Strand Woven Bamboo Flooring

Strand Bamboo and Pets

When shopping for a new floor, one of the most often questions asked by homeowners is – will this floor stand up to the wear and tear of my pet? If you are looking for a pet-friendly bamboo flooring, than strand bamboo is your best option.

While there is no such thing as a natural floor – wood or bamboo – that is truly pet proof, strand bamboo flooring is one of the most resilient floors that you can purchase today. The strand woven process insures a much stronger, denser material than any other process used in manufacturing bamboo flooring. Most manufacturers include a final scratch resistant layer on bamboo flooring as well. Even so, any floor will show wear given enough pressure repeated long enough.

One of the best ways to protect your strand bamboo with pets is to make sure that you clip their nails regularly. This can be done at home or at the dog groomer. If you aren’t comfortable clipping your pet’s nails yourself, you can ask the vet or groomer to show you how to do it properly. In addition to clipping, many pet stores also care vinyl caps that you can place over the pet’s nails for further protection.

One thing many pet owners don’t consider when thinking about purchasing strand woven bamboo is whether or not the flooring is good for the pet. Usually we just consider how the pet may potentially damage the floor and if we will have to repair scratches. If you have an older dog with arthritis, or even a younger one whose breed may be prone to arthritis, you may want to consider whether or not any hard type of flooring is your best option. Pets who suffer from arthritis will need slip-free flooring in order to maintain their balance. Hardwood and tile floors can make it difficult for them to move around comfortable and even to lay down comfortably without a soft bed. Of course you can use area rugs and runners over strand bamboo though the spots your dog travels. This will both protect your pet as well as your flooring.

Strand Bamboo Flooring – Repair Scratches

Strand woven bamboo flooring is the most durable and dense of any type of bamboo flooring available on the market today. Even so, life happens – we drop things, forget to add furniture pads before moving that table, or drag in a bunch of sand from the beach that makes scratches and nicks on the floor boards. Luckily these are all types of repairs that are fairly simple for the average person to complete simply by using products and tools from your local home center or the flooring center where you purchased the bamboo to begin with.

Small shallow scratches are the most common type of damage that you will need to repair. For the most part, these scratches generally only penetrate the top layer of the finish on your floor and don’t go all the way down to the bamboo itself. Before beginning to repair scratches on your floor, take stock of the damage and make sure there aren’t any deep gouges that you will need to take care off.

Generally you have three options for dealing with scratches in your bamboo floor – these are the so called “miracle scratch remover” products that you see frequently at home improvement centers and even the grocery store. Second is to purchase a scratch repair kit from the floor manufacturer you purchased the materials from. Third is to use common wood floor fixers like stain pens or fillers like wood putty.

“Miracle scratch removers” are generally considered useless by most reputable home construction specialists. Its best to avoid these types of products all together. It is highly likely that the product with contain harmful chemicals that will stain the strand bamboo flooring – repairing scratches will be the least of your concerns.

Scratch repair kits – sometimes referred to as bamboo floor scratch remover – made by the bamboo manufacturer are the best method to use as they are designed specifically for your type of flooring. They will not stain or bleach out the bamboo. Depending on where you obtained the flooring from – whether it was local or via the Internet – it may be relatively more or less difficult to obtain one of these kits.

Probably the cheapest way to repair scratches on strand bamboo is to use a stain pen or putty. You can generally easily find a color match at the local home store. If the scratch is very shallow, a stain pen will work nicely. If its a little more deep, the filler is generally the way to go. After applying a filler you will need to buff up the surface to match the rest of your finish. If the scratch is just a little too deep, you can also wet-sand the area and then apply the filler. If you do sand, though, you will need to go ahead and seal the area up with another coat of polyurethane. Not doing so can leave that area of your bamboo flooring much more vulnerable to liquids.

DIY home improvement is another excellent resource for information regarding floor repair and home improvements in general.

What Makes Strand Woven Bamboo a Green Flooring Alternative

Strand woven bamboo flooring as well as other types of bamboo have been touted as an ecologically sound alternative to hardwood floors.  This blog chooses to focus primarily on strand woven bamboo because of its advantages over other types of bamboo flooring because of its superior durability.  But what makes bamboo a better green flooring alternative?

The rate at which old-growth forests are disappearing in the world today is truly alarming.  More than 4 million acres of forests disappear from the earth each and every month.  Combine this with the fact that a tree harvested for use in the hardwood flooring market takes over sixty years to replace and it is easy to see how we simply can not afford to continue using traditional hardwoods from an ecological stand point.

Compare the rate of regeneration of a hardwood tree to that of a 60 foot piece of bamboo harvested for flooring – the bamboo will replenish in less than two months.  Bamboo is widely recognized throughout the world as one of the fasting growing plants around.  Besides its rate of regeneration, bamboo is a surprisingly better plant compared to hardwood plots for the environment.  Bamboo is know to produce around 30% more oxygen to the atmosphere than a comparable stand of hardwood trees.  Ecologists hail this simple fact as an elegant way to combat the effects of global warming and reduce the overall atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide.  In addition, bamboo is well known for its abilities to combat soil erosion due to its root structure.  Because of its quick growing nature, bamboo is also excellent for restoring soil that has been degraded through poor management – bamboo produces an abundance of biomass which is added back to the soil to provide necessary nutrients and improve the overall soil quality.  In addition, when bamboo is selectively harvested rather than clear cut, it will quickly regenerate itself without the need to replant new bamboo plants.

In regards to soil erosion, the massive root structure of bamboo is excellent at providing a natural barrier to run off and water.  This has the effect of significantly reducing run off and soil erosion while providing more available water within the watershed area.  When harvested properly, the entire bamboo plant is not taken which keeps the majority of vital topsoil in the area where it can continue to be nourished and improved by the bamboo plant.

On the other hand, when a lumber tree plot is harvested, it takes many decades for the trees to regenerate.  During that time, oxygen production is severely hampered as there are no mature trees left in the area to continue producing.  In addition, the soil in the area is left exposed and is more susceptible to soil erosion and degradation over time.  The negative environmental impact is striking in comparison to a similar site of bamboo farming.

It is easy to see how bamboo is a sustainable resource on its own.  When compared to a similar growth of trees traditionally used for flooring, the choice becomes even more obvious.  If you are looking for a natural wood flooring, strand woven bamboo is the green alternative.