5 Year Old Bamboo Flooring
Think all bamboo flooring is created equal? Guess again! There’s actually a significant difference when it comes to different types of bamboo flooring solutions. Most notably is the age of the bamboo. As a general rule, you’ll want to make sure that you only consider five year old bamboo flooring or older. Opting for five years or older will grant you the best value for your hard earned money.
Bamboo Performance Factors
While bamboo is typically known for its strength, some types of bamboo offer a greater degree of strength when compared to others. The hardness of bamboo differs based on the species, pattern of grain, color, and age or maturity. Overall, the moso species of bamboo is the hardest, offering one of the best options for an extremely wide variety of home improvement projects.
Don’t Go Against the Grain
When considering the pattern of the grain, you will benefit from looking into vertical grain bamboo as it has consistently proven to be harder than a horizontal grain. You will also find that bamboo flooring that features strands that are woven is even harder than vertical or horizontal grains. This is because the interwoven strands create a naturally self-supporting and buttressing internal system. This means that this type of flooring is excellent for commercial use and areas where there is an above average amount of foot traffic. Because it’s the strongest type you may have to pay a little more for it. While the price is definitely worth the great strength afforded by this type of bamboo, you may simply not need such a high degree of performance from your flooring.
With Great Age Comes Great Performance
Bamboo flooring is usually graded based on its age—the older it gets, the stronger it gets. However, there is an optimal range, with five to seven years of maturity ranking harder than bamboo of three to five years old. Don’t ever be fooled if a bamboo flooring salesman tells you the age doesn’t matter, and you should definitely take it as a warning sign if they simply don’t know the age of the bamboo they have on stock.
It’s also quite interesting to note that naturally colored bamboo is also harder than carbonized coloring.
Bamboo Grading
There are a few other factors that go into grading bamboo. Along with the age of the bamboo (marked as the age of the bamboo at the time it was harvested), you’ll also see that bamboo is graded based on the trunk section (sometimes referred to as the culm) since the trunk decreases in strength from the ground up.
You will also want to look for details or inquire about the manufacturing processes involved with the particular bamboo flooring you’re considering. More antiquated manufacturing processes typically use glues and finishing products that stray considerably from more recent, cutting-edge techniques.
Certification is another important factor to take a look at. Certification is awarded to bamboo flooring manufacturers that comply with modern manufacturing standards.