Are you thinking about installing new floors and you aren’t sure which material would be best? You may have researched the gamut of options out there for flooring materials, carpet, hard wood, and laminate. Have you considered bamboo? We at Carolina Flooring love helping our clients select the best flooring option for their home and we take pride in our recommendations. One of the options we offer is bamboo and we have worked with it extensively with a number of our clients. Our staff got together and decided to run through all of the bamboo flooring pros and cons to help you determine if bamboo is the best option for you.

Bamboo flooring pros and cons

Let’s start on a positive note and go with the pros of bamboo flooring. The first major pro is that it is environmentally friendly. Bamboo is a plant that can be easily grown and harvested again and again in a short time which makes a low carbon impact on the forest. In comparison, it can take a forest of any hardwood material up to 4 times as long to grow and mature enough to be processed into planks. Another thing that bamboo owners love is that it is easy to clean and maintain. All you need to do is sweep regularly and mop with a damp mop and some mild soap, or bamboo cleanser, to keep it looking amazing. Bamboo is a good option for kitchens as well as other highly used areas because it can resist stains as well as water damage. Not to say it can take a hard beating but it can do better than a lot of other hard woods. Which brings up the next pro in bamboo flooring, durability. If you get a natural, un-carbonized or strand woven bamboo flooring, it can be as durable as some of the hardwood options. Lastly, another major pro of bamboo flooring is price. It is a lot cheaper than some of the hardwood materials and looks just as amazing.

Now on to the cons of bamboo. The first drawback is where it’s made, China. There are some environmental and ethical practices that are being introduced to meet the demand of bamboo flooring. When poorly made, the adhesive used can leach out urea formaldehyde, which is toxic so be sure that the flooring you buy is in line with the Forest Stewardship Council. Along with that, when floors are made so far away, shipping can not only take time but money as well. Also, while some types of bamboo floors can be very durable, others are not. They can be prone to dents and scratches that will leave you very unsatisfied. While bamboo floors can be water resistant, they have to be installed correctly to make sure they don’t warp or crack with humidity or dryness in the air. Be sure to follow all installation guidelines and allow your floors to acclimate to the room they will be in. Lastly, the final drawback in bamboo floors is that unlike hardwood floors, they don’t really have a grading system which can make it very hard to find quality floors. When you do decide to buy bamboo floors, be sure to use a reputable dealer, like Carolina Flooring.

Our team at Carolina Flooring hopes that looking at bamboo flooring pros and cons will help you determine if bamboo is right for your home. Contact us today to and we will be glad to sit down with you and go through all of your flooring options.

Photo by: Ivy Dawned