For today’s cost-conscious consumer, the new and improved bamboo flooring on the
market is hard to beat for  both price and performance, Consumer Reports  found.
In fact, some bamboo products beat out  some of the best hardwood floors on  the
market for  wear and  dent resistance,  according to  the magazine’s August 2009
flooring report.

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Both bamboo wood flooring and vinyl/linoleum flooring have been around for quite some time. In recent years that there has been  a growth in the popularity of making use of bamboo as well as vinyl in flooring. Both bamboo and vinyl flooring are alternatives to ceramic and such other flooring. It is an increased understanding of their aesthetics and beneficial properties that have led to an upsurge in popularity of bamboo and vinyl. Read more »

Bamboo flooring is extremely durable and hard wearing, taking care to protect your floor from potentially damaging elements will  ensure that it continues to look its best and provides decades of use long after it has been installed. As with other types of hardwood flooring, treat your bamboo floor with care and it will reward you by showing its natural beauty to admire and enjoy year after year for many years to come. Provided below are some care tips to help you maintain the beauty and longevity of your floor.  Read more »

Bamboo flooring is one of the latest crazes to sweep through the interior design industry in recent months and has been proving popular amongst homeowners. However, many of those homeowners know little about the type of flooring before having it installed in their home. Installation and everyday maintenance are just two of the areas that any individual should research before choosing bamboo flooring rather one of the many alternatives. Read more »

Many have started gracing their homes with a bamboo floor. Durability of bamboo floors then becomes an issue. Just how durable is a bamboo floor and is it really suitable for a home? Would it be worth it to have bamboo flooring at home? Will it be a source of regret later on? True, I myself have come to question this. The answers I found were very promising. It seems that the durability of bamboo flooring is very reliable. Read more »

Bamboo Flooring Benefits: Bamboo flooring is a cost-effective and environmentally sensitive choice among traditional hardwood flooring options. An appealing building material, it is very durable, strong and long-lasting. Bamboo, a grass product and not a wood product, is harvested every 5 years without damaging the actual bamboo plant, and does not require pesticides due to its hardiness. It comes in four different types of flooring: natural, carbonized, vertical, and horizontal graining. Read more »

When you are considering new flooring for your house, there are many things you need to think about. What is the vision you are are trying to create, and how durable does the floor need to be? When people come into your home, there are going to be many things that they look at, but the floor is one that you can’t hide or keep out of sight. Read more »

Bamboo flooring has become one of the most popular new flooring styles. Bamboo floors have been widely used in the Pacific Rim for decades, and America has seen bamboo’s benefits for years in furniture and home accessories, so it’s natural that its usage as flooring is catching up to us now. Its wide range of style and ease of maintenance gives makes bamboo flooring a perfect choice.

Renewable resource.

Unlike many of the hardwood floors available on the market today, which can take tremendous amounts of time to reforest, bamboo grows abundantly both here and abroad, and it replenishes very fast. Conservationists will certainly enjoy this aspect of the material. The leftover leaves and shoots are utilized as a food source for livestock both here in the U.S. and in Asia.

Easy upkeep.

While no flooring surface is completely maintenance free, some are better than others, and bamboo has a better resiliency than softer floors like pine or vinyl. A bamboo floor, despite its rapid growth, proves to be extremely strong when cured and can handle the elements and high traffic areas. Additionally, bamboo floors need to be refinished as, if not less, frequently than other popular flooring surfaces.

Easy to install.

While there are several ways to install bamboo flooring, one popular option is the beloved “floating floor,” an adhesive-less installation that entails a puzzle-like process of connecting mitered sections of plank flooring. This means the average homeowner can single-handedly install a large section of flooring in a weekend. While professional flooring contractors still recommend face-nailing and sub-floor installation, this floating floor option really opens up bamboo flooring to the masses.

Cost.

The cost of bamboo flooring can vary greatly, depending on grade, finish, material percentage, veneer, etc. The entire spectrum of cost is well represented, from the high grade, imported solid bamboo planks, to the veneered floating floors available today at home improvement stores. Another cost-saver is the option of self-installation. That particular cost saving can be tremendous, depending on the application.

Style points.

Style counts, and when it comes to bamboo floors, style is what it’s about. From its mellow light hues and colors, to its widely varying grains, bamboo can match almost any décor. Bamboo is typically very light, almost white in finish, but can be found tinted and finished in a dark color, which is more widely used in the North East and colonial settings. Another option is the finish; while bamboo is most commonly seen in a high gloss finish, matte and semi-gloss varieties can found, further enhancing its wide options. The many varieties of bamboo allow consumers to tailor the finish and colors of their floor to their specific needs, which puts bamboo ahead of some traditional flooring options.

Adaptability.

Bamboo is one of the most adaptable flooring options available today. While some materials require lots of prep work to the subfloor, bamboo can be laid over a much wider variety of surfaces. Where a laminate may be needed for a vinyl or tile material, much less expensive plywood is a more than adequate surface for bamboo to be affixed to. Bamboo is far less sensitive to temperature changes than many other materials, like stone, tile or vinyl. While many materials are relegated to fair climate installations only, bamboo can be installed virtually anywhere.

Material Handling.

For some hardwood materials, like mahogany or oak, handling and cutting can prove to be a chore in itself. This isn’t the case for bamboo; general hand tools, cross cut saws, compound miter saws and dovetail saws are perfect for finishing a home project like this. There is no need to use hardwood saws – despite its strength, bamboo is relatively easy to cut, and available in shorter sections so you can maneuver it easily around your work site. Some flooring houses also offer larger sections of bamboo for a more linear look. It’s an option that’s really more for those whose work space is wide open, or can be adapted.

Strength.

In Japan, bamboo has historically been used for industrial scaffolding, so it’s certainly more than strong enough for your family’s flooring needs. Its natural make-up has proven it able to carry countless times its own weight, and that converts into a flooring surface which is virtually unbreakable. While it’s rare to find a flooring surface stronger than concrete (and by no means is bamboo stronger than concrete), bamboo gives it a run for its money in weight-to-strength ratio. If you are looking for a reasonably strong, lightweight floor, bamboo might be a viable option.

Durability.

People instantly think of tile or marble when they are looking for a durable flooring surface, but bamboo can certainly be considered a top contender for longest lasting. Like any floor, it will eventually gain a nice patina, and if cared for, will start to warm and meld into a variety of tones and hues that add a lot of charm to floors. If you look at some of the vintage floors in Asia, where bamboo is widely used, you can see how over time the surface becomes its own gallery of smooth mottled tones and really enhances the décor of any home.

Material Availability.

Since its increase in recent popularity, bamboo has gone from a difficult to find and somewhat obscure material, to a widely available surface found at almost any home improvement center. Originally, if you were looking to install bamboo in your home, you had to search high and low, in flooring houses and lumber yards. Now it’s virtually everywhere, and being used in such high volume that your choices of manufacturer and vendor are virtually unlimited.