Terry Holmes Carpet & Flooring

  • About Us
    • Blog
  • Services
  • Showroom
  • Gallery
  • Testimonials
  • Quote
  • (205) 702-6463

July 10, 2020 by Terry Holmes Carpet & Flooring

The Benefits of Bamboo Flooring

Bamboo is probably not the first word that comes to your mind when you think of installing wood floors in your home. However, bamboo flooring is a great option in many cases.

Once difficult to find in the United States, bamboo flooring has recently gained popularity as builders in America have discovered the benefits of bamboo the Japanese have known for decades. Bamboo flooring is strong, beautiful, relatively easy to install and maintain, and environmentally friendly.

 

A Strong and Lightweight Flooring Material

Bamboo is both strong and lightweight. This has made it a common choice to use for scaffolding in Japan. This same strength means bamboo flooring is less likely to chip than hardwood flooring. It also has a resiliency that makes it easier on joints than hardwood floors for people who have to stand on it for long periods of time. This makes bamboo flooring a great choice for an office environment. It also means if you install bamboo in a room with many heavy furniture pieces, the weight is less likely to damage the floor.

Bamboo ages well, generally staying undamaged and developing a color range over time so that it may look even better once it’s older. Bamboo is traditionally a light-colored floor, but you can find tinted bamboo if you’d rather have a darker color. Carbonized bamboo, which has been boiled, is darker colored, but it’s less durable.

 

Believe it or not – Bamboo is not technically wood flooring

Bamboo is actually a grass rather than a wood, which makes it easier to cut than traditional hardwood floors. In most cases, you can cut it with a hand saw rather than heavy-duty machinery. It may be possible for an experienced homeowner to install their own bamboo flooring, and the cost of professional installation is often less than similar installations for hardwood floors.

Bamboo can be installed over most other hard flooring surfaces, as long as the sub floor is clean and undamaged. However, most contractors recommend nailing bamboo flooring to the sub floor rather than doing a floating installation.

 

Bamboo flooring is easy to keep clean

Maintaining your bamboo floor is relatively easy too. Most of the time, a dust mop is all you’ll need to keep your floor looking beautiful. Bamboo floors do need to be refinished occasionally but generally less often than hardwood floors. You may use a damp mop on your bamboo floor when necessary, but be careful not to use too much water and to dry it afterward.

Bamboo does absorb water, as all natural materials do, so it’s probably not a good choice for a room that will get wet often, such as a bathroom. Too much water can make the bamboo warp. Be sure to wipe up any spills promptly.

Bamboo flooring is an environmentally friendly choice. Since bamboo is a grass, it grows much faster than traditional hard woods, and the bamboo used for your floor will replenish itself within about five years.

Bamboo flooring is available in a wide range of prices. Beware, though, of bamboo flooring that seems extremely low-priced. That may indicate bamboo harvested before it reached full maturity. A floor made from immature bamboo is more prone to damage.

If you’re looking for a great selection of bamboo and other hardwood flooring options from top manufacturers like Shaw, look no further than Holmes Flooring in Leeds, AL.

Filed Under: Alabama, Bamboo Flooring, Birmingham, Flooring Tagged With: Bamboo, Floor, wood flooring

June 20, 2020 by Terry Holmes Carpet & Flooring

Bamboo Flooring: The 3 Most Popular Types

Bamboo flooring makes a much smarter choice to install in your home because it will continue to perform for many years without any need for sanding or refinishing. Moreover, it makes an ecologically-friendly choice and helps preserve already compromised natural resources. Bamboo is a grass that grows at an astonishing rate of 100-110 cm in a single day. The fast growth of bamboo ensures a fast production rate and discourages the deforestation of traditional timbers on a large commercial scale.

A Sustainable and renewable flooring choice

Bamboo is also famous for its sustainability and renewability as its extensive root system continues to produce new plants after the harvest. Another ecological benefit of bamboo is that it is conducive to fresh air and produces 20% more oxygen than a comparable-sized hardwood forest. Bamboo crop is denser than timbers and provides excellent protection against soil erosion, storms and floods. Moreover, it provides shelter and food for the native animals.

Bamboo flooring is a type of flooring that is manufactured from the bamboo species “Moso” or “Mao”. Once the bamboo plants are harvested, they are brought to factories where they are split into pieces. Those pieces are then boiled to remove starch and moisture. They are kiln dried and glued together under high pressure into planks. They are then varnished, sanded or stained in a variety of colors.

Custom Home Flooring Installations in Birmingham

The Three Types of Bamboo Flooring

These are the three most common types of bamboo flooring: 

 

  1. Solid bamboo flooring

  2. Engineered bamboo flooring

  3. Strand Woven bamboo flooring

Solid Bamboo – The first type of flooring makes use of several solid strips that are adhered together to produce solid planks. Solid bamboo flooring is available in either vertical or horizontal style. In vertical bamboo flooring, the strips are not laid out flat and they lack the visible nodes or “knuckles”. Horizontal bamboo flooring, on the other hand, displays the natural nodes of the bamboo.

Engineered Bamboo flooring is manufactured with a wooden core, preferably oak, pine or plywood, with a thin delicate sheet of bamboo for the surface layer. It can easily be installed over a subfloor with the floating floor method of installation.

Strand Woven Bamboo flooring gives an attractive woven look and is made up of shredded strips of bamboo bound together under immense heat and extreme pressure. Strand Woven bamboo flooring is very strong, hard and durable. It can also be formed from strands of natural or carbonized bamboo.

 

 

Durable Bamboo Flooring

As far as the toughness and hardness of bamboo flooring is concerned, it outsmarts nearly all hardwood floorings on the market. It is 72% harder than Jarrah and nearly twice as hard as Maple. This attribute makes bamboo flooring an excellent choice to install in the high traffic areas of your home. Bamboo flooring tends to retain its finishing and great natural look in the presence of children and pets because bamboo is also a scratch-resistant material.

Bamboo flooring is not vulnerable to the attacks of termites, bugs, ants and pathogens. Moreover, you can confidently install it in your kitchen because bamboo is quite resistant to fire. It makes an easy-to-clean option as well and you can clean a spill with the help of a dry cloth or towel.

Call Holmes Flooring in Leeds, AL for a free estimate on bamboo flooring for your home or place of business.

Filed Under: Bamboo Flooring, Flooring, Wood Flooring Tagged With: Bamboo, home flooring

Pages

  • About Us – Flooring Installers Birmingham, AL
  • Blog
  • CARPET BIRMINGHAM ALABAMA
  • Flooring Store Birmingham, AL
  • Gallery
  • Hardwood Floor Birmingham Alabama
  • Luxury Vinyl Flooring Birmingham AL
  • Privacy
  • Quote
  • Services
  • sitemap
  • Testimonials
  • Thank You
  • Tiles Birmingham AL

Get a Free Quote!

Experience the best floor source in Birmingham, AL

– get your free quote today!

Get Quote Now

or call today...

(205) 702-6463

Classic Carpet, Hardwood Flooring & Luxury Tiling Solution for Home in Birmingham, Alabama

Terry Holmes Carpet & Flooring
1435 9th Street    |    Leeds, Alabama    |    35094
   |   
(205) 702-6463

Copyright © 2021 · Holmes Carpet & Flooring · Privacy · Sitemap· Website maintained by: Webology