While bamboo flooring is a relative newcomer to the North American market, it is rapidly becoming a popular choice of home owners, interior designers, architects, and builders, as an alternative to traditional hardwood flooring. Bamboo flooring is as durable as hardwood flooring, looks great, is extremely environment friendly and easy to install. Bamboo flooring can now be found in commercial buildings, hotels, restaurants, offices and many high traffic areas.

However with the many variety of traditional flooring materials to choose from including hardwood, cork and ceramic tiles, do you really want to go through the time and expense of using a flooring material that has no track record? To help you decide if bamboo flooring is the right choice for your home, consider the brief recap of bamboo flooring pros and cons:

The Good: Pros of Bamboo Flooring

A key reason why bamboo flooring appear to most people is because of it unique appearance. Bamboo flooring offers as much if not more different grain patterns than hardwood flooring. Flooring made from bamboo also gives any room in the house a warm and homely feel.

As a plant, bamboo may not look too impressive or durable as oak or pine trees. But once made into flooring, bamboo flooring is as strong and durable as hardwood flooring. With proper maintenance, it can easily last for many years, without developing any major problem.

Bamboo is a versatile material. It can be and are made into many varieties to choose from. Bamboo flooring comes in a wide range of designs, including thick panels, thin panels, dark coloring, light coloring, natural bamboo flooring, vertical bamboo flooring, horizontal bamboo flooring, carbonized bamboo flooring, hand scraped bamboo flooring, strand bamboo flooring. You are sure to find a variety that matches your decor and lifestyle.

Bamboo floor installation can easily be done with any of the usual hardwood flooring installation methods. These include a floating floor where the floor is simply glued together to form a single piece, straight gluing to the old floor material and a basic nailing method.

Another good quality of bamboo flooring is that it is relatively unaffected by moisture, which means that bamboo flooring can be used in kitchens and dining rooms, or any areas with limited moisture exposure.

Another noteworthy consideration more and more people are using when looking into using bamboo flooring is the fact that it is extremely environment friendly. Unlike hardwood flooring, which mostly uses wood from fell trees that take decades to mature, bamboo flooring uses the stalks of bamboo plants that only take 5 to 7 years to mature. And once harvested the bamboo plants re-grow without the need to disturb the earth too much.

The Bad: Cons of Bamboo Flooring

Just like hardwood flooring, bamboo flooring is prone to scratches from heavy furniture and sharp objects and discoloration from direct exposure to sunlight.

While bamboo flooring is water and moisture resistant, it will swell and weaken from being soaked or exposed to long term dampness.

Bamboo flooring prices tends to be more expensive than hardwood flooring. However, with the increase in demand for bamboo flooring and more efficient production methods, the cost of quality bamboo floor material can be found for less than half the cost of planked hardwood.

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