By Louis Iannaco
Bamboo as an alternative flooring choice is booming. Combine the desire for a natural product in the home with environmental responsibility, and how could it not be? Today, with more colors, textures and styles to choose from, bamboo has reached new heights of popularity. Some of the category’s producers are locked and loaded for the fall selling season with either new products or state-of-the-art innovations.

Armstrong

Offering bamboo is one thing, but making life easier and more profitable for installers by way of its new locking line marks yet another achievement for Armstrong. The mill’s latest innovation is its locking hardwood line, which includes a wide spectrum of product options—exotics, hand-sculpted and American style visuals.

Armstrong offers attractive styling in domestic wood species such as Maple, Oak, Birch, Ash, as well as exotics like Bamboo, Bangkirai, Australian Wormy Chestnut and Kona woods, noted Daniel Call, vice president of wood product management. “Trend-setting visuals such as hand-scraped floors also are available in the locking construction, reflecting the resurgence in demand for the unique.”

Armstrong’s NextGen patented technology, which eliminates the need for glue, staples or nails, is designed to reduce installation time. “Consumers can live on their new floor immediately—or remove and replace it later if they choose,” he said. “The locking hardwood flooring eliminates glue, nails and staples, permitting faster, less expensive installation. The new technology provides increased lock strength, resulting in a tighter fit between boards and a more dimensionally stable floor with higher tolerance to moisture, seasonal and climate changes.”

NextGen is available in two lines: Armstrong Locking Hardwood, a collection of exotic and domestic hardwoods, and Bruce Turlington Lock & Fold domestic hardwood flooring.

Mannington

With regard to bamboo, Mannington’s focus has been on making the product even greener than it is already perceived to be, noted Dan Natkin, director, hardwood business.

“Most bamboo flooring products have relatively high levels of formaldehyde due to the glues used in the manufacturing process. Realizing that there’s an opportunity for environmental improvement there, we have begun to convert all of our products to a newer, non-formaldehyde glue.”

The single biggest factor that contributes to bamboo’s performance in the marketplace is its perceived environmental story, he added. “I say ‘perceived’ because there are many factors that play into a product’s ‘green factor,’ but consumers equate bamboo and environmental friendliness, so it’s something that is easy for the retail salesperson to communicate and for the consumer to understand.”

Teragren

The newest product line at Teragren is its Synergy strand bamboo-floating floor, which was introduced earlier this year. Created through an innovative, patented manufacturing process fusing together bamboo strands with an environmentally safe adhesive, noted David Knight, president and CEO, Teragren’s Synergy line is available in a Välinge-patented, glueless self-locking system for easy installation.” The 7-inch wide, 6-foot planks are available in Java, Wheat and Chestnut colors, as well as the company’s newest color, Brindle— a beautiful, exotic blend of natural and caramelized strands.

“We have also spent a significant amount of time this year developing a number of new flooring products that utilize our patented bamboo strand technology as the platform,” he explained. “These feature several beautiful new styles, textures, colors and surface treatments, which we intend to introduce in February at Surfaces 2009.

“We anticipate our upcoming products will be popular because of the increasing ‘ecoconsciousness’ of today’s consumer,” Knight added. “For example, according to the Retail Industry Leaders Association’s New Sustainability Initiative, 66% of retailers have begun the transition to green; the market for green building materials has been growing at more than 20% per year, and green flooring is expected to leapfrog from the slowest-growing to the fastest-growing segment of the green building market by 2011.

“We’ve experienced 30% to 40% growth year over year,” he stated, “which is a testament to the receptivity of the retailers and other end-users. Even this year, despite the economic downturn and decline in overall floor covering sales in 2007, our products have experienced significant demand, and we’ve maintained an overall growth rate of 25%.

“In particular,” Knight concluded, “we developed our newest Synergy floating floor product to meet the growing consumer demand for bamboo floors with glueless-locking systems. Our existing Synergy Strand Solid-Strip Bamboo Flooring is our most popular product, and we anticipate the popularity of this line will extend to this new product. The wider, longer planks are suitable for any décor from traditional to contemporary settings, helping create the ultimate green design experience. Currently, Teragren owns the patent rights to the strand process in the U.S., U.K., Brazil and Mexico.”