Bamboo Flooring Comparison

1. A Side By Side Comparison: Bamboo And Wood Flooring
   1. Natural Vs Carbonized Bamboo Flooring
   2. Types Of Bamboo Flooring
   3. The Essential Guide To Bamboo Flooring

Check out the cost of bamboo flooring and see how they it stacks up against other floors. There are plenty of types of flooring available to homeowners today.

Which type best suits your needs? Find out by using our handy guide to see how different options stack up against each other based on the most important factors to consider.

The Janka hardness scale is an industry-wide standard for the measurement of the hardness of wood. The test measures the amount of force required to embed a .444-inch steel ball to half its diameter into a material. The more force required to embed the steel ball, the harder the material is and the higher the Janka rating.

Comparison Between Bamboo Flooring And Hardwood Flooring

As a general rule of thumb, the wood species used for flooring should generally have a Janka rating of 1, 000 or higher.

Bamboo is not actually a species of wood but rather a grass. It is a rapidly renewable resource. When used for flooring, it offers a natural yet unique look.

THE FINAL ANALYSIS: Both hardwood and bamboo floors exhibit attractive, natural variation in the grain and are available in a wide range of styles that equally suit traditional homes, modern decor, and anything in-between. But bamboo truly takes the cake as the more durable, eco-friendly, and affordable flooring option.

Engineered Bamboo Flooring: Best Brands, Pros And Cons

So which surface is better for your home: bamboo or cork flooring? Both bamboo and cork floors are made from natural, sustainable plants, so you might anticipate they are similar in many other ways too. To a large extent, you would be correct. But some striking differences are likely to tip the balance, depending on your main priorities when choosing the best flooring for your home. As with many things in life, it’s the subtle differences that make all the difference.

As you can see from many articles on this blog, bamboo flooring is a tough flooring material and highly resistant to denting. It is substantially harder than most hardwoods (Read our blog, How Strong is Bamboo Flooring Compared to Hardwood? for more information.). And strand woven bamboo is the hardest natural flooring material available. We rate the hardness of bamboo and wood on the Janka scale, and below is a graph that explains what the Janka scale is and how it works.

Strand woven bamboo has a Janka rating of over 4, 000, which is three times harder than solid oak. While we don’t recommend you walk on it in high heels, even heavy furniture is unlikely to dent it. For hardness, it receives 10 out of 10.

A Side By Side Comparison: Bamboo And Wood Flooring

Cork is a naturally soft material, so you might anticipate it would have a low Janka rating. Of course, you are correct; its Janka hardness is around 200, so it’s only one-fortieth as hard as strand woven bamboo. However, things aren’t necessarily as bad as they might appear. Cork is also a highly elastic material. Consequently, it will bounce back into shape from dents. However, once it exceeds its elastic limit, it is easily deformed. Walking on a cork floor in high heels will instantly destroy it, and leaving heavy furniture on it for any length of time will almost certainly cause dents. So, for hardness and resistance to denting, we give it just 2 points out of 10.

Bamboo is probably the most sustainable building material on the planet. It grows very fast and has a significantly lower eco-cost than hardwoods. It is technically grass, not wood, and it can be ready to harvest under five years from planting. Even harvesting bamboo is sustainable since it doesn’t erode the local environment or damage flora and fauna. Taking in carbon dioxide has a more significant impact on reducing global warming than any other plant. For eco-friendliness, we give it maximum marks of 10 out of 10.

Cork is also highly sustainable. It is a part of a bark known as the phellem layer and can be harvested without cutting down the tree. We strip the bark from the tree and let the tree continue to grow. It takes a long time for the tree to mature, typically 25 years or more, but the bark and cork grow back and can be re-harvested after another 9 years or so. The process doesn’t harm the tree, and it’s not unusual for the cork oak tree to live for 200 years. It doesn’t require pesticides and does not significantly deplete the water table. From an eco-friendly perspective, cork flooring scores 10 out of 10.

Natural Vs Carbonized Bamboo Flooring

Many of the materials we have in our homes compromise the quality of the air we breathe because they emit organic chemicals known as VOCs (volatile organic chemicals). In the U.S., on average, the amount of indoor pollutants exceeds outside pollution by five to ten times. For more information on indoor air pollution, please view the video below. These pollutants impact health, so it is clearly better to minimize them when we can, for instance, by choosing a flooring that is free or nearly free of them. So how do bamboo and cork flooring compare?

The VOC content of bamboo is shallow and well within the most stringent indoor air quality guidelines. This is one of the reasons many people prefer bamboo over alternative materials. Even though the urea-formaldehyde adhesive is used to manufacture engineered bamboo flooring (as it is in other engineered hardwoods) and can produce a small amount of VOCs, the quantity is minuscule and well below the level that might affect your health. It scores 9 out of 10 for indoor air quality.

Cork isn’t as free from VOCs as many people think. Researchers have discovered recently that the characteristic smell you get from cork flooring contains a range of VOCs, including:

Cork Flooring Pros And Cons Vs. Bamboo Vs. Hardwood: Comparison Chart

While these VOCs are within government guidelines and are (or at least should be) indicated on the labeling, they do add to the total VOC content of your living space. However, as their levels are low, we can give cork flooring a score of 8 out of 10.

Stepping onto a bamboo floor in bare feet always feels good. It has the natural warmth of wood, and even on a cold day, it doesn’t feel freezing. This is because heat flows slowly in wood due to its high thermal resistance, which is a little like electrical resistance; the higher its value, the lower the flux, whether it is heat or electrical current. The reason is that bamboo has a cellular structure that includes a large amount of space filled only with air. You can see this from the image below of bamboo fibers taken with a scanning electron microscope. This picture looks a bit spooky too. We give bamboo 9 out of 10 for comfort for walking.

Bamboo is much harder than cork and more difficult to permanently damage, while Cork is a better thermal insulator than bamboo, and it’s soft and springy. Walking on a cork floor is more comfortable than walking on a bamboo floor, because its structure includes a high degree of porosity with each tiny air pocket surrounded by impermeable cell walls. For comfort underfoot, cork scores a 10 out of 10.

Types Of Bamboo Flooring

Bamboo flooring is water-resistant, but it is far from being waterproof. However, it is more water-resistant than hardwoods, and good quality bamboo flooring will resist damage from a puddle for 24 hours. But leave it much longer, and it might swell and discolor like normal hardwood flooring. Thus, you can use it in most rooms, but not in places such as bathrooms with bathtubs where it might be subject to water pooling. For water resistance, we give bamboo 8 out of 10.

Cork is naturally water-resistant, which is one of the reasons it is used to seal wine bottles. Its water resistance is due to a naturally hydrophobic waxy material it contains called suberin. However, the problem is the flooring seams; they are susceptible to water damage if immersed in water, and the adhesive used to glue down the floor can also be damaged. That being said, manufacturers usually recommend you seal cork floors with a waterproof sealant after installation. We give cork flooring 9 out of 10 for water resistance.

The price of bamboo flooring often surprises people. In many ways, bamboo is similar to hardwood, but it costs only a fraction of the price. Perhaps you can work out why. As we say above, bamboo matures in just 5 years while hardwood might take 25 years, so producing bamboo flooring is far more efficient. Since you can get premium wide plank bamboo floors at a reasonable cost, we give it 9 out of 10 for pricing.

The Essential Guide To Bamboo Flooring

As we indicated above, the cork oak takes 25 years to mature, about the same time as white oak, But once it has matured, we can harvest cork from the trees every nine years. Most cork comes from Europe, where there is an abundant supply of cork oak trees and originally used for the wine industry. The ample supply and renewable nature of cork mean its pricing is similar to bamboo; we give it 9 out of 10 for pricing.

Both bamboo flooring and cork flooring