What is the best type of bambo flooring ?
The company is local to where I live, so I don't know it's availabilty if you live outside the Bay Area. If you are going the DIY route I STRONGLY recommend getting the floating/click installation versus the glue down/nail down product. The floating stuff does cost more (for example, usually starts at about a $1 more a sqaure foot), but renting nailing equipment and buying adhesive is also expensive. We spent about $300 on flooring glue (Bostik's Best) for a 210 sq. foot room. In comparison, foam padding and plastic sheeting for a floating floor of the same size would be around $70. The floating (engineered) pieces are also about 3X the size of the hardwood planks, so that really works out to be about half the time cutting and laying the product. If you are putting bamboo in the kitchen area, you may want to consider a laminate that has a bamboo pattern due to water damage potential. I don't think hardwood is really recommended in the kitchen/bathroom areas. If you are looking for a sustainable option for the kitchen, Forbo Marmoleum(natural linoluem, versus the vinyl sheeting that most homes have) is plant based and carries something like a 40 year warranty. The prices tend to be $4-$6 a square foot, so comparable to bamboo . I recently saw that Armstrong carries a natural linoleum product that I think is suitable for kitchens. I think their website says that is available at Home Depot and Lowe's, among other places.
Hey Pamela, I am a flooring associate from The Home Depot in the Atlanta area, and I sell a good bit of bamboo flooring in my store, so I know its a good choice for your home. Bamboo flooring comes in different forms, in solid or in planks (not laminate) called engineered flooring. The best way to compare flooring to the ones we sell as well as any other flooring company out there is by doing 2 things. The first is to check the samples that you get from your local home center and make sure to get a rating from the store that you got it from. The Home Depot has a hardness scale we use from 1-5. Most bamboo I have seen is a 3 or more. Solid bamboo will always be thicker than engineered, so remember than when are getting your flooring. Also, solid bamboo typically glues or nails down to the subfloor, where engineered bamboo is easier to install since it floats over the subfloor with a underlayment in between like laminate planks. The second is to get the sample and check out the wood's hardness on the Janka hardness scale. Janka is an internationally known way that measures a floors hardness, so if you see the higher the rating how many pounds per square inch it can handle, then the better the floor you can get. While bamboo is a good flooring, there are other floors that are as durable or even more, so consider that as well. Hope this helps you out, aboveaveragejoe
