More About Bamboo

Botanically, bamboo is not a wood at all, but rather a grass. Bamboo is attractive as a building material because it is very hard, strong, and dimensionally stable. Environmentally, it's hard to argue with a wood-substitute that matures in three to six years, regenerates without need for replanting, and requires minimal fertilization or pesticides. In fact, these larger species of bamboo have been used in construction for thousands of years, and even in modern Asian cities it's not uncommon to see a large concrete building being constructed from bamboo scaffolding.

To make bamboo flooring, the hollow round shoots are sliced into strips, which are boiled to remove the starch. The strips are dried and laminated into solid boards, which are then milled into standard strip flooring profiles. The bamboo is treated with preservative, either before it is laminated, after, or both. Several manufacturers report using the relatively nontoxic boric acid as a preservative — others didn't say. Most manufacturers offer a light, natural color flooring and a darker, amber variety. This amber color is achieved by pressure steaming the bamboo, which darkens it by carbonization. All the products are laminated using urea-formaldehyde (UF) adhesive. UF resin tends to off-gas formaldehyde for quite a long time after production, but the amount of resin in a laminated product is much less than in a particleboard-type product.

Nearly all bamboo flooring sold in North America is produced in the southern Chinese province of Hunan, in an area known as "the bamboo sea" for its extensive bamboo forests. These forests are owned by the government, and individuals or companies can obtain contracts to harvest from them.