture resistance. Because bamboo flooring is a laminated product, the likeliness of gapping, cupping, or warping is greatly reduced.

Another factor that makes bamboo less likely to warp is that it grows in tropical regions. Therefore, it is naturally resistive to moisture. This makes it suitable for use in areas like bathrooms and kitchens where hardwood flooring is usually not recommended. Of course, being resistive to moisture means bamboo is also resistive to spills, and thus resistive to stains – certainly a desirable feature for any elegant floor.

The Environmental Benefits

In an age of ever-growing concern over depletion of natural resources, especially of hardwood forests, the trend toward bamboo flooring could not be timelier.

Bamboo is extremely fast-growing compared to hardwoods. On average, bamboo is capable of reaching maturity, at heights well over 50 feet, and is ready to harvest in five years. Additionally, since it is a grass, it is harvested again and again from the same plant. Compare that to an individual hardwood tree taking anywhere from three decades to more than a hundred years to mature, depending on the species.

The Summary

Bamboo is an alternative to traditional hardwood flooring that is:

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uniquely attractive

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strong and resilient

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dimensionally stable

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moisture and stain resistant

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environmentally-friendly

It is also less expensive than many hardwoods and can be purchased for nailed down, stapled down, glued down, or floated installation.

With so many positive attributes, it’s no wonder that bamboo has become the hottest trend in flooring.