The New Hardwood Floor: Bamboo

Over the last few years, solid flooring, as opposed to carpeting, has become the first choice of many homeowners. Over that same period of time, environmental consciousness has become more widespread and homeowners want a green home. For many, that may mean bamboo floors instead of hardwoods.

Hardwood flooring is a beautiful choice and a very traditional choice. But many people who want a hardwood floor in their home also want to be environmentally conscious. These homeowners are often torn between hardwood flooring and another solid flooring material.

A relatively new choice, bamboo flooring, has many of the advantages of solid flooring, and offers another advantage in being environmentally sound.

Many consumers worry that bamboo flooring might threaten pandas or deplete bamboo forests. The bamboo floor is made from a bamboo that grows in a different area from the pandas, and pandas do not eat the species of bamboo that bamboo floors are made from.

Bamboo flooring is actually not a hardwood floor at all; bamboo is a grass. The bamboo used in flooring grows in the southern part of China. This plant grows very quickly; the canes mature in two years. At three years harvesting the shoots actually benefits the plants, rather than damaging them in any way. This makes bamboo flooring a very friendly choice versus hardwood flooring.

In addition, there is little risk of depleting the bamboo forests by creating bamboo flooring, because bamboo regenerates so quickly and without replanting. If bamboo is harvested correctly, the plant is not injured at all, and in fact benefits from the harvesting of bamboo for wood flooring.

Like traditional hardwood floors, bamboo flooring comes in planks that are easy to install. Bamboo flooring is not made from individual shoots. The shoots are boiled to remove the starch, formed into planks like hardwood flooring, and then dried. The final product is a bamboo flooring plank. The bamboo flooring is then treated with a preservative; most manufacturers use boric acid, which is relatively toxin-free.

Bamboo flooring is installed in a slightly different way from traditional hardwood floors, and it is important to hire an installer experienced in installing bamboo flooring, but this can be a very beautiful and lasting flooring material, whether the natural bamboo floor or the darker, amber-colored bamboo flooring is chosen. Both are very beautiful and unique flooring choices.

Bamboo flooring comes in two finishes, a lighter, natural color which makes the bamboo flooring look more like bamboo, and a darker, more amber color which makes the bamboo floor a little closer to the finish of a light-colored traditional hardwood floor.

It is hard to beat the environmental friendliness of bamboo flooring and it is somewhat less expensive than many hardwood species. The durability of bamboo, and the environmental considerations, make a bamboo floor an excellent choice for your new home or remodel.