Getting new bamboo flooring installed in your home is fun and exciting. You will be able to redecorate and give your home a face lift. Floors are important, and it is important that you get quality flooring installed in your home so that they will last a long time. Having to replace your flooring often will end up costing you a lot of money in the end. If you have a family that is a little rough on flooring you might want to protect your floors in high traffic areas so that you are just replacing a rug year after year and not your entire floor.
You will want to be sure that you have a rug covering your bamboo flooring at all doorways that lead to the inside of your home. You just never know when someone will come stomping through the door with something stuck to the bottom of their shoes and mess up your new floors. This way when someone comes inside from the outside, they will have to step onto the rug that is placed at the doorway, and your flooring will not be ruined. Replacing a rug once a year is not near as expensive as the floor.
Another place that you will want to be sure and protect your bamboo flooring in your home is any hallways that you have. You can buy a long hallway rug that is often referred to as a runner, to be sure that the flooring is not messed up from so much walking in the hall. Because everyone uses the hall and walks down the hallway to get to their bedrooms, the floor in the hall is considered a high traffic area. Protecting your hallway flooring from mishaps is a great idea.
While you are making sure that your bamboo flooring is protected in your home, you will want to think about two other areas that may need protecting as well. The kitchen, and the dining room, or rather, the area under your dining table. Because messes happen in the kitchen, you may want to consider placing a rug at the stove and at the kitchen sink. These are areas in the kitchen that are used frequently, and if you have bamboo flooring there, you will want to protect it as well. Placing a rug under the dining table and chairs is great to make sure that the dining chairs will not scratch your flooring when they are being pulled out and pushed into the table.
Bamboo is an environmentally friendly flooring option that is beautiful and dependable. Bamboo is a renewable resource in that it reaches maturity in as little as three years, rather than the decades it takes for most hard woods to mature. Bamboo is actually a tall, tree-like grass that grows all over the world. What follows are the steps typically taken in the manufacture of bamboo flooring.
Obviously, the first step in making bamboo flooring is to harvest the bamboo. Bamboo grows all over the world, so this could happen anywhere, although if the bamboo is intended for flooring it probably comes from China.
After harvesting bamboo, which usually takes place in three to six years, the bamboo's outer layer of green skin is removed and the logs, or technically stalks, are sliced into long strips. These strips are also called "fillets." The strips are then cut into a width appropriate for the particular flooring being produced. In many cases, the next step is a darkening process. The bamboo strips will be steamed under pressure, which helps bring out a more robust color. Unfortunately, the steaming process tends to soften the bamboo, making it more susceptible to scratching and damage. For this reason, darker bamboos may not be good choices for flooring in highly trafficked areas of a home or business.
The bamboo strips will then be graded for quality. A bamboo flooring manufacturer will often sell its lower quality bamboo to other companies for use in discount flooring. It is sometimes, but not always, the case that heavily discounted bamboo flooring is derived from these lower quality bamboo strips.
In order to lock in a certain degree of moisture, the strips are then dried with a kiln, prior to final milling. Moisture content is a very important component of a wood used for flooring. Bamboo that has too much moisture may shrink and show gapes in the flooring. After drying, the strips are glued together to form wider strips, or planks. The planks are then hot pressed to permanently bind the strips together.
The planks are then milled to form the final hardwood flooring pieces that can be assembled together to form a floor. Bamboo floor planks often incorporate the traditional tongue and groove system for installation, although there are some popular alternatives.
Excess bamboo resulting from the milling work described above is used to create a different type of flooring called "strand-woven bamboo flooring." Another name for it is "distressed bamboo flooring." This type of bamboo flooring is made by laminating the excess bamboo with some type of adhesive. The material is then pressed under great pressure. The resulting product is then milled and finished, resulting in a wood flooring plank that looks much like any other.
Bamboo is rapidly gaining popularity as a flooring choice for homes and businesses. However, you may find wide differences in the quality of bamboo flooring from one retailer to the next. It is advisable that you acquire a sample before making the investment. Assuming you are buying from a retailer of high quality products, you will be amazed at the beauty and utility of your new bamboo floor.
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