When it comes to bamboo flooring you really can go wrong. Quality and durability vary greatly and it all depends on the two things:

1. The quality of the raw material

2. The process of manufacturing

We divide bamboo flooring into the following categories:

• solid bamboo: vertical or horizontal grain

• engineered bamboo: plywood core or bamboo core

• strand woven bamboo

Unlike trees which grow wide as well as tall, bamboo doesn’t grow wide. That’s why it has to be laminated (glued together) from narrow strips.

Solid bamboo flooring can show the vertical or horizontal side of the lamination. These floors come in different colors, in natural form or carbonized. Refinishing these floors is just like refinishing any other floors.

The engineered products are made of a bamboo veneer glued to a core plywood or a core made of bamboo. These products can usually be floated, nailed or glued down to concrete. Being able to refinish these products depends on the thickness of the veneer.

Strand woven bamboo is shredded bamboo which is then pressed to a big block with resins and glues. Then the block is sliced to make the floor planks. It is a true composite material. The strand products are very dense, heavy and hard. Note that these products need to acclimate for weeks before installation. A lot of installers face many challenges trying to install these floors. The installation of strand woven products require high level of trade education and specialty tools. I don’t know of anyone who refinished a strand woven product yet, since these floors are still fairly new to the market. Since these products have so much epoxy, resin, glue and other chemicals in them, I would certainly not attempt to refinish them.

With each type of bamboo flooring make sure it comes from a reliable source. Just because the original raw material is considered fast growing and environmentally friendly doesn’t mean that the process of making the finished product is. I have heard good and bad things from people over the years about bamboo. I can tell you this: If you buy a quality product and maintain it properly the bamboo floor should last a long time. Whether or not you’ll be able to refinish, repair, match or stain your bamboo is another issue by itself.