Engineered vs Bamboo Flooring

roses

Hello,

I will be buying some flooring soon and can't decide between bamboo or engineered for my bedrooms. Both are about the same price. I have read pros and cons of both.

Apparently carbonised bamboo is 30% weaker than natural bamboo so it looks like buying stained bamboo flooring is out.

As relatively the floor is quite expensive at £25/m, the most important feature is durability.

Has anyone who has had either bamboo or engineered comment?

Do you like it? What do you find for disadvantages?

One concern I have about engineered is that it feels fake when I walk across it which I hate!

Doozergirl

We were looking at bamboo and as a result, my sister in law ended up putting it down in her dining room. It's got quite a sheen to it and I don't think she's entirely happy with it. The shine means that when it scratches, it's quite obvious and she was saying that as bamboo is quite a modern finish, you don't really want it ageing and having character. The gloss finish doesn't help that either.

Seeing it down I wasn't totally convinced and we ended up with engineered oak in our dining room.

What you say about engineered feeling fake is psychological because it is real wood just pretty wood placed on less pretty, but strong wood. It looks and feels exactly the same as the solid oak that we had in our last house, just cheaper and easier to lay DIY, therefore free to lay!

greenbee

I have super-matt carbonised bamboo in my kitchen and hallway. I've got a tough finish designed for commercial use, and it's great. It's warm underfoot, tough, looks good and although it wasn't cheap it didn't cost a fortune. I put 3mm foilbacked inuslation under part of it, and the rest is on top of old cork flooring.

starving_artist

greenbee wrote: »

I have super-matt carbonised bamboo in my kitchen and hallway. I've got a tough finish designed for commercial use, and it's great. It's warm underfoot, tough, looks good and although it wasn't cheap it didn't cost a fortune. I put 3mm foilbacked inuslation under part of it, and the rest is on top of old cork flooring.

Sounds interesting. Where did you get it?

mvteng

Ican only speak for engineered boards, but we used Kahrs Engineered throughout our kitchen & extension & have been delighted with it.

18 months later, it still looks as good as the day it was laid, & thats in a very hard wearing area.

roses

Thanks for this!

When I meant that solid wood feels better than engineered I meant that engineered feels "hollow" when I walk on it whereas solid wood feels, well solid really! Not sure how to describe it.

That is why I was looking at bamboo as that doesn't warp like solid wood. But now that I read that carbonised is 30% weaker than natural (which I hate the colour of), it's back to engineered for me

Thanks for the recommendation on Kahrs. I will check it out.

greenbee

starving_artist wrote: »

Sounds interesting. Where did you get it?

www.simplybamboo.co.uk I've got kitchen work surfaces to match!

Hatster

We had (carbonised) bamboo flooring in our previous house and I thought it was excellent - incredibly practical and hard-wearing, easy to lay, and looked very stylish. The only thing that we found marked it was sharp heavy objects being dragged across it, which did leave a scratch - but not very visible. Apart from that, it had pools of water spilt on it (it was in a conservatory-like room) and never showed a mark.
Ours came from woodline floors, Norfolk. We found the quality, appearance and price was very variable from the different suppliers.