Bamboo Stair Treads

Bamboo has long been used as a traditional building material in East Asia and the South Pacific, and recently interest has really soared in bamboo stair treads and bamboo flooring in the West and other areas for several reasons we'll discuss below.

It’s even used for scaffolding many dozens of stories high in Hong Kong and other Asian cities which is quite impressive!

Bamboo stair treads and risers and flooring are durable and beautiful, and available in a wide variety of hues such as gold, amber, coffee and bamboo can be used for other stair parts as well such as molding and stair trim, stair nosing, newel posts, balusters, and handrails. Bamboo is of course used for other construction purposes as well, and you can even get houses entirely made of bamboo in the USA and France!

It’s available both pre-finished and unfinished, which can be stained or painted however you would like. Also, bamboo reportedly expands and contracts less than hardwoods, making it less likely to warp in humid environments, and is much harder than many hardwoods!

Bamboo is also a green construction material, meaning environmentally friendly. Some claim it is the ultimate ecologically friendly building material. It is renewable, growing much faster than hardwoods. Bamboo can grow as much as 39 inches in 24 hours (and that’s not a typo!), which makes it one of the fasting growing plants in existence.

Make sure you buy your bamboo products from a reputable source. There are many grades of bamboo but they are not usually labeled as such. For example, 4 year old bamboo is softer than 6 year old. 6 year old is considered optimum. Some will be three times harder than oak but other may be softer. There are also different species used with differing characteristics. You want someone that knows bamboo and that has been in business and hopefully will be in business for a while! The cheapest price is not what you should be looking for in bamboo stair treads and flooring. If you buy from the cheapest source and have problems, they may no longer be in business or even qualified to handle the warranty, and yes, warranties are available from many reputable retailers.

Unlike bamboo traditionally used in Asia and the South Pacific, the bamboo we are discussing is laminated. It is cut into thin strips, planed flat, and then boiled and dried. Bamboo Stair Tread These strips are then glued, pressed and sometimes finished. It became available in the West, primarily as a boutique product in the mid 1990s, but has surged in popularity and is even available at places like Lowes and Home Depot now. The example on the left is actually from Amazon. Click Here to take a look at some other examples.

It had been previously available in parts of Asia, for example Japan. Bamboo is expected to be a 25 billion dollar industry by 2012. This includes bamboo used for textiles and foods. Think bamboo shoots in Chinese food for example, although it's also eaten in many other places like Nepal and India).