Improving the Value of your Home With Bamboo Flooring

| Posted: 18-12-2007 | Comments: 0 | Views: 10 | Rating: (50)

(?)

If you are looking to increase the value of your home, replacing old carpets or tile with a beautifully laid bamboo floor will certainly help. And if your home isn’t up for resell and you just want to have beautiful flooring, using bamboo is an elegant and affordable way to go.

Bamboo flooring may only be a little over ten years old, but its beauty and environmental factors have spoken for itself. And, floor experts have discovered that bamboo is actually harder than hardwoods such as Maple and Oak. Not only that, bamboo is extremely eco-friendly, and stands up the look, feel, sound, and warmth of its hardwood peers.

When we think of bamboo, we see reeds of tall grasses growing in tropical locations. So how does a grass become transformed into a wood floor? For starters, only a particular type of Bamboo is used, most often the Moso variety. Once Moso poles reach 40 to 50 feet in height, they are harvested and dried. The drying process is slow, typically four years in the sun. The bamboo is then sliced into thin uniform strips and planed on all sides. The pieces are converted into flooring made of either two or three layered horizontal or vertical laminated pieces. Bamboo can either be nailed to a wood subfloor or glued directly to a concrete sub-floor. Floating is not recommended. There is a variety of moldings made available as well to hide expansion gaps and for staircases.

Bamboo flooring comes in a variety of colors. Pretreated, coloring choices are natural and smoky amber. If the product comes to the states untreated, stains can vary from pinks to a variety of browns. Because bamboo is a grass rather than a tree, its finished appearance is very distinctive. Most distinctive is the eye-catching pattern of slightly darker bands produced by its nodes – a feature that clearly sets it apart from wood. Bamboo’s other aesthetic features include the tightness of its grain and the uniformity of its color.

These untreated and stained pieces of bamboo flooring are then given a final coating, typically made up of an aluminum oxide and polyurethane scratch-resistant topcoat. Coatings can be matte or glossy, with glossy tending to scratch more easily than matte.

Bamboo’s popularity has continued to grow with its discovery. The fact that it is a grass, a quickly renewable resource that yields a product 25 times faster than timber, has been of primary interest to the environmentally conscious. The beauty is an added bonus. With the cost of bamboo equivalent to oak flooring, it isn’t hard on the pocketbook either. Bamboo is also easy to clean and considered ideal for allergy sufferers, as they do not harbor dust mites.

When cleaning bamboo, a soft touch is best to prevent minute scratches on the surface. A padded cleaning head on your vacuum cleaner or a damp mop is most appropriate. This method will keep dust and debris from accumulating and scratching your bamboo floor. You should also take care never to over wet your bamboo floor. While it is resistant to moisture due to its tropical origins, it is best to minimize moisture exposure to help preserve the material. Mop spills using a damp cloth and dry immediately.

Putting area rugs on pathways that may experience high traffic. This keeps the bamboo floor from scuffing due to the high amount of traffic in a certain area. To prevent dirt and other debris from coming onto the floor from the outside, place exterior mats in entryways. Gravel and debris stuck in the bottom of shoes may scratch the finish of your bamboo floor.

If you have pets, remember to regularly trim your pets' nails to prevent them from scratching and gouging the bamboo floor. And of course, when moving furniture from one place to another, lift them instead of dragging them along the floor.

So if you are ready to transform the look of your home, putting in bamboo flooring will give you a huge start.

Rate this Article:

Current: 5 / 5 stars - 1 vote(s).

Article Tags: Home Appraisal, House Values, House Value

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/home-and-family-articles/improving-the-value-of-your-home-with-bamboo-flooring-285261.html

Print article

Send to friend

Publish this Article

Author feedback

About the Author:

Greg Sullivan is the President of www.electronicappraiser.com, a leading provider of home appraisals offering a nationwide personalized instant home appraisal service. For more information, please visit www.electronicappraiser.com.

Submitting articles has become one of the most popular means of generating quality backlinks and targeted traffic to your website. Join us today - It's Free!

Article Comments

Add new Comment

Are you Ready to Buy your First Home?
By: Greg Sullivan | 30/11/2007 | Home and Family
Home and Family related article - get free Home and Family artilces on ArticlesBase.com

What Makes a Home “green”
By: Greg Sullivan | 12/12/2007 | Home Improvement

Improving your Home’s Resale Value
By: Greg Sullivan | 07/01/2008 | Home Improvement

Inexpensive Ways to Give your Home a Facelift
By: Greg Sullivan | 07/01/2008 | Home Improvement

Why Should you Use a Realtor®
By: Greg Sullivan | 15/01/2008 | Real Estate

How a Cma Can Help you
By: Greg Sullivan | 28/01/2008 | Home and Family
Home and Family related article - get free Home and Family artilces on ArticlesBase.com

How Much is your House Worth?
By: Diane Palmer | 13/02/2008 | Wealth Building

What to Expect at Home Appraisals
By: Robert Rogers | 11/07/2006 | Non-Fiction

Got a Question? Ask.

Ask the community a question about this article:

Q&A Powered by:

Latest Home and Family Articles

Baby Diaper Bags For Peace of Mind
By: David Cummings | 11/10/2008
Baby diaper bags can hold a lot of the necessary items babies need when they are away from home. Babies go through a lot of diapers and wet wipes at an early age and that is why baby diaper bags were invented. They carry all the diapers, wipes, creams and...

Child Insurance: A Threat?
By: Sarah Martin | 11/10/2008
The attack on child insurance, if not adequately answered, threatened the very life of industrial insurance. Weekly Premium business was for the family; and unless the youngsters who formed so large a part of the family were included, the basic principle of this type of coverage was defeated. ...

Ceramic Floors - How to Tile Them
By: Matt Morgan | 11/10/2008
This article provides tips and advice on how to tile a ceramic floor from preperation of the floor surfuce through to grouting the newly laid tiles.

Key Elements for Planning Successful School Fundraising Events
By: Juan Franco | 10/10/2008
There are so many aspects and angles to putting on a great and profitable school fundraising program that it can make your head swim. Fortunately, there are many resources you can go to so that you don't have to re-invent the wheel just because you are new to the fundraising scene. Here are a few things that will help you get started on your school fundraising plans.

The Teddy Bear Hidden Wireless Camera is Very Convenient to Keep an Eye on the Nanny
By: Raul Crasmin | 10/10/2008
We should pride our self on to believe that we are enhanced with the contemporary equipments and how we can expand our knowledge and skill from them while using them at our working places or even at our homes. Following the fact that once we have hunted out the expansion...

Baby Shower Party: Shower Invitations
By: Janet R. | 10/10/2008
Since then, baby shower party were practiced with a specific and important purpose, that is to shower the soon-to-be mother with lots of gifts for her baby. Although we can't point out the exact history of the baby shower, most of us agree that its purpose has not change. The...

Tips For Moving in With Stepfamilies
By: Lorne MacInnes | 10/10/2008
Moving can be difficult no matter what the situation, but it's even more difficult when two existing families combine to make one. Stepfamilies are always a difficult transition because everything is new. You have to share your home with someone else, change your routine and get used to new people,...

Doing Zero-Gs in a Lift Chair
By: Brad Brubaker | 10/10/2008
If you are a fan of the space program, then you are likely to have heard the term zero gravity. The term is often used to describe being weightless and there are several rides available that let a person experience this sensation. At this point, you might well be asking...

More from Greg Sullivan

How a Cma Can Help you
By: Greg Sullivan | 28/01/2008 | Home and Family
A comparative market analysis, or CMA, is a real estate agent's evaluation based on local listing and sales data used to determine the probable sale price of a property in the current market.

Why Should you Use a Realtor®
By: Greg Sullivan | 15/01/2008 | Real Estate
We all want to save a few bucks when we can. But there are times when scrimping is not worth it and in the end, it could cost your more than you can save.

Inexpensive Ways to Give your Home a Facelift
By: Greg Sullivan | 07/01/2008 | Home Improvement
If you are looking to sell your home or even have it appraised, you want to get the most value you can for your money.

Improving your Home’s Resale Value
By: Greg Sullivan | 07/01/2008 | Home Improvement
Are you getting ready to sell your home and want to get the most for the value? If so, there are a few simple things you can do that won’t necessarily cost you a fortune.

What Makes a Home “green”
By: Greg Sullivan | 12/12/2007 | Home Improvement
Green is the new black, so to speak. Everybody is talking about going green and even building green. So what does it really mean to build green?

Are you Ready to Buy your First Home?
By: Greg Sullivan | 30/11/2007 | Home and Family
When you own your own home you have a place to raise your children and to be a part of a community. You can even pass your home down to your children and their children, creating security for generations to come.

Article Categories

Article Marketing

Article Notepad

Stop Duplicate Content

Term Papers

Need Help?

Sign up for our email newsletter

Receive updates, enter your email below

Use of this web site constitutes acceptance of the Terms Of Use and Privacy Policy | User published content is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Copyright © 2005-2008 Free Articles by ArticlesBase.com, All rights reserved. (2.60, 16)

Improving the Value of your Home With Bamboo Flooring

Article Comments

Related Articles

Got a Question? Ask.

Latest Home and Family Articles

More from Greg Sullivan

Need Help?

Site Links

Webmasters

Business Info

Sign up for our email newsletter