These are fascinating insights guys.My main negative experience has been the fashionable shops in London which have bamboo floors that get pockmarked to ugliness by the heels of women's shoes. They've stopped doing that now.
The long term disappointment so far for me is the accidental discrimination against engineered bamboo as a structural building material.
The costs of testing necessary to get bamboo wood accepted for such purposes is so high that it cannot be justified by any ordinary party, commercial or otherwise; something like $350,000 I am told.
Something as economical (substituting for hardwood or glulam in the better off economies)and aesthetically pleasing as an unpainted bamboo door frame and lintel or exposed roof beam for example is banned everywhere that has a building code.
For this reason , I wish Inbar and the World Bamboo Organisation would have as an objective the achievement of building code status for bamboo wood in at least one major market (eg US or EU), starting with a check on how testing can be carried out to satisfy requirement for as wide a swathe of the bamboo wood by species as possible.
These bodies should be able to approach global development bodies such as Unido (which is promoting bamboo wood factories in various parts of the world) to get multilateral funding to support this initiative. As far as I read, I cannot even see the first glimmerings of such objectives. It is almost as if they say, 'well China makes enough money from floor products and a few cabinet doors and kitchen tops , and that is enough'. This almost default approach does not of course recognise that bamboo wood focussed on flooring is perhaps a long term blind alley because of the limitations that product as identified in various posts (and hobbling for tropical bamboo wood which will find it impossible to break into the flooring market anyway) . By contrast, bamboo wood used for internal structural purposes is totally fit for purpose: assuming quality of production of course (as with any products).
Perhaps moving towards the ultimate target I set is hobbled a little by the necessity for the minimum standard necessary for a product that has structural function with all the safety aspects. But made properly, bamboo wood is superbly suited to the task . My brother is a construction engineer and runs a steel erection business, and he see engineered bamboo wood as an effective substitute for hardwood and steel in many internal structural application once testing and quality control are sorted.
I was instrumental in getting a mining company to cover 1200 areas of denuded slope land recently in the southern Philippines with D Asper ( which looks superb as 4X4 incidentally) . I hope the authorities can get the basics in place for a market in structural engineered bamboo by the time the first harvest roll round in 5 years time or so for this and other plantations which promise much, but which along with associated manufacturing facilities need official help to achieve the full potential beyond the flooring application of bamboo wood and the traditional uses of the natural pole.
Graham Cox
UK and Mindanao
----- Original Message -----
From: DGHarrison
To: bamboo-plantations@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, November 27, 2008 9:24 PM
Subject: Re: [bamboo-plantations] My bamboo floor
Edie,
My experience is similar. I have not moved anything heavy, but even with
the plastic casters on my desk chair, I've gotten a pocked effect in the
area by my desk. This is from the weight of my daughters (35 and 50
pounds, respectively), who roll the chair off the plastic mat I've
placed there. I had the desk on the other side of the room and had hard
rubber casters on a different desk chair. Not only did I get the pocked
effect there, but the black rubber embedded itself into the grain. I
don't know how I'm going to refurbish this floor.
The beveled edges do bother me, too. The edges are beveled because the
boards are pre-finished. Unfinished boards that will be sanded flush
after installation and prior to being finished don't need to be beveled,
but finished boards will not be sanded after installation. The bevels
allow the boards to avoid having razor sharp edges. But sanding to
refurbish a floor will be difficult because of the bevels. If sanded
unevenly, the bevels will change sizes irregularly. It would seem that
the only solution would be to sand down past the bevels -- and that's a
lot of sanding.
As much as I love the look of bamboo flooring, I will not be installing
it again. If it were installed in, say, a tatami room, in which
residents spend a lot of time stocking-footed and sitting on the floor,
perhaps then it would be suitable to the purpose. Since my wife is
Chinese, we already take our shoes off at the door and wear house
slippers. I'd hate to see what happens to a bamboo floor under the
typical assault of Americans who wear their shoes inside and outside the
house.
Doug Harrison
Minnesota
> My two cents on how a consumer chooses flooring. I was so impressed
> by the look of bamboo flooring that I bought it. Bamboo was touted as
> being "as hard as red oak." Ok, did I really check to see how hard
> that was? No, I had a friend, who just become an interior designer,
> organize the purchase and installation. I came home and it was
> done--Gorgeous!
>
> However, it is a very soft material. I moved the fridge--gouge marks.
> The plastic protector fell off a wheel on a rolling chair--gouge marks.
>
> So, buyer beware. I still love the looks of the flooring, but it will
> not last 100 years like oak floors. I know bamboo can be hardened,
> but that does change the look. Also, for some really strange reason,
> the edges of the flooring planks are beveled. I won't do that again
> either as it really holds dirt.
>
> It's a learning process. Keep up the good work all you Bamboosas, so
> that we have more bamboo products in the market that are sustainable,
> beautiful, functional, and yes, durable.
>
> Edie Marrs
> www.geomio.com
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