While bamboo flooring has been around for decades, recent years have seen an upswing in interest as manufacturers push the envelope of style and creativity and consumers are drawn to the product’s different colors, looks, textures, as well as its green story.
Enter the next big innovation: Strand woven. The following is a look at some of the major strand woven players, and their products.
Dasso
According to Rick Gill, marketing manager, strand woven is double the density of typical bamboo flooring because of the manufacturing process. “Thousand of strands of bamboo are compressed under high heat. It is three times as hard as regular bamboo based on the Janka rating scale.”
Dasso already produces solid strand woven, he noted, but is coming out with an engineered line featuring many of the looks in the solid line.
“Antique Toffee is a golden earth tone with a hand applied French bleed,” Gill explained. “The Espresso and Coffee Bean give a rich deep chocolate color resulting in a dramatic presentation in any setting. New Bark is unique with its copper wire brushed finish and dark whiskey barrel color appearance.”
Both solid and multi-ply constructions feature Dasso’s EZ click installation system. The multi-ply can also be laid with glue- or nail-down methods.
Mohawk
Hilea and Kahala are the two strand woven lines offered. Hilea is as gorgeous as it is earth-friendly, noted Tammy Perez, senior brand manager, hard surface, and comes in two styles: Natural and Baked Natural.
Natural features Mohawk’s Uniclic system, while Uniclic or traditional tongue and groove is offered on Baked Natural. All feature Crystal Shield and an aluminum oxide matte finish.
Kahala is characterized by unique hand scraped visuals that can wow a crowd, but is strong enough to withstand high traffic, Perez added. “Although strand woven represents a renewable alternative to traditional wood, selecting Kahala does not mean sacrificing style.” Kahala also uses Uniclic and Crystal Shield.
Teragren
The Portfolio Collection highlights one of the greatest attributes of Synergy strand flooring, noted Tom Goodham, vice president of manufacturing and operations, its ability to be the “chameleon of flooring materials by enhancing the already beautiful look of strand with the use of stains and texture.”
Teragren’s Synergy strand is made by pressing bamboo fiber mixed with a phenolic resin in a massive heated hydraulic press, he explained. “We want people to understand not all strand woven is created equal. Synergy bamboo is up to three times harder than traditional bamboo making it far more dent resistant than most other hardwoods.”
To ensure superior density and moisture control, Goodham said Teragren employs the hot-press method which, combined with proprietary techniques, is why “we call to ours Synergy.”
USFloors
This summer the company introduced Natural Bamboo Expressions, a collection of solid locking strand woven with a variety of stains, hand scrapes, and a multi-width product with a “stunning” French Bleed, noted Gary Keeble, marketing manager. Finished with the proprietary Endura AR finish they are GreenGuard Children & Schools certified.
“We have also introduced entry-level locking strand wovens with an HDF core,” he explained. “These represent an excellent value to the retailer.”
According to Keeble, In addition to strand being harder, there is one other major difference from traditional bamboo: “It has a more traditional wood-type visual, giving it more mass appeal.”
Wellmade
Steve Wagner, director of sales and marketing, said “when packaged with multiple color shadings, these floors can produce the look of exotic flooring at substantially lower pricing.” He noted salespeople need to make end users aware strand woven has very little in common with traditional bamboo—in appearance and construction. Wellmade produces both solid and engineered types in a wide variety of colors and surface treatments, from carbonized and natural to mahogany, walnut and ebony in smooth, hand-scraped and French bleed finishes.
The Wellmade Eco-Performance Bamboo Collection is available in standard tongue-and-groove or the Uniclic system, and features the Harmax 13-coat aluminum oxide finish.
-Louis Iannaco