Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff from house Stuff works dot com where
Speaker 1: smart happens. Hi Am Marshall Brain with today's question, why
Speaker 1: is bamboo appearing in everything from flooring, defencing to furniture?
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, bamboo is appearing in everything from
Speaker 1: flooring to paneling. And there are even people riding around
Speaker 1: on bamboo bicycles now and they're not too distant future.
Speaker 1: It's possible to imagine bamboo replacing wood in a number
Speaker 1: of furniture and fencing products as well. Bamboo's use is
Speaker 1: growing because bamboo has several advantages over traditional woods like
Speaker 1: pine and oak. The first advantage is the fact that
Speaker 1: bamboo grows fast. Bamboo is not a tree. It's actually
Speaker 1: a very very large type of grass with an extremely
Speaker 1: strong stem. This grass heritage means that bamboo does not
Speaker 1: have bark, and it doesn't have deadwood at the center
Speaker 1: of the trunk. It also grows more like a long,
Speaker 1: straight column rather than being tapered like most trees. Like
Speaker 1: many other grasses, bamboo can grow incredibly quickly. Given the
Speaker 1: right soil and the right weather, Some varieties of bamboo
Speaker 1: can grow more than a foot in a single day.
Speaker 1: This speed means that it takes much less time to
Speaker 1: get a usable crop of bamboo than it does to get, say,
Speaker 1: a usable crop of pine trees. An acre of pine
Speaker 1: trees takes three or four decades to reach a usable size.
Speaker 1: Bamboo grows more densely and can be harvested many times
Speaker 1: in that same span of time. This means that an
Speaker 1: acre of bamboo forest is far more productive than an
Speaker 1: acre of pine trees or oak trees. Another advantage of
Speaker 1: bamboo is its strength. Bamboo is surprisingly strong, and pound
Speaker 1: per pound, certain species are as strong as steel. Heat
Speaker 1: treating the bamboo stocks maximizes the strength. Bamboo is so
Speaker 1: strong that it's being used in place of steel to
Speaker 1: make bicycle frames. In some cases, you can buy bamboo
Speaker 1: bicycle frames pre made, or you can look on the
Speaker 1: internet and find instructions for building your own. It may
Speaker 1: surprise you that these frames are not made of any
Speaker 1: kind of specially engineered bamboo composite material. It's just normal
Speaker 1: bamboo stocks that have been heat treated with a blowtorch
Speaker 1: to strengthen the fibers. Bamboo flooring is a composite. To
Speaker 1: understand bamboo flooring, think about a typical bamboo stock. It's
Speaker 1: a hollow cylinder and the walls of the cylinder are
Speaker 1: not very thick, the cylinder can be cut into long strips.
Speaker 1: These strips will have a slight curve to them because
Speaker 1: they were cut from a cylinder, but if the cylinder
Speaker 1: is large, say three inches in diameter or greater, the
Speaker 1: curve is very minor. It's easily removed by running the
Speaker 1: strip through a planer that makes it square. So now
Speaker 1: you have a thin square strip of bamboo that looks
Speaker 1: a lot like the wood for making a yard stick.
Speaker 1: These strips are turned into flooring in very much the
Speaker 1: same way that pine is turned into plywood. Strips are
Speaker 1: laid down in alternating layers, with a heat activated glue
Speaker 1: added between the layers. A heated press then compresses the
Speaker 1: layers and activates the glue to bind everything together. When
Speaker 1: the process is complete, you have a laminated bamboo panel
Speaker 1: that's incredibly strong and relatively light weight. It can then
Speaker 1: be cut into strips or squares to make either traditional
Speaker 1: tongue and groove flooring or parquet flooring. Bamboo flooring that's
Speaker 1: made in this way has several advantages over traditional hardwood flooring.
Speaker 1: The lamination process makes it extremely strong and natural. Bamboo
Speaker 1: tends to resist dents better than hardwood floors do. Bamboo
Speaker 1: flooring tends to be less expensive because bamboo grows so
Speaker 1: much faster than oak or pine. Best of all for
Speaker 1: many people is the fact that bamboo feels greener than wood.
Speaker 1: When loggers clear cut of forest for the lumber leaves
Speaker 1: a scar that lasts for many years. With a bamboo
Speaker 1: for us, the roots are still alive and they regenerate
Speaker 1: the bamboo stocks with surprising speed. That, plus the fact
Speaker 1: that bamboo can be harvested so often, means that it
Speaker 1: takes far less land to grow bamboo than to grow
Speaker 1: the same amount of wood. The only thing you need
Speaker 1: to keep in mind with bamboo flooring and other bamboo
Speaker 1: products is the source. You want to purchase your flooring
Speaker 1: from a reputable manufacturer to ensure uniform quality, appearance, strength,
Speaker 1: debt resistance, and chemical composition. Be sure to check out
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