Bamboo floors have been gaining in popularity over the past several years, and it’s not just because they’re a beautiful alternative to classic hardwoods like oak or maple. Once you learn these 15 astounding truths about Bamboo floors, we’ll bet you’ll be considering installing them in your home too!

1. Bamboo is 3X Harder Than Oak

Don’t believe us? Check out the Janka Hardness Scale – the resource that the hardwood flooring industry uses to gauge/report the hardness of various varieties of hardwood flooring. Notice what’s at the very top of the scale — the hardest, most durable material of all? Yep. It’s bamboo, or more specifically, strand-woven bamboo. (It shares top billing with Eucalyptus, another rock-hard flooring choice!)

2. Bamboo Has a Greater Tensile Strength Than Steel

Tensile strength refers to how difficult it is to pull a material apart. That fact alone is amazing, but it also resists being smashed better than concrete!

3. Bamboo is the Sustainable Flooring Choice

Bamboo is a grass – not a tree. Trees, as you know, take a long time to go from sapling to full-grown (many decades, in fact). Not so with bamboo. It’s the fastest-growing plant on Earth. (You didn’t know?) Cut down a bamboo plant and within 5-7 years, it’ll be back to the height it was when you cut it down. That makes bamboo a superior choice for people who are worried about deforestation at a time when the Planet really, really needs the help of trees to absorb carbon dioxide and other harmful gases and add more life-giving oxygen. (The truth is, bamboo literally grows an amazing inch-and-a-half an hour, and is considered one — if not THE – most sustainable plant on Earth!)

4. A Bamboo Floor Can Be Light, Dark or Anything in Between

Sure, a natural bamboo floor is gorgeous, but if you’re looking for more of a dark, rich vibe, you should know that bamboo can be stained, just like any other hardwood floor. It can even be wire brushed or hand-scraped, just like the trendiest hardwood floors! (There’s also a bamboo manufacturing process known as carbonizing, which turns natural (light) bamboo to a rich brown hue. When natural bamboo is kiln-baked, the sugars inside “carbonize” or “caramelize”, giving this floor deep, rich color. The best part? The color runs throughout the plank, so that when refinished it retains it’s beautiful brown hue! And speaking of carbonized bamboo, did you know that it was the filament that finally led Thomas Edison to be able to introduce the first electric light bulb to the world?!)

5. Bamboo Floors are Versatile and Can Go Where Other Floors Can’t

Bamboo flooring can even be laid below grade (in a finished basement, for example) and on top of concrete as well as on more traditional sub-floors like plywood.

6. Bamboo Floors are Durable

Due to their incredible hardness and superior strength, they’re less likely to dent and less susceptible to the abuse the average family with kids and pets is likely to inflict over the years.

7. Bamboo Floors can be Installed in Any Climate

Bamboo floors can be installed in the desert, by the seashore, in the mountains — heck, maybe even in outer space if we end up colonizing some Earth-like planet sometime down the road!

8. Bamboo Floors Are Super-Affordable

Priced from just $3 to $5 per square foot, a bamboo floor is not just a wise and lovely choice for your home, it’s kind to your wallet as well! Compare that with the average per square foot cost of a typical hardwood floor, which according to Home Advisors, runs $5 to $10 per square foot!

9. Bamboo Floors are Incredibly Easy to Care For

No really! Regular dry-mopping, sweeping or vacuuming (with a hardwood floor attachment), and an occasional cleaning with a product that’s made for hardwood floors are all it takes to keep your bamboo floor looking nice for many years.

10. Bamboo Floors Can be Refinished

Just as you can prolong the life of your hardwood flooring several times, you can also refinish your bamboo floor multiple times to extend its life and keep it looking great, year after year. (Just as is the case with engineered hardwood floors, engineered bamboo floors can’t be refinished as many times as a solid — all-bamboo floor can.) Here’s another tidbit to consider. Because they’re so hard, they resist denting and scratching better than most hardwood floors, meaning that if they ever do need refinishing, it won’t be nearly as often as typical hardwood flooring would!

11. Bamboo Floors Come in Tongue-in-Groove or Click-Lock Versions

Once again, hardwood floors don’t have the monopoly on variety. You can choose classic tongue-in-groove bamboo flooring that’s nailed or glued down, or install a “floating” click-lock bamboo floor. In fact, if you’re the handy type, you’ll find installing a bamboo floor a fairly straightforward task.

12. Bamboo Has Its Own “Grain Pattern”

Many hardwood floors, like oak for example, are beloved for their beautiful grain patterns. Not to be outdone, bamboo has its own version of a grain pattern, complete with knots — okay “nodes” — from the bamboo stalks themselves, combined with a unique marbled pattern that comes from the strand woven manufacturing process. It’s got its own unique, tropical grain beauty and we think it rivals some of the prettiest hardwood grains for beauty and interest. Apparently, the engineers at Tesla agree since they quality-check all of their Model S cars on elevated bamboo flooring. Why bamboo flooring? The material was chosen “because it looks cool”

13. The Hardest Bamboo Floors are the Strand-Woven Variety

What does “strand-woven” actually mean? We thought you’d never ask! A strand-woven bamboo floor is made by using long strips of bamboo, which are pulled apart into strands, woven together and then compressed under extreme pressure and heat. The result (as mentioned in fact #1 above) is a floor that’s significantly harder than any hardwood floor you can think of.

14. Bamboo is the Perfect High-Traffic Flooring Choice

Because it’s so hard, durable, and easy-care, bamboo flooring is the ideal choice for high-traffic areas like kitchens, hallways, foyers and any other frequently traveled area in your home. You can’t say that about your typical hardwood floor.

15. Not all Bamboo Floors are Created Equal

Ambient Bamboo Floors have some distinct advantages over other brands. Quality is one, and price is another. You won’t find a better price for high quality bamboo flooring anywhere — but feel free to look! Our bamboo floors are also

• harvested from FSC-Certified forests
• kind to your indoor air quality (They’re urea-formaldehyde-free (NAUF), low-VOC, and meet the CARB Phase II indoor air standard, which is the strictest in the world.)
• backed up by an industry-leading lifetime structural and finish warranty
• designed, manufactured and sold directly by us – without a middleman. That translates into the lowest price around for a super high-quality floor!

We’re also rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau, so you can be confident that when you buy from us, you’re buying from a reputable company with the credentials to back up that claim. Bamboo flooring is what we do — and we think we do it better than anyone else out there! Check out our website to learn more about the wonders of bamboo flooring and how it can benefit your home, your wallet and your entire family!

The post 15 Mind-Boggling Facts About Bamboo Floors appeared first on The Greener Living Blog.