I recently bought and installed my own strand woven bamboo flooring. It cost me about $1,500 everything included to do a 12 foot by 12 foot room. I was initially thinking to buy an oak floor but the dealer was quoting me over $3,000. I just didn’t have that type of money. The helpful man in the shop suggested that I should consider strand woven bamboo flooring instead. I had a look at the samples and heard the man out.
I was glad I did. My new natural solid strand woven bamboo flooring looks beautiful. It looks like a hardwood floor. It has a grain and feels like hardwood under foot but of course bamboo is a grass.
Installation was no problem. I did a floating installation. First I let the bamboo flooring sit in the room for 3 days to let it acclimatize properly as the man in the shop advised. Once that was done, I prepared the concrete subfloor and put down rectangles of underlayment. The strand woven bamboo came in planks with tongue and grooves that fit together snugly. I glued the joins with a low VOC adhesive because I didn’t want to poison my wife and kids with formaldehyde. I used a rip saw to cut the end pieces to size and a pry bar to put the end pieces in place. I also remembered to use spacers because bamboo is a natural substance that ‘breathes’. And hey presto I have a new floor. The installation took me one day to do. I’m a bit slow at doing DIY because I have to consult books and I take my time to help prevent mistakes.
It was important that I replaced the carpet that was originally in the room because my youngest suffers from allergies. I read on the internet that hardwood flooring helped keep a room allergens free, so I was originally thinking to install a hardwood floor, but as I mentioned in my opening paragraph it was beyond my budget. When the dealer told me that bamboo was also suitable for people with allergies I was convinced.
The new flooring is just fine. I don’t why people moan on the net about bamboo flooring being squeaky and weak. Maybe they didn’t install it properly because my strand woven bamboo floor has stood up to my kids running and jumping about. It doesn’t squeak and it is a cinch to clean. Every couple of days I just run a dust mop over the surface and that does the job just fine. On the not so rare occasion that one of the children spills something or makes a more serious mess I wash the floor with a solution of water and vinegar.
What I like about strand woven bamboo flooring, other than its price and strength, is that it is a truly environmentally friendly product. I’ve done some research. Bamboo reaches maturity in just 4 or 5 years. It can grow an amazing 24 inches in a single day. And bamboo can be grown without using pesticides because the plant naturally fights off pests. They make strand woven bamboo by compressing bamboo stalks together under extreme pressure. Apparently they use all the bamboo so there is no waste. That seems really green to me. It also makes me feel good knowing that my flooring came from a Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) credited supplier. I know that not only did I save money but I did the responsible thing as a consumer and supported an environmentally friendly product. I realize now that even if I could have afforded oak flooring that every living oak tree is doing something much more productive by pumping out oxygen into the atmosphere and sucking up the carbon dioxide. That is surely more worthy than dying and ending up as flooring in my kid’s room.
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