Bamboo flooring is a natural, tropical material that looks and in many respects behaves like a hardwood. However, it is in fact a type of grass and this brings some advantages over wood. One of these is that it is a renewable material, being harvested from the bamboo plant and then re-growing, unlike wood from timber which kills the tree when it is felled.
As well as being green, it is designed for a moist environment as a plant used to humid tropical environments. This enables it to withstand a greater amount of moisture in the air without excessive expansion. Yet at the same time bamboo floors offer the strength and durability of hardwood, particularly strand woven bamboo, which is incredibly strong.
Bamboo flooring can also be available in different styles, shades and patterns, with flat-edged and smooth floors or those with bevelled edges for extra definition, light colours or dark and a large amount of markings or very few. Due to its strength and long life, bamboo floors offer long warranties of 20 or 30 years.
Westhollow Bamboo Flooring
Westhollow bamboo flooring offers carbonised products among its range. These are items that have a richer shade than would otherwise be the case, due to the carbonisation process of boiling the bamboo material in a fashion that caramelises the sugar in it, thus causing a darkening of the colour. This can result in some very attractive shades of floor planking that may stand out in the home.
These floors can come with either vertical or horizontal slats. The vertical ones show the nodes commonly associated with bamboo, these darker markings standing out against lighter parts of the material. The horizontal slats offer lined markings instead, giving a stripey appearance. The horizontal slats also give the appearances of much wider bandings of darker or lighter colour than is the case with the vertical ones.
Such slats are put together by a process of lamination after being soaked in resin and the planks come in widths of 94 mm or 96 mm. They are 15 mm thick and have T and G installation. Coming with a satin lacquer coating, they have 30-year warranties.
Carbonised Bamboo Flooring
Carbonised bamboo flooring is produced by taking the bamboo fibres and boiling them in a way that darkens the wood through the caramelisation of the sugars in the substance.
This enables rich colours to be developed in the wood and the products available can form different patterns depending on the way in which the slats of bamboo are fixed together in a process of lamination.
Those that are aligned vertically can produce a series of narrow bands of varying tones, with the node markings commonly associated with bamboo being particularly prominent.
The horizontally aligned slats produce much wider bands of light or dark colour, often in a stripey pattern rather than one punctuated by nodes. This variation caused by the different slat arrangements means that those looking for a carbonised bamboo floor will have plenty of choice. The products come with planks of over 90 mm width and 15 mm of thickness, as well as warranties of 30 years.
