Bamboo, a grass once conjuring up images of Pandas and rickety boats, is now being used to make quality wood floors in many North American homes. Bamboo laminate flooring is both an excellent building material and environmentally friendly; bamboo is easily renewable and matures in only five years. It is durable, strong, hard, and dimensionally stable.
Grown in China and Southeast Asia, the many species of bamboo being used for bamboo laminate flooring are harvested after four or five years, cut into strips, dried in the sun, and then laminated either vertically or horizontally into two- or three-layer pieces. Horizontally laminated planks are referred to as face grained, and vertically laminated planks are vertically grained. Planks vary by color, which usually comes in natural shade or carbonized (darker). Carbonized bamboo is treated with heat to give it a more amber color.
After the initial processing, the bamboo laminate flooring planks are cut into various sizes and finished with a stain. …