Avoid Problems - Make Sure That Your Bamboo Flooring is Well-Manufactured

The Bamboo flooring market has recently been flooded with poorly-manufactured material. Where there were a handful of manufacturers 5 years ago, there are now dozens. Bamboo is a high-performance flooring product, but only if it is well-made by an experienced manufacturer using quality raw material, adhesives, and milling equipment.

What to Look for in Quality Bamboo Flooring:

Raw Material – Many Bamboo flooring mills purchase immature Bamboo stalks, and do not take the time and care required to dry the raw Bamboo properly. EcoTimber’s mill uses only top-quality mature stalks, and then painstakingly processes the Bamboo with methods proven through years of research and experience. Careful oversight throughout the process ensures optimum performance.

Adhesives – Many mills use poor-quality adhesives, often-made right there at the mill. EcoTimber uses only European-made adhesives. The glues used by many manufacturers also contain high levels of urea-formaldehyde, which off-gases in the home. EcoTimber Bamboo flooring is made with a Low-VOC adhesive that easily meets the strict European E1 standard for indoor air quality.

Milling/Equipment – Many Bamboo flooring importers source their flooring from a variety of smaller mills that use outdated equipment for cutting and laminating. EcoTimber’s Bamboo flooring comes from just one mill that uses new, state-of-the-art German machinery. Look at the end of a cut sample of Horizontal Grain Bamboo. With most brands, you will see small splits or gaps between the individual strips of Bamboo that have either been filled with adhesive or left as is. Some of the individual strips are not cut into perfect rectangles. With EcoTimber Bamboo flooring, all of the strips are cut perfectly and laminated tightly together, ensuring maximum adhesion and minimum opportunity for movement and delamination. EcoTimber Bamboo flooring adhered to the following milling tolerances: width +/- 0.1mm, length +/- 1mm, thickness +/- 0.1mm.

Drying - Most Bamboo flooring mills only kiln-dry their material down to 9-10% moisture content, which makes the flooring unreliable for use in dry climates and areas with significant seasonal humidity fluctuations. EcoTimber Bamboo flooring is dried down to 6%, making it more stable and suitable for a wide range of climates.

Lengths – Bamboo mills sort their raw material, reserving the best pieces for their longer-length planks. Most manufacturers sell ~3 ft. and ~6 ft. lengths, using the straightest, densest material for the 6 ft. planks, which they often refer to as “Premium” grade. EcoTimber utilizes the 6 ft. lengths exclusively.

Finish – Most prefinished Bamboo flooring products use polyurethane finish systems. EcoTimber Prefinished Bamboo flooring uses a high-tech aluminum oxide enhanced acrylated urethane system with a hardened acrylic anti-scratch topcoat. In abrasion tests, this system meets or exceeds test results from industry-leading aluminum oxide enhanced polyurethane finishes, and it outperforms them in scratch-resistance tests.