Bamboo has become very popular in the past decade. It is a versatile plant and you’ll find it in everything from socks to flooring. Bamboo flooring is natural and environmentally friendly and fairly easy to maintain.

One of the advantages of bamboo is that it matures in just 3 years compared to oak which takes up to a century before it can be harvested. Once it is ready the tubes of bamboo are sliced into strips. They are boiled to remove the natural starch then dried, laminated, and milled into flooring strips. The final step is to treat the product with preservatives. Bamboo is inexpensive to manufacture, which keeps the price below many other types of flooring.

The stalks of finished bamboo can be laid out and adhered vertically or horizontally, depending on the taste of the buyer. If you want a natural look it should be laid horizontally. If you lay it vertically it looks like striped tiger wood, another name for flamed maple. Either way it is very attractive flooring.

It’s not difficult to care for bamboo flooring. Sweep or use a dust mop regularly to prevent dirt particles from scratching it. Breathable rugs and mats in high traffic areas are recommended to keep it looking beautiful. Use non-alkaline cleansers and never, ever wax a bamboo floor. Bamboo should never have a lot of water applied since it is porous material; WizMop is a great tool for bamboo floors since you can control how much liquid is used. You should not wear shoes on a bamboo floor.

Bamboo doesn’t do well in temperature extremes so its environment must be as balanced as possible. If the air is too dry the floor will contract and shrink but too much humidity will cause it to swell.

Of course, there are some disadvantages to bamboo flooring. Bamboo uses a variety of inorganic adhesives to bind it together into flooring material; this means that you are taking a sustainable material and compromising its “green” value with artificial and possibly harmful additives. The adhesives can release volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) into the air over time. VOCs are carbon-containing compounds that evaporate at normal air temperatures. VOCs are in gasoline, solvents, degreasers, dyes, inks, paints, and many other common everyday substances. Most bamboo is from China, a country with an abysmal history of abusing human rights. Moreover, China is one of the most prolific polluters of the earth.

Bamboo flooring used to be one of the least expensive options for flooring but its popularity has driven up the price. In fact, if you find some very cheap bamboo flooring you should be highly suspicious; it is likely to be inferior quality castoff material. You can expect to pay $2-$8 per foot.

The WizMop is the ideal tool to use on a bamboo floor. The microfiber mop head makes an effective, gentle dust mop and when it’s time to do a more aggressive cleaning it is gentle on the floor. You can fill the WizMop with warm water or a mixture of one part vinegar to four parts warm water. Mopping a bamboo floor with the WizMop once every few weeks will keep it beautiful for years.