Guest Blogger: The Beauty of Bamboo vs. Timber Flooring in your Home

Guest Blog #141, Entry #612, August 8, 2011

Wood flooring can be a beautifying finish in your home. Depending on what type of wood you choose, the decision to warm up your interiors with wood flooring can also be a challenge. Bamboo and timber flooring have their own advantages, and our Guest Blogger gives tips for enriching your home with each.

The beauty of bamboo flooring

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Foundational to any home, the flooring is what conveys warmth, beauty, and long lasting enjoyment for all who stay or visit. It is the first point of contact in every room and the first thing that is noticed, whether directly or indirectly. The appearance of good flooring engenders a welcoming response both aesthetically and artistically. It is no surprise that the smart choice in floor covering to enhance hearth and home tend toward the hardwoods over carpet, cork, tile or polished concrete. All have their appeal, but few have as many of the additional advantages that bamboo offers, even when compared to timber.

Timber Flooring

Timber flooring exudes elegance and stature, providing a wide range of colors and grain qualities. It also possesses variable densities that are measured for hardness by the Janka Test, which assigns a number relative to a given wood type. The harder the timber, the higher the number it receives in a rating of how dense it is. For example, soft Tasmanian Oak receives a value of 4.9 whereas black-butt has a value of 9.1 as one of the hardest floor covering materials, outside of bamboo.

Bamboo Flooring

For many years now, the new home and renovation markets have been making use of the scratch and dent resistant bamboo flooring that not only compares well in appearance with traditional wood grain and hardwood qualities, but it has many attributes that mark it as an improvement over much of the timber that has been all but used up today.

Bamboo trees are a highly renewable source for flooring

As the characteristics of timber have changed, the result of clearing forests of supply, bamboo ranks highly among the “green” movement, as it is considered to be a grass that grows quite profusely. Within hours of harvesting the material, bamboo is already replenishing itself again, growing as much as three foot in a single day and able to reproduce mature material in as little as 3-5 years, contrasting with the 30 years it takes to reforest timber. Regrowth occurs in place, eliminating the need to replant in continually expansive territory. As a more sustainable material option, bamboo has gained in popularity.

Bamboo wood grain characteristics are stunning

Compared to timber flooring, bamboo possesses a stunning wood grain that achieves an exquisite finish that only gets better with time through sanding and polishing for a traditional finish. Bamboo is actually 70% harder than jarrah (rated at 8.5) and is far more adaptable to conditions of humidity. Bamboo flooring uniquely acclimatises in various environments without twisting, warping or buckling. It is a premium choice for use in kitchens and bathrooms, as it naturally resists attacks of mold and mildew. It is also less appealing to insects as the manufacturing process successfully destroys the starch content in the wood. Bamboo can be fabricated in layers the same way plywood is produced making it very easy to install. Available in classic tongue and groove strips, it can be permanently attached to the surface upon which it sits.

If you want beautiful and resilient bamboo flooring in your home, Bamboozle are Western Australia’s premier bamboo flooring suppliers and bamboo flooring installation experts. Contact Bamboozle to request an obligation free quote.

For more hardwood flooring ideas on Stagetecture, click here.