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Are Bamboo Floors Ecologically Friendly?

Bamboo floors. We’re not talking about some uneven, bumpy tiki-lounge decor here — we’re talking about a manufactured product much like our familiar hardwood flooring that comes in tongue and groove planks. Only bamboo flooring is not made from trees like oak or pine or maple — bamboo flooring is made from grass, the woody shoots of bamboo to be specific.

Except for the grain, bamboo flooring materials can be made to look very much like the hardwood materials they are meant to replace. They typically come in light colors resembling beech and dark colors resembling oak. Because darker bamboo flooring goes through a process called carbonization that partially breaks down the bamboo, dark bamboo floors are somewhat less durable than light bamboo. Manufacturers put bamboo through an intensive process to make it into ready-to-install tongue-and-groove strips. The process begins with the removal of knots from harvested bamboo stalks. Then the manufacturer sorts the bamboo stalks by size and splits them in order to attain a uniform raw material ready for further processing.

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Read the rest of Bamboo Flooring at Suburban Ecology

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Post tags: Bamboo, Bamboo floor, Floor, Floors and Flooring, Wood flooring

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