Introduction To Bamboo & Bamboo Hardwood Flooring

Bamboo is one of the plants most widely used by humans. In the tropics it is used for constructing houses, rafts, bridges, and scaffolding; culms of large species may be used as containers for liquids. Paper is made from bamboo pulp, and clothing, fishing rods, water pipes, musical instruments, and chopsticks from other parts. Many varieties of bamboo are planted as ornamentals and young shoots are eaten as a vegetable. The grain is also a food.

The split and flattened bamboo culms of this abundant versatile plant are used in furniture production, plywood, panelling, cabinets, counter tops, scaffolding and flooring. And that's just the beginning. Designers and architects have found bamboo flooring to be unique, elegant and serene and specify it frequently for use in homes, offices, hotels, hospitals and retail stores.

For flooring we find that bamboo is harder than nearly all hardwoods, and more stable in its resistance to movement caused by moisture than any other wood product with the exception of mesquite. With a tensile strength superior to mild steel (it withstands up to 52,000 pounds of pressure psi) and a weight-to-strength ratio surpassing that of graphite, bamboo is the strongest growing woody plant on earth.

Bamboo is the common name for about 45 genera and over 1,000 species of perennial, woody, usually shrubby or treelike plants of the grass family. Bamboo occurs mostly in tropical and subtropical areas, from sea level to snow capped mountain peaks, with a few species reaching into temperate areas. They are most abundant in south-eastern Asia, and some species are found in the Americas and Africa, but there are none in Australia.

Bamboo, the new product for the 21st Century, is a naturally beautiful and durable alternative to our limited global supply of timber. It is superior in strength to most hardwoods and possesses superior hardness, yet is remarkably stable with 50% less contraction and expansion. Bamboo is a grass and like grass it has a short growth cycle of approximately 5 years making it a constantly renewable resource.

Some taller, wider and harder plants are found in East Central China (and which are not a food source or habitat for Pandas), which, if not harvested in six years, stop growing and fall down. The plant we prefer to use for our floors, Hairy Bamboo, grows up to 17 metres and up to 25 cm in diameter all within 4-6 years.

A bamboo plant varies in hardness from top to bottom. The bottom 15% to 20% of the plant is the hardest portion and is what is used for flooring. In a fully grown Hairy Bamboo this can amount to 3 metres. The closer to the ground, the harder the product. This results in some unusually hard bamboo planks from the bottom 3 metres. Planks from this section are very dense, heavy and difficult to saw, but this makes it ideal for flooring.

Unlike hardwood with a growth cycle many times longer, bamboo is truly nature's renewable resource. But perhaps most importantly, beyond its durability and abundance, is its beauty! The rich warm tones of the carbonised caramel colour, or the warm natural hues of neutral blond colour, with natures beautiful growth patterns, grains, and growth joints, inherent only in bamboo, make it truly a product that enriches the environment and value of any commercial, residential, or product application.