Bamboo Flooring

Bamboo-flooring sales have grown exponentially over the past few years, and it's easy to see why. Bamboo is attractive, affordable, durable, available in dozens of colors, and it's grown and harvested in an environmentally responsible manner.

Bamboo looks like wood, feels like wood, and cuts like wood. It even smells like wood. And it's much denser than most hardwoods, including maple and oak, so it's ideal for flooring. But bamboo isn't wood at all—it's grass. And because it's grass, bamboo is one of the fastest-growing plants in the world. Bamboo can be harvested after just four or five years. By comparison, it typically takes between 30 and 60 years before hardwood trees can be milled into flooring. Plus, bamboo regenerates after cutting, and the same plant can be harvested again just four or five years later. Try that with an oak tree.

But is it right for your home's flooring?

Bamboo-Flooring Options

Bamboo flooring comes in two basic forms: engineered planks and solid-bamboo planks. Engineered bamboo is typically installed using the floating-floor method: The wide planks are snapped together and laid over a thin foam-rubber underlayment. The flooring isn't attached to the subfloor in any manner, so installation goes fast.

Solid, tongue-and-groove bamboo is installed similarly to traditional hardwood flooring: It's fastened down with nails or staples, with or without mastic. These methods are more time-consuming—they take twice as long as a floating-floor installation—but they produce a permanent, rock-solid floor. Both engineered planks and solid planks come prefinished, so you can carry in the furniture as soon as you install the last plank.

There are three different kinds of solid-bamboo flooring: vertical-grain solid strip, flat-grain solid strip, and strand bamboo. Vertical-grain bamboo is composed of thin bamboo strips stacked on edge and glued together, similar to a butcherblock. Flat-grain bamboo, the most common type, is made up of thin, flat strips of bamboo that are stacked on top of each other and then laminated together. Strand bamboo is manufactured from super-thin, shredded bamboo fibers that are mixed with resins and pressed into rock-hard planks.

Whichever type you buy, bamboo flooring typically comes in pieces measuring 1/2 to 5/8 inch thick and 3-1/2 to 7-1/2 inches wide. It's available in lengths ranging from 36 to 72 inches. And while the grain pattern and natural color of bamboo are both rather subtle, bamboo flooring is available in more than 50 different prestained colors ranging from soft cedar tones to bright reds and greens.

Cost Considerations

Prices for solid-bamboo flooring usually range between about $2 and $4 a square foot. Engineered bamboo typically costs between $3 and $7 a square foot. Prices are often based on the thickness of the flooring; the thicker the plank, the more it costs. At those rates, bamboo can be a bit pricey—low-end bamboo is about on par with red oak strip flooring. But bamboo seems fairly priced when you consider its rather complicated manufacturing process and the fact that it's harvested in East Asia.

Warranties are an excellent indicator of quality. The best and most expensive floors come with longer warranties against manufacturing defects, delamination, and premature wearing of the factory-applied topcoat finish.

Finally, it wasn't long ago when bamboo flooring was sold almost exclusively over the Internet. While it's true that online shopping still offers the greatest choices, most local flooring dealers now sell and install bamboo flooring. Online sources for bamboo flooring include,,,,, and

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