Environmentally Friendly Flooring: Going Green with Bamboo Floors
If you're about to put down new wood flooring and prefer to keep an eye on environmental issues when you kit out your home, then you may be thinking about how to lay down greener floors. While traditional hardwood flooring looks great, using up hardwoods isn't good for the environment. Bamboo flooring may give you a viable alternative.
Why Is Bamboo Flooring Better For the Environment?
While a bamboo floor may be mistaken for being made from a hardwood, this isn't the case. Bamboo is a plant rather than a tree. This is what makes it greener from a harvesting perspective. If you cut down a tree to make hardwood flooring, it can take decades for another tree to grow in its place. Also, you have no guarantees that the forests that are being cut down to produce wood are always being replanted for the future.
On the other hand, bamboo is much more sustainable than traditional woods. The plant can reach its optimum growth-to-harvest schedule in just three years and it doesn't need to be replanted after harvest. Plus, as the plant grows in popularity as a wood alternative, more is being planted. This can help the environment. Bamboo is estimated to supply 35% more oxygen into the environment than regular trees.
Is Bamboo Flooring Better for Your Home?
If you want an environmentally-friendly home, then bamboo floors may help you tick green boxes that other floors can't tick. This kind of flooring looks just as good as hardwood floors; it is also strong and easy to maintain. If you have people living in your home with allergies, then a bamboo floor could also help them – bamboo is a hypo-allergenic plant.
While bamboo floors are a viable option in most areas of your home, you do need to think about how you get this kind of flooring into your bathroom if you want it there. Bamboo doesn't always deal with moisture well, which used to put people off from using it in bathrooms.
You can get around this problem by buying engineered bamboo rather than a solid floor. Engineered bamboo floors are composed of various layers of other materials like plywood or fibreboard with a layer of bamboo on the top. Engineered bamboo can look just as good as a solid version but it gives you some extra protection against humidity, moisture and water in a bathroom.
To find out more about the advantages of using bamboo flooring in your home and the types of flooring you can choose from for each room, talk to local flooring companies
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