Bamboo Flooring: Cost Effective and Eco Friendly
Every week of every year, we lose a million acres of forest around the world. That’s a pretty alarming figure that’s making many people rething what they buy and use. After all, wood is an important resource.
A tree harvested at sixty feet long may take a half century or more to be replaced by a new one, and wood is being harvested far more quickly than that. Bamboo, by comparison, takes only about sixty days to replace a stalk of the same length, making it one of the world’s fastest growing plants. Bamboo is a great choice in many of the same uses we currently require wood for.
Bamboo can be as strong as steel under the right conditions, and is used to hold up concrete in place of rebar in some Asian countries. It also makes excellent flooring, and saves many trees that might otherwise have been converted into hardwood and laminate floors.
Flooring constructed from bamboo feels much like wood and is as easy to keep clean and allergen free. It’s also very easy to install, with a natural, warm tone to it that makes a home feel welcoming. Bamboo flooring is also sustainable and environmentally friendly when grown correctly, and has its own special look.
Most bamboo flooring is what’s called compressed bamboo, though veneered laminate flooring is also on the market. The majority comes pre-finished and is ready to install right out of the package, with many versatile installation options. Make sure you know what you’re buying and what you’ll need for installation before you dive in.
Make certain you pay careful attention to the kind of bamboo being used by your supplier and the conditions under which it’s being grown. If you grow bamboo the right way, you don’t need much, if anything, in the way of fertilizer and pesticides. That doesn’t mean every grower uses responsible, ecologically friendly methods, however.
Remember to look into the manufacturing processes that your flooring has undergone, since that can affect quality, health factors and sustainability. Toxic glues, cheap bamboo and wasteful processing can produce a flooring that’s inexpensive, but not all that eco-friendly. Talk to the manufacturer when possible.
If you’d like to have a new floor in your home, and you want to make sure you do as little damage to the environment as you can, bamboo is a real possibility. When it’s grown the right way, it pulls carbon dioxide out of the air, decreases erosion, and can even clean up contaminated soils. Add in its fast growth, and bamboo is a viable alternative to wood.
Many different colors and styles area available, according to how the bamboo is treated and how the flooring is made. That means that you’ll be able to find the color and look that fits best with your home. Remember that darker bamboo isn’t as tough as lighter bamboo, since the heat treating used to color it also softens the material.
If you’ve been on the market for a great floor that provides all the benefits of wood, but you aren’t sure about the environmental impact a hardwood floor might cause, think about bamboo. These beautiful floors are the answer to all your problems!
Bamboozle, in Perth WA, makes their own bamboo floor product, Bamwood. The inherent weaknesses they found in “normal” compressed bamboo flooring. Bamwood is a new breed of superior bamboo floor, suited for the harsh Australian environmental conditions.