How Bamboo Flooring Is Made: Inside The Manufacturing Process

Pest & decay prevention - creating a bug forcefield.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, so when it comes to fighting off insect invasions, Ambient floors get a battery of booster shots. Improperly treated wood flooring — whether traditional hardwood or bamboo — inevitably rots or falls victim to timber-consuming parasites, resulting in expensive costs which can be easily avoided by purchasing a properly treated floor from Ambient. To prevent decay caused by impurities and to inoculate against current infestations at the hands of insects and other floor-destroying pests, Ambient's raw bamboo strips are boiled in a solution of lime acid to remove potentially damaging grime, insects, starches and sugars.

Carbonization: deep, rich tones, inside and out.

You guessed it, bamboo flooring is a natural blond (insert joke here). To achieve darker tones, bamboo strips are subjected to a process called carbonization. This carefully controlled, pressurized heating process affects the sugars deep within the bamboo's fibers, giving the entire strip a richer, darker color. Unlike staining, which simply changes the outer pigmentation of the lumber to which is it applied, bamboo carbonization changes the color of the bamboo all the way through, inside and out.

Moisture balancing 101. Not too dry. Not too wet. Just right!

Like a perfect bowl of porridge, carefully managing the moisture content of wood floors is essential to quality and durability; too much or too little moisture can cause wood to shrink or swell after its installed. Our floors are tested meticulously for just the right balance of moisture. If moisture levels aren't up to Ambient's exacting standards, we dry the off-kilter strips in specialized kilns and then re-test them to ensure proper moisture content, maintaining our strict 8% +/- 2% standard for optimum dimensional stability. We test, and re-test, until we get this one right.

Strip milling: prepare for planking.

Once free of impurities and balanced for moisture, the bamboo strips are milled, sanded, and given an inspirational half-time pep talk to prepare them for the plank construction process. Milling machines cut the strips down to either strands, or a precise, standard width and thickness, before wide sanders smooth the surface of each strip to a uniform texture. At this point, some strips are turned into veneer for engineered floors. The sawdust created by this process is recycled to heat the kilns used for carbonization (Step 3).

Plank construction: putting it all together.

Depending on which type of flooring is being made — traditional (horizontal and vertical), strand woven, or engineered — a different plank construction process will occur next. Below is an overview of each process.

Classic (solid, vertical and horizontal)

Because the individual bamboo strips are only about an inch wide, multiple pieces must be pressed together to form planks. Ambient's vertical grain (also known as end-grain bamboo) floors are created by aligning the strips side by side before pressing, and horizontal grain (also known as flat-grain bamboo) floors are created by stacking the strips face-up, one on top of another. Once the strips are properly aligned, they are fused together using environmentally friendly adhesives and hydraulic pressure. Ambient's adhesives contain formaldehyde levels of less than 0.03 ppm — well below U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), European (E1 and E0) and California Air Resources Board (CARB) guidelines, and Ambient is proud to provide 100% formaldehyde-free floors on special order.

Strand Woven

Bamboo strips are pulled apart into strands, which are woven together and compressed multiple times under extreme pressure and heat. Ambient's strand woven floors are almost three times harder than oak, twice as dense as classic bamboo flooring, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Not to worry, we don't use harmful chemicals or glues during our compression process!

Engineered (including some click lock)

The top layer (veneer) of our strand-woven bamboo flooring is bonded to a tough, multi ply or HDF core and a recycled poplar base. The added dimensional stability on engineered planks means they won't suffer shrinkage or contraction as early as solid floating floors. Check out this page for more about the types of bamboo floors and their pros and cons.

After pressurization, the planks are inspected once again for gapping, irregularities and other problems to ensure they do not delaminate. Planks not up to Ambient's exacting standards are removed from the assembly line.

Handscraped (includes some click lock)

The term handscraped is usually used to describe a certain surface pattern rather than a type of floor itself. After making the cut, some floors are scraped by hand to create a distressed look. This surface style can be applied to strand and engineered bamboo floors alike.

Plank milling: our planks go together, like rama lama ding dong.

High-quality locking floors click together in perfect unison, just like a good Grease song, the Rockettes, or a successful casino heist. The same goes for tongue and groove planks — the better the milling, the less gaps you will have when you slide the planks together. We know this all too well. Therefore, once the planks are successfully fused and double checked for irregularities, it's back to our German-engineered milling machines, which cut each board into either click-lock or classic tongue-and-groove flooring. For all floors besides the engineered variety, the underside of each plank is milled into a ribbed pattern for support and maximum dimensional stability. After milling, the planks are sanded on top to ensure a smooth finish application and once again, inspected plank-by-plank and by hand for quality.

AccuSeal Ultra® Finish System: the best finish on bamboo, period.

When you're going outside in a thunderstorm you need a good rain slicker. When you're getting stepped on every day you need the toughest finish on the market. Our industry-leading 10-coat AccuSeal Ultra® Finish System is just what the doctor ordered. We apply a proprietary (shhhh... it's a secret!) top coating that makes our floors stand up for years while retaining their beauty.

All layers are applied and UV-cured individually to create uniform protection across the surface of the floor while the undercoat layers provide protection against sub-floor moisture. (please note the undercoats do not serve as a moisture seal!)

Quality control, organization and packaging: plank by plank

Like an ostrich in a chicken coop, an off-color or defective plank sticks out. Being overly meticulous is how we maintain our undisputed quality - via the industry's most thorough quality control inspections after our floors come off the finish line. Our commitment to using only the best raw materials, milling process and finishes has resulted in very happy customers and the lowest complaint ratio in our market.

At Ambient we inspect our flooring planks one at a time and even group them into similar lots according to color. This painstaking process ensures that we can back up our Lifetime warranty. By carefully sorting color shades we also ensure there's enough variation in each lot to reflect the natural beauty of the wood.

We wrap the bundled planks in plastic to protect them during shipment, and finally, enclose the bundles in cardboard boxes. Then, before sending them on their way to your home or office, we do a final quality control and color inspection to ensure all moldings match the floor and that your floor remains free of defects.