What Is Strand Woven Bamboo Flooring?
Hardwood floors have always been very popular with home owners. They are both beautiful and easy to take care of and keep clean. As opposed to carpet which can harbor many allergens in its fibers, hardwood floors are much better suited to those who have problems with both indoor and outdoor allergies. Now a days, however, there is a better option than traditional hardwood available in terms of eco-friendliness and green building: strand woven bamboo flooring. Choosing to install bamboo flooring in your home is a large undertaking. Its important to look for quality and affordable pricing. Strand woven bamboo offers all of these as well as being a renewable resource compared to traditional hardwood.
Strand woven bamboo flooring is a fairly recent form of bamboo flooring that was created primarily to address the questions of durability of regular plank bamboo versus traditional hardwoods. Traditionally bamboo has been the building material of choice throughout most of Asia for many centuries. Its only been in the last decade or so that bamboo has gained in popularity in the west. Original bamboo flooring was formed out of planks made from the dried bamboo grass. As a flooring material, plank bamboo was inferior to most hardwoods as it was generally fairly soft and comparable to the hardness of maple – a generally less durable option for wood flooring.
Strand wooven bamboo flooring is created differently from plank flooring. Moso bamboo stalks are cut into small pieces and boiled down and then dried over time. The boiling process has the added benefit of removing all the sugars from the bamboo which is good for preventing termites. Once the bamboo strands are dry, they are pressurized and flattened into planks with a low VOC adhesive used to mold the strands together. This process results in a solid bamboo plank that is virtually two times the density of a regular bamboo flooring plank. In terms of durability, the high density created through this process makes strand woven bamboo flooring perfect for placement in high wear and high traffic settings.
While strand bamboo flooring is the most durable, it is also the least waste-producing for the environment. The process of chopping up the bamboo stalks and boiling them down uses up all of the bamboo plant as opposed to traditional solid bamboo flooring. Solid bamboo produces waste cutting materal that is not able to be fit into a traditional plank. If you are looking for flooring that is stunning, easy to care for, and environmentally friendly, strand woven bamboo is an excellent choice.
