The Pros and Cons of Bamboo Flooring
Bamboo is an amazing material with almost no cons; from the flooring standpoint. Please Read on.
Bamboo flooring; gorgeous, durable, and easy to clean!
Bamboo is almost a wonder material, green and environmental from the stand point that the Bamboo plant grows incredibly rapidly, and the removal of a large stand of bamboo takes about 1.5 years to replace. It also thrives on poor conditions and in tiny spaces, so if you had an acre you could become a bamboo farmer! (Uh, provided that you live in the right part of the world) Certain types of bamboo only require moderate watering, so it isn’t a huge sucker of water resources, and generally it tends to be grown in parts of the world where rainfall is abundant. Bamboo can be used to build anything from floors to homes and castles; the first suspension bridge ever built in the world was built out of bamboo over 2,000 years ago. Due to various wars and bad behavior, the bridge was collapsed and sat at the bottom of the river for over 1,500 years, where it was found again in 2007, almost completely intact. Now that is a testament to the strength and longevity of bamboo!
As flooring bamboo is incredibly hard and durable, much more so that synthetic surfaces and synthetic floors. Again, that is an amazing testament to the durability of bamboo. It is also a beautiful flooring material, comes in gorgeous colors and hues, and is resistant to just about anything you can throw at it, including grape juice, hard objects and messy dogs and children. It is so hard that it might not be the best flooring for a bedroom, where a slightly softer surface might be the thing to put in. Also, if you have an older pet, especially an older dog the hardness and slickness of a bamboo floor might be difficult for them to navigate.
The natural patterns and color variations in bamboo loan themselves to just about every type of room you may have, whether it be highly designed or not. Bamboo, while possessed of beautiful patterns and variations is not very “busy” flooring, rendering it easily installed in much designed rooms.
Bamboo is easily cleaned, and always comes treated with multiple layers of polyurethane in order to protect the natural surface. The only real draw- backs to bamboo are the country the majority of it comes from, and the treatments that can be used to preserve the material while in that country. Yes, we are talking about China.
The majority of bamboo is manufactured and farmed in China, where the treatment of laborers is extremely bad. International demands for the cessation of abusive labor practices in China have taken on huge dimensions in the past years, and many US and European importers are now insisting that all bamboo comes from farms that meet international standards of basic human rights. You should insist that your flooring be manufactured in a way that is humane to the laborers that work on the bamboo farm.
The other problem with bamboo is that the Chinese will often use formaldehyde in the treatment process, and formaldehyde is a noxious and mutagenic material that will leach out of the bamboo flooring once installed in your home. Formaldehyde is terrible for the laborers, the environment, and for you. Again, customer demand is driving the Chinese manufacturers to straighten up their act, and stop using the formaldehyde, on you end; you must insist that your bamboo flooring is formaldehyde free.
Bamboo is not inexpensive, and if cared for properly it will last a lifetime. If you find extremely cheap bamboo flooring, you need to beware; it probably isn’t farmed or treated ethically. Be careful in your purchasing process, ask the right questions, and you will come away with an exceptional flooring for your home.