apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I am in the process of installing Plyboo bamboo flooring in my kitchen, so I can't testify to its durability quite yet. What I understand is that there are manufacturers with better reps than others (Plyboo and Teragren were recommended to me), and that there are two types - normal and strand. The strand version is compressed under pressure to be a lot stronger. If you hold samples up against each other you will notice it weighs about 3 times as much. It is supposed to be highly durable. See: http://www.plyboo.com/strand.html

We just installed bamboo flooring in our front office. I can't say anything about the long run because we just got done last week, but I can say it looks great and the price was very close to wood.

With the dogs though, I would have to say it does dent easily. My son dropped a wooden sorting cube from about 2 feet up and there was a dent left. You might want to look for something different in that way.

Lastly, the staff person at Lumber Liquidators, where we got our flooring, also said that if you get the carbonized bamboo it is even softer. The bamboo is actually burned to get the darker color and that's why it's called carbonized.

Just my 2 cents. You can check out our floor on our blog at In the Key of Life

We've had bamboo floors from MOSO since 2002. The three dogs haven't done a thing to it. The only damage is from dropping things & it denting a tad. Oh, and a small rock under the couch when my dh decided to move it by himself. ::rolls eyes::

Go for it!

It's great to read these responses. My husband and I are going to a store near us (www.greenfloors.com) this Saturday to order bamboo floors. For anyone in the DC area, the people at this store have been incredibly helpful by phone, explaining differences between floors, treatments, etc. Even though we've already made the decision to install them, I am still curious about owners experiences with them. Great question!

Bamboo floors are great - very strong & hard. One thing you have to be careful is how they are installed and finished. Prefinished bamboo floor are great for a consistent finish, but the downside is to make sure they are PROTECTED during installation. If the finished is scratched then you have to refinish the entire floor. But you don't have to get prefinished floors. Plyboo, Teragren, and Dragon Board are good companies.
http://www.greenmakersupply.com/products/ultratouch/4.php?page_id=69

Another VERY cool wood floor is TerraMai reclaimed floors. They have a variety reclaimed wood floors and timber, so because they come from old industrial buildings, houses, etc. they have a very unique look. The Cinnamon Flooring is the coolest - they are made of reclaimed, un-treated railroad ties.
http://terramai.com/products/flooring/index.html

We have bamboo since 2002, too. As said,the only damage is from dropping things but it can be easily removed. Hold a steem iron over the damage for a minute and it desapeares. Scratches desapair from alone after few months.
It still looks beautiful and feels great!
Go for it.

Hi, Ruthie here from Community Forklift (located in the DC area, we are a thrift store for surplus and reclaimed building materials, but we also carry a line of new green building materials, including Eco-Timber and Teragren. More info at www.CommunityForklift.com).

Buying reclaimed flooring from a local reuse center like ours is one of the greenest things you can do, because no virgin trees have to be cut down, shipped overseas, etc. Landfill waste is reduced, and the only fossil fuels used are in driving our box truck across town to pick it up from the old home it came from. It has the added benefit of creating living-wage "green collar" jobs, because many stores like ours run job-training programs in deconstruction (the process of dismantling old buildings carefully to preserve materials for reuse, rather than bulldozing and wasting everything).

A few cautions though...you may have to be patient, as the amount of flooring you need may not be in stock the day that you go shopping. Some of our customers have had to wait a few months to find the amount they're looking for. Also, you have to find a contractor who is willing to work with reclaimed flooring (but to be honest, I've found that the true craftsmen, men and women with years of restoration experience, are most willing to work with it. Joe Slapdash who takes liquid lunches is not going to work with reclaimed wood - but you don't want him anyhow). Lastly, make sure that you buy a bit more than you need - although deconstruction crews remove old flooring quite skillfully, and they do their best to bundle up only the stuff in good shape, inevitably some sticks with damaged tongues sneak through.

The prices are not bad at all (at our store, reclaimed tongue & groove oak is $2 a square foot, and the beautiful, now-extinct heart pine is $5 a square foot.). But if you want to avoid the hassle of hunting through dusty stacks of flooring, and finding a contractor willing to work with damaged tongues, then you can spend more and get reclaimed wood from a company like Eco-Timber - after they reclaim the wood, they mill it into new sticks and box it up so the process is just as convenient as buying new. You can just order it and have any old contractor install it.

Now, you may not want to pay the price for re-milled reclaimed wood, and you may not have a reuse store like us near you (check the listings at www.Redo.org, www.habitat.org, and www.buildingreuse.org to find out). If that is the case, you should absolutely consider a faster-growing wood like bamboo.

Make sure, though, to look for bamboo with either a warranty, or an FSC certification. I have been told that there is a lot of cheap bamboo flooding the market right now that has been harvested too soon. Beware of a price that seems to good to be true!

As I understand it, although bamboo grows more quickly than oak, you do need to wait several years in between harvests. Otherwise, the cellular structure is not properly formed, and the layers are not strongly bonded - leading to easily-damaged floors.

If you get something with a 15 or 20 year warranty, chances are good that the bamboo is mature enough. Or, check for the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certification. The FSC certifies that lumber has been grown in an environmentally-friendly way, the forest was scientifically managed, the workers have been paid a living wage, rainforests have not been clear-cut, etc. So, by definition, bamboo with an FSC certification has been properly harvested.

Good luck with your floors!