Available Options

Available Options

Solid bamboo is available mostly in three or six foot lengths, although it’s sometimes possible to find a company that offers random lengths as well. Solid bamboo has pre-milled tongue and groove on all four sides and can be installed by gluing down, stapling or nailing. Only solid bamboo over 4” should be considered for a floating floor application.

Longstrip bamboo typically comes seven feet long and approximately eight inches wide. It comes with a standard tongue and groove system built primarily for a floating installation; however, you can staple or glue this down as well.

Available as a high quality, tongue-and-groove, precision-milled board, we also offer bamboo floorings with vertical-grained and horizontal (face)-grained orientation.

In the vertical grain, the individual nodes are hard to discern, resulting to a consistent coloration and even grain.

In the horizontal-grain orientation, each individual node (the characteristic joint in the bamboo cane) is visible with about four node strands apparent per piece.

Though these two options differ in appearance and offer customers more visual choices, they offer the same strength characteristics.

Tip: Visit our advertisers for more brands and more selection than anyone online or off line.

One style differentiator is the look of the floor and how the individual bamboo slats are constructed. The two most commonly available looks are referred to as horizontal and vertical. This, essentially, is just the difference in how the individual bamboo slats are put together to make the flooring. The direction of the slats, changing from laying the flat horizontal to the lengthwise vertical assembly, transforms the entire look and feel.

Strand Woven is yet another style available in the bamboo market. This bamboo is literally shredded, glued together, and cured to get it to stick together again. This technique produces a very HEAVY floor in sheer weight. The floor itself is capable of moderate to high traffic. However, due to the quantity of glue required to put the floor together, many manufacturers use inexpensive glue containing levels of formaldehyde. At present I do not recommend strand woven bamboo until it can meet appropriate formaldehyde emission levels and NONE of them presently do.

SOLID VERSUS LONGSTRIP

Bamboo grows in high, narrow stalks that are cut into individual strips, glued together in many layers and made into flooring planks by applying heat and pressure. This method produces a structurally strong and “solid bamboo” floor. Solid bamboo floors are typically 5/8 of an inch thick. CHEAP BAMBOO IS OFTEN THINNER THAN 5/8 INCH SO THIS IS A CLUE TO ITS LOW QUALITY.

The other type of bamboo is most commonly called longstrip, and is also considered an engineered floor. Longstrip flooring has bamboo on the surface, a wood core board, and a balancing wooden back layer. This floating floor offers better expansion and contraction than solid bamboo.

Tip #2: Please note: Due to the nature of bamboo flooring it is NOT RECOMMENDED that Westhollow 3' and 6' products be combined on the same floor.