In an era where people are seeking out environmentally friendly flooring choices along with all their other environmentally friendly products it can be confusing when trying to decide which flooring choice to go with, either bamboo or cork flooring.
Both bamboo and cork are environmentally friendly flooring options that will save many hundreds of trees from being harvested simply so that a home can have beautiful hardwood floors. Bamboo is considered a green choice because of how fast it can replenish itself. In a short three to five years a bamboo garden can be ready for a second harvest while it can take up to a hundred years for a forest of trees to be ready to use as flooring. Cork on the other hand is plentiful and doesn't kill the tree it is taken from. The outer bark is used to make the cork which means the tree can continue to live and grow. The cork can be re-harvested many times over during the life of the tree.
The pros and cons of these two floorings are minute and either one makes a beautiful flooring. Cork is great for high traffic areas because it is less susceptible to dings and marks. The cork actually cushions and is more flexible than bamboo. Cork is also more suitable for rooms with moisture than bamboo since moisture can damage bamboo flooring over a long time period.
The downside to cork is that should it need to be replaced the entire flooring will have to be replaced it is not as simple as replacing a plank like would be done with bamboo flooring.
Both bamboo and cork flooring are beautiful, green flooring options that will last for many years. Bamboo, particularly engineered bamboo, can be installed by most do-it-yourselfers while cork should be installed by a professional flooring installer. Regardless of who does the installation and what type of flooring is chosen, both bamboo and cork are ideal hardwood flooring alternatives to traditional hardwood trees.
By:Sharon V Chapman
