Pets and Strand Woven Bamboo Flooring

The first thing people usually consider when looking at the problem of pets and flooring is whether or not the flooring is hard enough to deal with the high traffic and paws of pets coming and going. People are especially concerned that heavy dogs will scratch hardwood floors.

Are strand woven bamboo floors going to scratch less? Well, the first thing to consider is hardness. Naturalized strand woven bamboo flooring is harder than oak and maple, the two most commonly used hardwoods for flooring in the USA. Regardless of what some uninformed hubpages may tell you, even the weaker carbonized strand woven bamboo flooring is stronger than oak and maple. This means that strand woven bamboo flooring is better for your pets then oak and maple flooring.

However, that is not so say that the strand woven flooring won't get dented and scratched over time. This is an unrealistic expectation. All wood and bamboo floors get marks, dents and scratches over time caused by adults, kids and pets.

Formaldehyde Free Adhesive

Formaldehyde is an important compound with several industrial applications. For years formaldehyde has been used in the textile and automobile industries. It is also commonly used to make adhesives, paint and explosives.

Like with many chemical compounds that we once used with impunity, we are now waking up to the toxicity issue. Formaldehyde easily turns into a gas at room temperature. This gas is linked with respiratory and allergy problems, especially for children.

Formaldehyde is such a pervasive toxin in the home and in factories that Massachusetts State Senate is considering a bill to ban the use of formaldehyde in the production of adhesives for furniture, carpeting and wood flooring.

What is the Janka Hardness Scale?

Even the briefest examination of the topic of bamboo flooring will bring you across the mysterious thing called 'the janka hardness scale'. As with many things on the internet it is accepted as an article of faith.

The Janka Hardness Scale is a way of measuring the strength of wood. The number refers to the pressure needed to push a 11.28mm steel ball into a piece of wood so it makes an indentation which is 100mm. The force is applied perpendicular to the grain. Unfortunately, there is no standard way of expressing the Janka Scale. Americans, who are still hung up with imperial measurements, express Janka as pounds force (lbf or PSI), the Swedes measure Janka in Kilograms force and the Australians in newtons or kilonewtons force. This is irritating because a lot of web pages just give a Janka rating without telling you what system of measurement it refers to.

Vertical and Horizontal

There is a common misconception that vertical bamboo flooring is flooring that is laid length-ways on a floor and that horizontal bamboo flooring is flooring that is laid across the width of a room.

This is incorrect. The terms 'vertical' and 'horizontal' refer to how the bamboo planks are made.

It must be stressed that vertical and horizontal flooring are different from strand woven bamboo flooring. They look different and are typically half the density of strand woven bamboo

Horizontal bamboo flooring

Horizontal bamboo is created by aligning and laminating 3 layers of  bamboo strips which are bonded together with environmentally friendly bonding agents. The bamboo strips are placed wider edge face up. The result is a wider view of the growth ring of the bamboo. It is durable and strong and suitable for commercial and residential settings. Horizontal bamboo flooring can be installed directly over a concrete subfloor providing the subfloor meets moisture level requirements - namely that the concrete is not damp at all.

How to Clean a Strand Woven Bamboo Floor

It is very easy to clean a strand woven bamboo floor. Bamboo has a natural resistance to water so if something is spilled on the floor it is not quickly soaked up by the bamboo. Rather it remains on the surface and can be mopped up.

What's So Great About Bamboo?

Only a Westerner could ask this question because people living in Asia have known for centuries just how incredible bamboo is. So for all you bamboo novitiates here's a list of why it is worth talking and blogging about bamboo: