Bamboo is one of the hottest flooring trends available today and it’s no secret why. Environmentally friendly, inherently durable, versatile, and undeniably stylish, bamboo floors are a practical and trusted solution to bringing the perfect finishing touch to your home. However, if you need further convincing, here are 10 reasons to choose bamboo flooring.

Bamboo Floorings Are Highly Sustainable

As bamboo is a member of the grass family, it is a rapidly growing resource. It only takes bamboo 3-5 years to fully mature before harvesting, in contrast to the 20-120 years it takes for natural hardwood to mature. When harvesting does occur, the root system of bamboo remains intact, which allows for a new growth cycle to begin. This differs greatly from the need to fall trees for hardwood flooring, which can lead to deforestation if left unchecked. When it comes to eco-friendly flooring, it doesn’t get more sustainable than bamboo flooring.

Bamboo Floorings Have Low Chemical Emissions

Being a natural resource, little artificial materials are present in bamboo flooring. This allows for incredibly low levels of chemical emissions. However, certain bamboo floors contain some levels of VOCs such as formaldehyde, but many high-end manufacturers use little to no bonding chemicals. Ensuring low chemical emissions in your flooring allows for a healthy home environment.

Bamboo Floorings Are Hypoallergenic

In addition to low VOC emissions, bamboo flooring is naturally hypoallergenic. With a sleek appearance, you don’t ever have to worry about trapping dust mites, dirt, or pollen in your floors as bamboo inherently resists most common household allergens.

Bamboo Floorings Are Easy to Maintain

Simply said, bamboo flooring is incredibly easy to maintain. Naturally capable of resisting stains, a simple dry- or damp-mop can clean bamboo floors. Additionally, bamboo flooring doesn’t require sanding or resurfacing like hardwood and doesn’t leave behind streaking like laminate or vinyl floors.

Bamboo Floorings Are Highly Durable

Inherently a durable material, bamboo has a tensile strength (the maximum stress a material can handle) greater than certain types of steel. Naturally durable, bamboo is likewise a flexible and pliable material ideal for creating a cozy and welcoming home environment. Additionally, horizontal and vertical bamboo flooring is notably harder than most oak hardwoods, capable of standing up to more levels of wear and tear, perfect for busy households and pets.

More Reasons Why You Should Choose Bamboo Flooring

• Fire Resistant

Many floors such as carpets and hardwoods are highly flammable. Bamboo on the other hand has inherent fire-resistant qualities making it a great choice for every room of the home.

• Moisture Resistant

As a member of the grass family, bamboo naturally repels water, making it a perfect floor covering in areas prone to household spills and stains such as entryways and kitchens. However, like with all floors, spills should always be attended to. This inherent trait likewise helps bamboo fight against mold and mildew for a healthy and carefree environment.

• Affordable

Compared to common hardwood and tile floors, bamboo is a reasonably priced solution to durable flooring. Inherently durable and naturally stylish, little has to be done to bamboo flooring in the realm of maintenance, allowing for affordable overall costs.

• Aesthetically Appealing

Originally offered in just two styles, natural and carbonized, bamboo flooring is becoming more and more diverse with the ability to resemble hardwood. Most commonly seen are styles of vertical, accentuating a linear grain appearance, and horizontal, emphasizing the unique character of natural bamboo for incredible visual details. The overall appeal of natural bamboo flooring expresses an elegant style with an artisan touch that likewise opens up any interior.

• Versatility

With increasing styles available comes application versatility. It’s perfect for just about any room of the home, even spaces where natural wood floors would never be seen. Natural and unstained bamboo is perfect for the classic décor. Likewise, stained bamboo available in nearly every color of the rainbow can work for the traditional, modern, and contemporary decors. Furthering the style versatility, certain bamboo collections offer a handcrafted appeal with meticulous hand-scraped accents.

Wellmade Bamboo, one of the top-tier bamboo flooring manufacturers in the world, offers several products to fit the specific needs of homeowners, designers, and builders alike. With products that include vertical strand, horizontal strand, engineered, and strand woven bamboo floors, many combinations of aesthetics and utility can be achieved with Wellmade bamboo flooring. Eco-friendly, durable, and sporting a high resistance to moisture, bamboo flooring is increasing in popularity, but it wasn’t always as popular as it is today.

Wellmade Bamboo Is Highly Renowned

Given that its introduction to the global market has been relatively new—occurring in the last 20 years or so—it was difficult in the beginning to convince buyers that this exotic material could be used for flooring and construction applications, even though it had been used for these purposes in East Asia for thousands of years. Skepticism abounded whether or not bamboo flooring solutions could match or surpass the toughness and traditional aspects of authentic hardwood taken from timber. Even typical flooring materials such as ceramic tile were a tough sell in many American markets, in spite of the fact that this material is not only cheaper but also more durable than hardwood; ceramic tile still only hovers around 10 percent of the entire U.S. flooring market.

Wellmade Bamboo flooring from NDfloors.com

In recent years, however, the demand for environmentally friendly products has increased drastically. Bamboo has seen a surge in demand and subsequently sales and production increases. This wonderful, renewable flooring source is now available in areas where it was previously not. For example, thanks to a large oil industry boom centered in Williston, N.D., North Dakota Flooring Distributors will soon offer bamboo flooring products exclusively from Wellmade Bamboo. Moso bamboo, the species from which most bamboo flooring products are made, scores higher on the Janka hardness scale than many conventional woods such as White oak, maple, and walnut. Its inherent hardness, in addition to its moisture resistant properties, allows bamboo to be installed in areas of homes where hardwood typically fails, such as laundry rooms, kitchens, and bathrooms.

Wellmade Bamboo Flooring: Strand Woven

Wellmade’s Strand Woven line offers not only unique design patterns but also one of the most ecologically friendly bamboo floors on the market. The way in which it is constructed uses very little adhesives, requiring no off-gassing once it is installed; Strand Woven is virtually void of volatile organic compounds that may be found in other types of bamboo floors. The Engineered Strand collection is also another popular choice from Wellmade, as it can be installed below grade in basements and split-level floor plans without any moisture issues thanks to its increased resilience.

While bamboo flooring is almost automatically seen as an environmentally friendly product, it is important to be wary of these claims. Although the bamboo itself and the way it is harvested certainly have a very low impact on eco systems, the processing and overseas shipping of the product can actually make certain bamboo products less environmentally sound than traditional domestic hardwoods. Additionally, many manufacturers use high levels of formaldehyde to bind the bamboo strips together to form the flooring planks, which over time has the potential to cause health problems in hypersensitive individuals. Fortunately, Wellmade Bamboo uses only low VOC-emitting adhesives at high pressures in its Strand Woven collection, which drastically reduces health concerns.

Give an Extra Boost to Your Floor’s Hardness

Bamboo Hardwoods, the Seattle-based manufacturer that produces both flooring and bamboo panels, has introduced its Hybrid collection, an interesting variation on standard engineered bamboo planks. With a Janka hardness rating of over 3000, Hybrid surpasses even exotic hardwoods that are very resistant to scratches and dents; only some Ironwood species fare better in terms of hardness and durability. Due to Bamboo Hardwoods’ method of binding strands at extreme temperatures rather than using volatile chemicals such as urea-formaldehyde, the company can proudly get away with calling the Hybrid collection eco-friendly and durable, since both of these statements are true. The floor itself even qualifies for LEED credits from the U.S. Green Building Council.

Bamboo Floors Are Great Eco-Friendly Alternatives For Hardwood

Much has been said about bamboo flooring over the last several years. Many consumers and designers alike view it as an eco-friendly alternative to hardwood, while others claim that bamboo is about as eco-friendly as a nuclear waste facility due to the industrial process of turning bamboo strands into planks. You will also find others on the Interwebs who claim that bamboo is the most durable out of any flooring available; this claim is certainly not true as a blanket statement. Likewise, the claim that bamboo is flimsy is also false. The amount of misinformation on bamboo is actually quite staggering, since it is not prudent to group all bamboo into one category.

Hybrid Bamboo Flooring Line Is The Right Choice!

Depending on how the bamboo was manufactured, how it was processed, how it was shipped, and how the strands were bonded together to form a plank all have an impact on how environmentally friendly or durable a single product will be. Just like with anything, there are some good products and bad products. Fortunately for us, we have found the Hybrid line that is not only eco-friendly but also more durable than most hardwoods on the market.

Choose Bamboo Flooring Over Any Other Types

Unlike many other engineered bamboo flooring products that use high-density fiberboard for the inner core, the Hybrid collection is made from 100 percent FSC Certified bamboo through and through. This attribute gives each plank more structural integrity similar to what is found in high-end engineered hardwoods constructed from timber.

If you are looking for a durable flooring material that also has an environmental conscience, definitely consider Bamboo Hardwoods Hybrid line for your next project. It has all of the functionality you need without sacrificing style, elegance, and sophistication.