How to Select a Bamboo Floor?

Answer 1

Grass floors bring to mind visions of Stone Age African huts, with outdoor sanitation, smoky fires and prowling lions. Thankfully, due to modern innovation, grass floors are no longer Fred Flintstone home decor. Bamboo has been transformed from a Panda’s smorgasbord into popular flooring material. Here is how to select a bamboo floor.

Step One: Select bamboo appropriate for the climate. Bamboo floors are natural, treated or dyed. Natural bamboo is left in a primitive state, suitable for dry, cold or lukewarm climates, as it is more susceptible to water, heat and humidity than its manufactured counterparts. Treated or dyed bamboo adds volatile organic compounds (VOCs) to adhere materials together and usually adds a UF protection layer. Ecologically concerned shoppers should shop for prefinished bamboo with a water-solvent laminate.

Step Two: Pick your favorite color. Treated bamboo undergoes a pressurized carbonized process where the organic sugars are carmelized, turning the natural light blonde color into a dark, amber hue. Bamboo also comes in a wide variety of manufactured colors and designs.

Step Three: What do you need? Bamboo floors come in three constructions: solid, engineered and stranded. Solid bamboo floors are built from slicing a bamboo plant in strips, then binding the slivers together. These floors are available in vertical or horizontal patterns. Engineered bamboo floors position a secondary layer, such as plywood, beneath the bamboo layer and exhibit a connecting system, such as tongue-and-groove, micro-bevel, click and lock, or square edges. Stranded floors are nearly indestructible. After pulverizing a bamboo plant into thousands of thin strands, the shreds are mashed together, fashioning one of the most durable floors on the market.

Step Four: How long do you plan on living? The durability of a bamboo floor is affected by its treatment process and age. Carbonized bamboo, similar to the soft hardwood Black Walnut, is much softer than its natural counterpart. Minimum harvesting age is typically three years, and by the time a plant reaches ten years of age, its hardness will rival mahogany.

After answering the previous four questions, there is only query left to pose: what do you like? Think hard, because that question is the most important.

Answer 2

Grass floors bring to mind visions of Stone Age African huts, with outdoor sanitation, smoky fires and prowling lions. Thankfully, due to modern innovation, grass floors are no longer Fred Flintstone home décor. Bamboo has been transformed from a Panda’s smorgasbord into popular flooring material. Here is how to select a bamboo floor.

Step One: Select bamboo appropriate for the climate. Bamboo floors are natural, treated or dyed. Natural bamboo is left in a primitive state, suitable for dry, cold or lukewarm climates, as it is more susceptible to water, heat and humidity than its manufactured counterparts. Treated or dyed bamboo adds volatile organic compounds (VOCs) to adhere materials together and usually adds a UF protection layer. Ecologically concerned shoppers should shop for prefinished bamboo with a water-solvent laminate.

Step Two: Pick your favorite color. Treated bamboo undergoes a pressurized carbonized process where the organic sugars are carmelized, turning the natural light blonde color into a dark, amber hue. Bamboo also comes in a wide variety of manufactured colors and designs.

Step Three: What do you need? Bamboo floors come in three constructions: solid, engineered and stranded. Solid bamboo floors are built from slicing a bamboo plant in strips, then binding the slivers together. These floors are available in vertical or horizontal patterns. Engineered bamboo floors position a secondary layer, such as plywood, beneath the bamboo layer and exhibit a connecting system, such as tongue-and-groove, micro-bevel, click and lock, or square edges. Stranded floors are nearly indestructible. After pulverizing a bamboo plant into thousands of thin strands, the shreds are mashed together, fashioning one of the most durable floors on the market.

Step Four: How long do you plan on living? The durability of a bamboo floor is affected by its treatment process and age. Carbonized bamboo, similar to the soft hardwood Black Walnut, is much softer than its natural counterpart. Minimum harvesting age is typically three years, and by the time a plant reaches ten years of age, its hardness will rival mahogany.

After answering the previous four questions, there is only query left to pose: what do you like? Think hard, because that question is the most important.

Answer 3

One of the newest trends in home décor and design is installing bamboo floors as opposed to traditional hardwood floors. Bamboo floors are quite stylish, can be stained to meet any design, and come with various advantages over hardwood flooring. While bamboo floors are much harder and scratch resistant than hardwood floors, the main advantage is that they are far more eco-friendly than traditional hardwood floors. While hardwood floors require trees to demolished, bamboo for flooring can be excavated without the source of the bamboo needing to be removed. The best part of bamboo flooring is that it can be installed by almost anyone.

The first step in installing bamboo flooring is to prepare the flooring and the room. Boxes of bamboo flooring can be bought at any home improve or design store. The store will also provide you with all necessary supplies. After purchasing the flooring, it is quite important that you bring the flooring home and allow it to acclimate to your home’s setting for at least three days.

While the bamboo is acclimating, you can spend time preparing your room for installation. This will require you to remove any carpet or existing flooring. While it is not recommended, in some situations you may be able to place the bamboo on the existing flooring. You will also need to remove all baseboards and ensure all floorboards and joists are properly in place.

Once the floor is ready for installation, you should determine how you want to install the floor. Most people prefer for the boards to run the length of the room, however in some situations it may be best to have it run perpendicular to the rest of the room.

Prior to laying the floor boards, you will need to lay down the underlay. The underlay will help keep the floorboards in place, soften the floorboards, prevent cracking, and lower the amount of noise omitted from walking on them. Once the underlay is installed, you can begin to install the bamboo floor. This will require you to lay the boards so they do not lay completely evenly. This will also require you to cut some pieces of the boards and follow instructions provided by the manufacturer.