This is a draft of the post about bamboo flooring. I was just thinking that many people are looking for bamboo floorimg reviews of some specific brand. I will probably reorganize lately the post structure making it a little more functional and easy to use.
Review #1.
I’ve ment Steve at the gardenweb forum. I think he is a smart man and I appreciate his answers.
Hi Alex,
Yes, we recently installed Bamboo flooring in our kitchen.
1. How long have you been using your bamboo flooring? What type/brand do you have?
We’ve had the flooring since May. It’s Morning Star Stranded Natural from Lumber Liquidators. It’s a good brand and so far is holding up well. One thing I’ll mention here now is if you use LL, I’ve heard they are much harder to deal with then if you are a contractor. We used a contractor for two reasons – 1. We had no idea of how to do it ourselves and 2. If there were to be a problem HE’D be the one to deal with them and not us.
2. How have you installed it?
The bamboo we bought and he installed is tongue in groove and is nailed together over an old linoleum. There are a few spots where the nail holes show through and those are areas where it wasn’t possible to do it otherwise. Thankfully, most of the holes were able to be filled in with wood scratch crayon.
3. What could you say about its durability? Did you have any problems with this flooring?
So far, no problems and don’t anticipate any. Stranded Bamboo is the hardest rated wood with a Janka rating of 3000. Pretty strong stuff but it can be scratched. The jerks who installed our stove dragged something over it when they removed the mat to place the stove and I believe it had small stones in it. Luckily, the scratches aren’t noticeable and I’m in the process of using some wood toner to cover them. Unless you’re wearing golf shoes, spiked high heels or things like that, it’s pretty hard to scratch. I recommend if you go with bamboo to use either rug runners or scatter rugs.
4. How do you maintain it?
Maintenance is a breeze. Once a week I use a micro dust mop and then use a great product that was recommended to me. Bona (a Swedish firm and product) makes a kit that you an buy at Home Depot or Lowes. It’s much better than the Swifter products and keeps the floor looking like new.
5. Other pros and cons?
As I said, minor surface scratches can be taken care of with a number of products on the market. Deep ones like the ones we got from the installation of the stove are harder to repair but can be fixed with a little effort.
6. Would you recommend it?
I’d absolutely recommend it. I love the way the kitchen looks now and it’s much easier to take care of.
Hope this helps and if you have any more questions feel free to contact me.
Steve
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Review #2.
Nathalie is an investment consultant in Florida. I’m glad she had some time to answer my questions. Here’s what she told me:
Hi Alex.
Yes, I’ve had strand woven bamboo flooring for a good 4 years now (I actually forget when we installed it). I added my answers to your email.
Let me know if you want additional info. We really like the floors, and will be installing more on the 2nd story later this year.
1. How long have you been using your bamboo flooring? What type/brand do you have? At least 4 years. Yanchi brand strand woven, purchased from builddirect.com
2. How have you installed it? Glued onto concrete slab foundation
3. Did you have any problems with this flooring? None at all – it’s been great. Boards were straight. Fyi, we found a few cut pieces in the lawn about six months after installing (after a rainy florida summer) – after a quick clean with fantastic and a paper towel the pieces looked new. The stuff is really durable and stable in wet environments.
4. What could you say about its durability? Excellent. We do have a few scratches (the finish can scratch in a few cases, and the scratches show as white). A wood filler crayon masks this. FYI, it was a sharp rock in a shoe that did the damage – it also damaged my stone flooring.
5. How do you maintain it? Mostly vacuum and microfiber mop (dry to pick up dust). I’ve even used method general purpose cleaner (the kitchen type stuff) a few times on spots, and I’ve used my steam cleaner a few times – no issues with either.
6. Other pros and cons? Offgasses a bit after opening/installing (and the adhesive is strong-smelling), but wasn’t too bad.
7. Would you recommend it? Yes.
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Review #3.
Our next guest is Sabrina. She wasn’t very glad when I asked her permission to publish this photo. I hope she will change her mind when I show her this post.
Hi Alex,
Yep, we have bamboo flooring in our kitchen.
1. How long have you been using your bamboo flooring? What type/product do you have? I have country woven bamboo from Style Limited (http://www.stylebambooflooring.com/). I believe the stain is called coffee and was approx $5/sq ft (not included installation) from a local flooring store. It was installed in Aug 2010.
2. How have you installed it? We installed it ourselves (my husband is a general contractor) using glue and a few small nails around the perimeter. I dont think floating was an option for us.
3. Did you have any problems with this flooring? No problems what so ever.
4. What could you say about its durability? Extremely durable. We have two young boys and a CRAZY 70lb dog. They fly through the kitchen and slide across the floor – no scratches. No water marks either.
5. How do you maintain it? I use a steam cleaner. I should use Bona but haven’t gotten around to it. We are pretty rough on this floor.
Couple of quick points…
We have a satin finish. I believe this helps hide the scratches…. and dirt.
In our previous home we had traditional bamboo flooring (vs woven) with a gloss finish and it was extremely soft and always looked dirty. I would not recommend traditional bamboo if you are worried about up keep. Woven bamboo is great and I would highly recommend it. It certainly can be scratched, but holds up very well to daily wear and tear, IMO.
Hope that helps.
Sabrina
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Review #4.
I don’t remember where did I get Jeremy’s email. Probably at some forum. Here is his briefly story:
I bought whatever they had at Costco, the manufacturer was Wellmade and the name was Ardwara or something like that. I’ve had it two years, it has cracked in numerous areas and the gaps between the flooring are so wide they fill with dirt and now it looks like I have black stripes in my flooring that are impossible to clean. I don’t recommend it, it is very poorly engineered.
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More bamboo flooring reviews soon…
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