Bamboo Hardwood Flooring
Bamboo Flooring - Is It For You?
So you're thinking of getting a bamboo wood floor for your home. By now you may know that there are hundreds of factories that manufacture bamboo flooring. The U.S. market has discovered this wonderful wood over the past 10 years and homeowners have been benefiting from its aesthetic beauty, durability, and pricing ever since.
Cork Hardwood by WIC Anders
The cork oak
Cork oak forests cover approximately 2.5 million hectares across the Mediterranean region and most of them are located in seven countries: Portugal, Algeria, Spain, Morocco, France, Italy and Tunisia.
The tree has a life span of 250-350 years. Each cork tree must be 20 to 25 years
old before it can provide its first harvest of cork bark. This cork is known as virgin
and has a hard and irregular structure. After the virgin cork has been stripped,
a new layer of cork begins to grow.
The first of these layers, harvested after nine years, is called secondary cork; cork harvested after this second stripping is known by the Portuguese word: amadia.
A typical tree produces several hundred kilograms of cork at each harvesting and will survive for many generations. The bark is stripped off the tree in sections by highly skilled men using special axes, a traditional manual skill that dates back many hundreds of years.
Cork is harvested on a sustainable basis and the stripping of the bark does not harm
the tree in any way. The bark grows back completely, taking on a smoother texture
after each harvest. A cork oak tree can be safely harvested up to 20 times during
its life cycle, making cork a truly inexhaustible natural resource.
New plantations of cork oak trees are planted each year to ensure the level of cork production is maintained. Cork oak trees cannot be felled or removed without government authorization, which is rarely granted.
Portugal, which produces more than 50% of the world’s cork, has been particularly
careful to safeguard this valuable resource. The first Portuguese laws protecting
cork oak trees date back to the 14th century. At the beginning of the 20th century,
it became illegal to cut down cork oak trees, except for essential thinning or the
removal of old, non-productive trees.
In a context of increasing concern for the environment,
cork remains the only tree whose bark can regenerate itself after each harvest -
leaving the tree unharmed. It is truly a renewable, environment.
Carpets made from Corn Sugar
SmartStrand® By Mohawk with DuPont™ Sorona® renewably sourced polymer
SmartStrand® with DuPont™ Sorona® renewably sourced polymer contains ingredients made from corn sugar – 37% of renewable resource. These renewably sourced ingredients replace ingredients that traditionally were derived from petroleum – a limited resource. Every seven yards of SmartStrand® with DuPont™ Sorona® renewably sourced polymer saves the energy equivalent of one gallon of gasoline.
Environmental benefits with no compromise on performance. So by choosing Eco-smart technology, you are choosing to reduce your environmental impact. That’s smart.
SmartStrand® with DuPont™ Sorona® renewably sourced polymer reduces our environmental footprint but what about the durability, texture and stain resistance of this product? SmartStrand® with DuPont™ Sorona® renewably sourced polymer offers environmental benefits with no compromises. With unbeatable built-in stain protection for all the “oops” moments, time-tested durability, incredible softness and eco-smart technology, SmartStrand® lets you focus on other things besides your carpet.
A Brief Overview Of Bamboo Flooring
Bamboo has been used in flooring, furniture, and other household products and structures for thousands of years. With a tensile strength comparable to steel, bamboo is a fantastic building material with an amazing cellular structure that happens to be beautiful, stable, and durable. In the flooring world bamboo has been made into engineered bamboo flooring, solid bamboo flooring, strand woven bamboo flooring, hand scraped (distressed) bamboo flooring, and bamboo flooring for installation over radiant heat. The dimensional stability of bamboo flooring is one key reason for its meteoric popularity with interior designers and architects, not to mention its rapid renewability. It is typically 20% more stable than your average hardwood floor, and it regenerates to harvest age in 1/10th of the time. Some species of bamboo have been known to grow up to 4 feet per day.
Fast growing and long lived, timber bamboo grows to a height of 50 feet with a diameter exceeding 6 inches and matures in 5-6 years. Unlike traditional hardwoods, which take 20-60 years to mature to harvest age, bamboo does not require replanting once harvested. Bamboo is a grass, and from an environmental standpoint, this is important. Mature bamboo has an extensive root system that continues to send up new shoots for decades. Harvesting is done by hand, minimizing the impact on the local environment. By working with bamboo and understanding its growth patterns, bamboo farmers are able to maximize timber production while maintaining healthy forests.
We have flooring made from renewable, recycled and recyclable materials.
There are bamboo floors for every situation, in a growing number of colors and styles. Bamboo from high quality suppliers, and the raw materials selected for use are of higher milling quality, density, and stability.
Bamboo flooring can be used in homes, restaurants, commercial settings, basements, it has even been used on walls, ceilings, and as countertops. So you may wonder, how do round bamboo poles get turned into bamboo floors? Well, you can check out our bamboo flooring manufacturer process which is a visual diagram of how bamboo floors are made, and see for yourself!
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Recycled Plastic Bottles and Recycled Carpets
EverStrand™ by Mohawk
P.E.T. (polyethylene terephthalate aka polyester) used to make plastic beverage bottles is a higher-grade material than used in traditional PET carpet. When those discarded bottles are recycled, they can be processed into fibers that are far superior to lower-grade synthetic fibers used in making other brands of carpet yarns. Our fiber families are responsible to the planet we all share, and Mohawk takes that responsibility very seriously. We recycle more than three billion plastic bottles each year — 14,000 every minute — turning each one into gorgeous, eco-friendly EverStrand™ carpet and keeping them out of landfills and the environment.
P.E.T. provides exceptional stain resistance with superb color clarity. You can trust the way they look, love the way they feel, and have complete assurance in their natural resistance to stains and spills.
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