Best for Overall Product Quality
Flooring Utilizing Teragren Optimum 5.5 Moso It pays to stay on top of things. Teragren, with its hand in the entire process of making bamboo flooring—from cutting the bamboo culm (stalk) to sending planks off to distributors—is able to quality-check its products in rigorous detail. One of the best examples of Teragren’s higher quality is a special species of bamboo called Optimum 5.5 Moso (Phyllostachys pubescens). Grown in the Zhejiang province of China, Moso is not your standard backyard bamboo. Moso has dense, hard fibers and is harvested only at its most mature point (about 5-1/2 to 6 years old). All Teragren bamboo flooring uses Optimum 5.5 Moso, including:
Xcora Essence Collection series of wide plank engineered strand bamboo flooring. Essence planks are nearly 7-1/2 inches wide.Xcora Synera Collection series of narrow plank solid strand bamboo flooring. Teragren’s Synera planks are a conventional 3-3/4-inch width.Xcora Neotera Collection series of wide plank engineered strand bamboo flooring. Neotera planks fall between Essence and Synera in terms of width, at between 5- and 5-1/4 inches wide.
Best For Durability
Cali Bamboo Fossilized Based in San Diego, California, Cali Bamboo offers up one monster of a product. Their proprietary Fossilized process produces bamboo flooring with a Janka hardness rating of 5,000, making it the toughest bamboo flooring on the market. Cali bills Fossilized as being “twice the density of any other hardwood floor in the world” and they support this claim with a 50-year warranty. Even though adhesives contribute to Fossilized’s strength, this flooring still has a low VOC (volatile organic compound) content and has no added formaldehyde. Strand-weaving the boards also toughens up this material for the hardest home or even commercial use.
Best for Ethics and Environment
Teragren With a lot of bamboo flooring, provenance is hazy. Bamboo is often assigned points for being green and ethical even when it clearly is not. Teragren, based in Bainbridge Island, Washington, knows exactly where its raw materials come from and it shares this information with its customers. Teragren makes sure that its suppliers’ factory workers and farmers are paid fair wages. The company also participates in LEED programs, harvests only highly sustainable bamboo, and is a member of several organizations dedicated to environmental issues.
Best for Wide Selection
Lowe’s, Home Depot, Smith & Fong Plyboo The familiar big box home centers lead the way in overall selection. Where other retailers may offer 15 to 20 types of bamboo flooring, Both Lowe’s and Home Depot carry about 60 different products—from the usual honey-colored bamboo all the way to unique offerings like slate color, pure black, and gray. The main value of these home centers is convenience. Smith & Fong Plyboo, based in Novato, California, offers a wide range of styles, colors, and construction types of bamboo flooring. Shipping throughout the U.S. is available.
Best for Low Cost
LL Flooring, Lowe’s, Home Depot If the price of bamboo flooring is your only concern, you have plenty of options, both at home centers and at dedicated flooring stores.
