Is Bamboo A Hardwood Or Softwood

The difference between hardwood and softwood.

Is bamboo a hardwood or softwood.

Hardwood timber comes from deciduous trees like beech blackwood oak hickory mahogany maple teak and walnut. Softwood hardwood table image. Their slow growth is what makes hardwood a more expensive option. It s important which brand you buy moreso than other types of flooring.

These are outstanding brands with outstanding reputations. Personally i love natural bamboo made by us floors and teragren. Hardwood floors are natural and durable but expensive bamboo floors are cheaper and growing in popularity. In the case of oak bamboo hardwood flooring has been proven to be 3x as strong in hardness testing studies.

In general bamboo falls at about 1 200 to 1 400 on the janka hardness scale which means it s a little harder than oak and ash. T x 5 1 8 in. Bamboo like wood is a natural composite material with a high strength to weight ratio useful for structures. Because bamboo is imported usually from china bamboo more than any other hardwood varies tremendously in quality.

Depending on the type of your project you may need either or both of the different kinds of wood. While hardwood flooring can last up to 75 100 years bamboo floors have a lifespan of 10 25 years. These are trees that lose their leaves and grow more slowly. Bamboo s strength to weight ratio is similar to timber and its strength is generally similar to a strong softwood or hardwood timber.

Bamboo and hardwood do have a similar look and feel and both materials are available both in 3 4 inch thick solid planks and in engineered versions in which a finish quality natural veneer is laminated over man made core layers. Both types of flooring are prone to warping from humidity in the environment. L engineered click bamboo flooring 2 49. Bamboo flooring is a hardwood in all but name while it s a grass it most certainly outperforms most traditional hardwoods such as oak ash mahogany and walnut.

W x 36 in. Classifying wood as either a hardwood or softwood comes down to its physical structure and makeup and so it is overly simple to think of hardwoods as being hard and durable compared to soft and workable softwoods. Each of these woods come from a different type of tree. Similarly we expect softwood to be soft and light.

But amid these similarities are some key differences that set these two flooring choices apart. This happens to be generally true but there are exceptions such as in the cases of wood from yew trees a softwood that is relatively hard and wood from balsa trees a.