bamboo floors

May 27, 2007 9:28 PM

bamboo flooring...its been discussed in the past but was wondering if anyone had new advice or anecdotes..

we have 2 large dogs (50lbs and 75lbs), 2 cats . I have heard it is soft and will scratch/show dents. someone in the previous linked post felt that the blonder bamboo was harder than the darker variety...doesn't seem likely since the color is a function of the stain not the bamboo I would think.
anyone know anything about that?
anyone out there with 120lbs of dog and bamboo floors that is happy with their flooring decision? if this is the case--how much per sq ft? what brand? or what about your bamboo floor do you think has made it more resilient or scratch resistant?
also our realtor said bamboo was "so over" [my paraphrasing]---would bamboo floors discourage future buyers?

posted by TheLibrarian to home & garden (13 comments total)

Some types of darker-than-nagural bamboo flooring are stained, but most carbonized types are colored by steaming, which does indeed soften the wood (grass, actually). Almost all types seem to come from one of a few factories in China, and most use some kind of European UV-cured coating that's supposed to be very hard and scratch-resistant. Stained flooring looks much richer than carbonized, but it's a lot more expensive, too.

We put vertical carbonized flooring in a kitchen. It looks great, but dents pretty easily if you drop things on it. (You can put a ding in it by dropping a pencil point-down from waist height, or knocking a tape measure off a counter. Not that I would ... um ... have personal experience like that.) I think we paid around $2/sq.ft. at www.simplefloors.com.

We don't have dogs, and don't wear shoes indoors, so I expect the finish will last a long time. Dunno about dog claws.

Screw your realtor. If you like it, get it. You're not buying flooring to make the next buyer happy.
posted by spacewrench at 11:13 PM on May 27, 2007

The claws of dogs of that size will take a serious toll on bamboo and more traditional wood floors. You can certainly expect noticeable denting and scratches if the dogs are active in the house.

My understanding is that the color of bamboo does not significantly alter the hardness. The color is not normally a stain, but is rather the result of heat / steam process which alters the color at the factory.

A very hot trend in current wood floors is a vintage / distressed look, where the planks are "aged" in a factory process prior to installation. This kind of look will disguise imperfections and wear as your floor ages.

Some commercial wood floors can be obtained with an acrylic impregnated finish that is substantially more durable. You may want to look into that if you are committed to wood.

When you see wood in high traffic shopping mall installations, if is oftentimes acrylic impregnated.

Good luck.
posted by Exchequer at 11:24 PM on May 27, 2007

DON'T DO IT! I don't mean to yell, but the stuff is absolutely terrible if you have dogs. I have two dogs - not even that big (one 20lb one 40lb-ish) and both mellow hounds - and our floor is completely and totally ruined with scratches. The scratches are so deep they pick up and hold every bit of dirt that makes it's way into our apartment and the only way to clean it is to get down on your hands and knees and scrub it out. They're actually more like gouges than scratches.

What spacewrench said about dropping things on it is true too.. anything mildly hard, sharp, or heavy will put a dent in it if dropped from anything over waist height. We actually have a desk chair that my 95lb girlfriend uses that put too much pressure on the floor and so now there's a corner of our apartment full of little circular indentations in the wood from the legs.

I don't know if this is typical, but we've had an awful time with ours. It was installed in September, and in less than a year it looks worse than the 70+ year old more traditional (oak?) wood floor I had in my previous house. When we moved in we had the choice of either having them put in polished concrete or bamboo, and everyday we wish we had gone with the concrete.

Your dogs are twice as heavy as ours, I can't imagine how much worse it would be if we had bigger dogs. As it is now, we plan on completely ripping it up when we move out because it's hopeless, and this is after less than a year from having it installed.
posted by bradbane at 11:39 PM on May 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

useless noise, but 50 and 75 is "large"? I think my brain has been warped by my mom's newfandland and great pyranese/norweigan elkhound/st bernard. To add anything, those two are really screwing up the hardwood floors in her house, so I think bamboo, even with dogs half their size, would have issues.
posted by flaterik at 12:56 AM on May 28, 2007

with most pet products, our dogs are considered "large". there is another tier of dogs out there that make ours look like chihuahuas(---extra large dogs -great danes, saint berns etc)


has any one had luck with these veneer floors from ikea?


anybody want two dogs??? just kidding:)


ok, thanks everybody for talking us off the bamboo ledge as it were....

(this is posted by a lazy the_librarian who is married to nomich)
posted by NoMich at 4:38 AM on May 28, 2007

You can get laminate flooring that looks like bamboo, but is tougher. Off the top of my head I know that Alloc makes some. Most other big laminate manufacturers will probably have something similar as well.
posted by ODiV at 10:14 AM on May 28, 2007

You don't have to give completely up on bamboo.

Interceramic made a very convincing bamboo look in ceramic tile, at one point. It would be much, much more durable than either real wood / bamboo or the other laminate floors. I believe that they've discontinued it, but I see it still available at a substantial discount several places online. Here's a start.

Laminate floors will defintly be tougher than real wood, especially under the stress of dog claws, but they still can be damaged, especially at the seams, or edges, of the individual planks. If they chip, it is virtually impossible to repair them without removing and replacing the plank.

Large dog claws are very hard on floors.
posted by Exchequer at 3:19 PM on May 28, 2007

has any one had luck with these veneer floors from ikea?

I have Ikea's laminate flooring in my studio, the previous version (the kind you had to glue vs the kind that snaps together). It's roughly the equivalent in quality to Pergo's cheapest product line (and rumored to be made by Pergo as well, however, I haven't seen definitive proof of that). I installed it 5-6 years ago and it's held up well under the claws of a 45# terrier mix and a 80# lab with no chips or dents, however, the room is tiny and the configuration of furnishings makes it impossible for the dogs to build up much speed: it wouldn't have held up in something like a hallway or entry.

My friend sprung for Pergo's most expensive product line throughout his remodeled house and his two springer spaniels have completely thrashed sections of it, particularly where ever the younger of the two dogs had housebreaking accidents. That's the big Achilles heel of laminates: fluids getting past the upper surface are a really Bad Thing.
posted by jamaro at 12:52 AM on May 29, 2007

BTW, the flooring I put in the rest of the house? Completely dog proof saltillo tile.
posted by jamaro at 12:58 AM on May 29, 2007

I just got some fancy bamboo floors from lowe's installed in the bedroom, they have has an extra super layer of protectant on top. Its only been a couple of months but my three gigantor german shepards haven't made dents in it yet.
posted by stormygrey at 4:57 AM on May 29, 2007

yeah, we are wanting to stay away from laminate. its ok for some areas but we are hoping to live in this house quite a while, so we really hardwoods or bamboo or something. I found some inexpensive but nice parquet but my husband wants no parquet...

stormygrey, what brand floors did you get specifically?

jamaro, that tile is beautiful, its just regular ceramic tile, right?

(again, this is thelibrarian, the very lazy wife of nomich)
posted by NoMich at 9:48 AM on May 29, 2007

Saltillo tile is made of fired terra cotta clay, same as plant pottery. The tiles are handmade and have natural variations in coloring and size (in a cheap box of 12" x 12" tiles, such as the variety carried by Home Depot, you'll find each tile to vary +/- .25" to 1". More expensive ones will be sorted better but will still vary up to .25"), thus it works in more rustic or eclectic decor.

Saltillo tiles do not have a glaze fired in, instead, you install the tiles unsealed (they are incredibly porous during this step), then paint the entire floor with a few layers of sealant, which soaks down into the tile. Because the color of the tile is consistent throughout its entire depth, chips don't show (note: it's really difficult to chip in the first place; I have it in the kitchen and have dropped cast iron pans on it by accident w/o anything happening but a very loud noise).

The pros:
-near indestructibility to surface wear. Mine have been in for 14 years and still look new. A friend of mine lives in a 125 year old house that was built with them in and hers still look new, too. She got a crack across her kitchen after a big earthquake and it was repaired by grinding up some pottery, brushing the dust into the crack and resealing the floor: I had to get onto my hands and knees to spot the repair.
-a nice radiant solar heat effect--they warm up during the day and hold the heat into the evening. They work really well in radiant heat installations. My dogs and cats love laying on them because of the heat retention.
-happy accidental artifacts: in one room, I have a set of doggie footprints perma-embossed into the tiles, from a dog that scampered across the tiles while the clay cured in the sun. In other tiles, you can read the very faint shadows of newspaper articles (in spanish, in reverse, from when the wet clay was covered in newspaper to slow the curing and a Silly Putty effect kicked in).

The cons:
-installation hassle: I did it myself but apparently it can be costly to hire someone to do because each tile has to be "eyeballed" into the right spot due to the size irregularities.

-thickness of tile: the tiles can range from .5 to 1" thick plus the deep mortar bed it requires may make the height of your floor too high at doorsills and around already installed cabinetry. I had to cut off the bottom inch of a lot of doors.

-it's a very hard floor underfoot. Anything you drop on it that is breakable will break. Area rugs are essential if you like to sit on the floor instead of the sofa.

-aesthetically, it's not for everyone. It's definitely the sort of floor that is going to draw positive and negative attention from future home buyers.
posted by jamaro at 11:12 AM on May 29, 2007

I love tile. They do work well with in floor heating. Without it though (and up here in the winter when we have little daylight) it can be pretty cold on the feet.

"yeah, we are wanting to stay away from laminate. its ok for some areas but we are hoping to live in this house quite a while, so we really hardwoods or bamboo or something."

I don't get what you're saying here. You're going to live in the house for a long time, so you'd prefer a floor that doesn't stand up as well to the wear of your dogs?

I say get rid of the dogs and go with cork.

Seriously though, tile might just be your best bet. It's a natural product so you get that appeal (is this maybe where your distaste for laminate comes from?).

You don't say where you're from, but if you do decide to go with hardwood, it's usually better to stick with wood from your general area. Maybe it's more pronounced up here, but some people have serious problems with Brazillian Cherry and other non North American woods because of the difference in humidity.
posted by ODiV at 2:49 PM on May 29, 2007