Hardwood flooring for your home or office is both beautiful and functional. Unlike carpet, hardwood flooring does not collect dust and dander, which makes them a great choice for people with allergies. They’re durable and they make any home or office look professional and polished. And one of the best eco-friendly choices for hardwood floors is bamboo. Bamboo flooring is a safe and eco-friendly alternative to carpet or other types of flooring.
Bamboo flooring is a sustainable resource, with only taking 6 years for bamboo to grow to maturity. Other trees used to make hardwood flooring can take 15 to 100 years to grow to maturity.
Bamboo is also just as durable, if not more so than many other types of wood. In fact, horizontal or vertical bamboo flooring is harder than oak, which is the most popular material used for hardwood floors and strand woven bamboo flooring is harder than the most expensive hardwood, Brazilian Walnut. Bamboo flooring is also the most economical type of hardwood flooring, which starts around $2.00 per square foot. It also comes in a variety of colors from a light honey to a dark amber.
It is important to consider that all bamboo flooring products are not created equal. Vertical and horizontal grain bamboo flooring may contain urea formaldehyde as a binder, which will emit toxic substances and engineered bamboo may not be really made from bamboo at all. Grainless or strand bamboo may use a low emitting phenol-formaldehyde binder. When purchasing bamboo, it’s important to ask how the boards are bound to find out if you’re bringing a potentially toxic substance into your home or office. Not all manufacturers use this type of binding and there are safe options.
Finally, you may want to choose flooring that comes from a bamboo farm where it is raised specifically for this purpose rather than to choose bamboo, which is cut down in the forest.
Bamboo flooring is sustainable, durable, and will make a beautiful and eco-friendly choice for your home or office.