Solid hardwood all the way. Bamboo is lovely so long as you work with the very expensive brand name stuff (Cali Bamboo comes to mind). If you can't afford the high-end bamboo, you are in for a formaldehyde shock. Most bamboo floors are made up of 30% adhesive/binder/resin. Most low-end or mid-range bamboo floors use one of the 2 forms of formaldehyde adhesive.

The "really bad" = urea formaldehyde. Some of the US states (CARB states) this stuff is illegal. The rest of USA/Canada is allowed to buy this stuff. The mid-range products have switched to the "not so bad but still not nice" formaldehyde = phenol formaldehyde. Again, this is legal in some states but not all. It depends on the off-gass concentration.

The high-end companies (roughly 10% of the bamboo market) works with non-formaldehyde adhesives. Cali Bamboo is one of them. If you are shopping in big box or "big flooring retailers", I woudn't go anywhere near the bamboo. If you are ordering special products you want to work with bamboo specialists.

Bamboo is tricky to aclimate, to install and to keep properly "hydrated". You must have TIGHT humidity control. Bamboo is very, very finicky about how dry/humid the air is in the home. If you do not have humidity control, you might want to look towards hardwood. Hardwood is still picky...but it is no where near as hard to live with as bamboo.

Make sure you pay $7-$12/sf for the bamboo...or you are buying a home full of formaldehyde.

Thank you so much. I can tell the diff...appreciate your help. Wood it is!

I hear ya Cancork. But in our region (northeast usa...connecticut to be specific) there are ads on radio stating that bamboo is twice as hard as oak. If that's true then to me it means that bamboos' density is twice as much as oak. Does a higher density wood automatically mean that it can't accept as much humidity as a lower density wood ? On some level i know my thought is false, but still, i actually don't know for sure

Hi Curt... excellent question. Bamboo isn't wood. It is grass. Big, thick, grass. The stalks of bamboo have very little density...'cause they are hollow. To get the "hardness" they cut the stalk, SHRED IT, dry it, chop it, etc. The boil or bake it...and then, like any good cake mix, they add glue (read: plastic). Lots and lots of glue. And when they think there is enough glue...they add a bit more. I would bet dollars to doughnuts that the "hardness" of bamboo comes from the glue...not the grass.

This would explain why the BEST bamboo products (the $7-$12/sf) with the 0 Formaldehyde are "very hard". But compare that to a "bad", lowend bamboo ($3.49/sf) with bad, low-end "plastic" and you have dents and scratches all over the place. Not to mention the swelling and splitting + slivers/chips.

This shouldn't/wouldn't happen with "oak"...because it is solid wood. Bamboo never started out as "wood". It never started out as "solid". It starts life as "grass" that is "hollow". To get it to perform like "solid hardwood" they have to add plastic. I would bet it is the plastic binders (resins) that offer the performance. Which is why epoxy is so impressive.

Oak will out-perform bamboo over the long haul. Why? Because oak can be refinished over 60-100 years. We have yet to get 4-5 refinishes out of bamboo. Mainly because it is so new...but also because so few professionals know/want to know how to do this. Even fewer of them go ahead and refinish bamboo.

If performance = cost + length of use then oak wins because of length of service. Both cost the same...but the oak will last almost 100 years. We have yet to try to get 3/4" solid strand bamboo to go 100 year with 4 refinishings. We have yet to see a full crop of bamboo get its FIRST refinishing...let alone its 4th. Oak does this on a daily basis.

Just my humble opinion.

Thanks Cancork . We just seen a flyer just 2 or 3 days ago about bamboo floors, and we knew that bamboo is hollow stalks so we were wondering how a hollow floor can be harder. I like your explanation. About the same formula i guess when they make particle board also

janahirsch, for what's it worth, i grew up with oak floors...ours was 2 coats polyurethaned but i hear from others that 3 or more is better. You're going to love them