Hey Everyone - Rob Jones here.
Just to let you know, we’ve moved the posts of this blog to blog.builddirect.com. And this is also where future posts will be published. Really, it’s like we’ve moved next door - not too far away.
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Thanks a lot, and I hope to hear from you in our comments section!
Cheers,
Rob.
There has been a lot of important discussion surrounding how various brands/types of bamboo flooring are rated for emissions. I should say this, that my research on this is still ongoing, only because I’ve heard a lot of talk about how some kinds of bamboo flooring have zero emissions. If anyone can point me in the direction of this kind of product, I’d love to read more about it.
What I have discovered is that there are several standards to which bamboo floors are held, all of which with an eye to make improvements to the minimization of potentially harmful emissions.
Here’s a site that talks about the issue of emissions in greater detail. Basically, off-gassing in nearly every type of flooring has been a given, from carpeting to laminate. And in the state of California, there was a standard put in place to measure and restrict emissions for the health and safety of those living and working in the interiors in which the flooring is installed.
The California (CARB) parameters for this are currently in flux, with the goal of trying to reduce the tolerance for emmissions starting this month and projected into 2012. The Californian standard is at 0.20 parts per million, to be improved to 0.18 ppm starting this year.
E1 is a European standard, which accounts for an allowance of 0.14 ppm, has been what our Yanchi brand has been held to. But, more recently the new standard of E0 has been put in place too. According to Teregren, that standard is 0.07 ppm, second only to the Japanese standard of 0.05.
Obviously, the ideal is to have a bamboo floor, or any type of flooring, with zero formaldehyde emissions and have that as a standard. The balance to be struck is a glue and laminate material which is both durable in the long-term and healthy too. And new products are coming out all of the time which are getting us closer to that goal.
Cheers,
Rob.
Happy New Year, bamboo junkies!
Not too long ago, I wrote a post about bamboo laptops which at the time I thought was an unusual product. Yet, since then I’ve seen quite a few examples of this example of old-world technology meeting with new. And it seems that the use of bamboo for laptop frames have a few more practical uses than I thought.
Here’s an article about bamboo laptops which talks a bit more about how bamboo laptops are making a fashion statement, but also seeing to certain safety issues too. According to the article, a lot of laptops, when discarded and replaced by this year’s model, are sent to the Third World where they are often stripped for parts.
The laptops are burned, and the metals left over are sold. But, burning a plastic laptop frame of course has a number of environmental and health concerns attached.
In addition to looking stylish then, many of these bamboo frame laptops are designed to be easy to disassemble, and use less materials which are likely to cause issues when the laptops are harvested for parts, or reused by recycling the materials. Once again, bamboo is a tool for innovation, not just because of how it looks, but for all kinds of practical considerations too.
Does anyone out there own one of these? If so, how does it differ from the standard laptop? Are you menaced by pandas at all? Tell me all about it!
Cheers,
Rob.
You’ve heard of Dancing with the Stars? Well, how about Dancing with Bamboo?
OK, not the same thing at all.
But, I found this article about traditional bamboo dance from the Li people who live in Hainan Province, China.
The Li people number in the millions, with their own distinct identity which includes religion, language, and artistic traditions too. Their culture is a based on a folk-tradition, meaning that until recently, their language was not notated, just spoken. They live in a sub-tropical region of China, an agrarian culture with a great deal of emphasis on the arts. They are known for their skills as weavers, a tradition which is thousands of years old. And of course, their use of bamboo in traditional dance is famous.
In reading about the Li people, I found out that bamboo dance is not an isolated thing. There are other cultures in India (the Lushai people), as well as in the Philippines (the Sabah people - watch the video) that incorporate bamboo into their artistic traditions, specifically in dance. The dances are meant to be tests of athletic ability, and more specifically flexibility and coordination. In this sense, the use of bamboo in the dance makes it somewhat of a symbol of this, as well as a symbol of how central bamboo as a material is to their ways of life.
For us, bamboo is connected with how we view our environment too. Bamboo flooring sustainable, strong, and of course looks great. It’s looked upon as a green solution, and something of a symbol of responsibility when choosing flooring, or other building products. But for these cultures, there is an even greater connection, arguably. For them, bamboo provides shelter and materials for all manner of household items. But in incorporating bamboo into their traditions, it also ties their identity to their region. Culturally speaking, they are their environment. And for them it’s something to literally dance about.
Cheers!
Rob.
Bamboo dancers image courtesy of peigianlongIn the flooring industry, there are designated tests to place each type of wood flooring on scale of which is the softest to the hardest. A point which all bamboo flooring sellers make, including us here at BuildDirect, is that bamboo floors are comparable to many species of hardwood for hardness. But, a lot of consumers simply don’t believe the hype. And other consumers are prepared to test the hype on their own.
Here’s a great blog entry by Bruce Schena on the Pope Street Modern blog. Bruce is an electromechanical engineering & product design consultant located in the San Francisco Bay Area who takes his flooring purchase pretty seriously. Basically, when sceptical about how bamboo flooring would stand up to stress, he decided to conduct his own series of scientific tests bases on the Janka Hardness test.
Basically, Bruce set up a variation of the test where he specified a certain force and measured how deeply a steel ball would sink into his range of wood flooring samples, which included strand-woven bamboo, which is widely known for being an extremely hard floor, even when compared to traditional hardwoods. Here were his findings, using his old floor (white oak) as a baseline:
Based on my data, our Teragren Synergy Strand (Wheat) Bamboo looks like a great choice - nearly twice as hard as our original floor and pretty far out on the end of the hardness scale. Our second choice - the Plyboo Strand - was the hardest of all, but only slightly more than the Teragren.
And both were harder than the white oak, a popular choice in wood flooring, the hardness of which is not usually questioned.
A choice in flooring is an investment in time, money, and in the long term value of a property. But, you’ve got to hand it to someone who is not willing to buy what it says in the sales brochure and is willing to see what the laws of physics has to say about what he’s buying. So, flooring sellers beware - be sure your product does what you say it does, lest your next customer be a product design consultant who blogs!
Cheers!
Rob.
Take a look at Bruce Schena’s site for more information about him and his work.
Bamboo testing image courtesy of http://www.silicontraption.com/Look out! More puns!
Bamboo knocks it out of the park again (there it is), showing its versatility in yet another field (there’s another) of human activity; the American national pastime of baseball.
Traditionally, sports equipment makers have turned to white ash hardwood for making baseball bats. Yet, in the interests of extra strength, and in looking for sustainabilty too, a balance is being struck by using composite bats. And what do is being used more and more commonly as a core? You bet - bamboo.
Here’s an article about bamboo bats featuring an interview with former Kansas City Royals third baseman George Brett. Brett and his brothers own a bat manufacturing company, Brett Brothers, stating that bats with bamboo cores are more stable, and break less than standard bats. The bats are made with real hardwood too, and are coated with kevlar, making for a very stable bat. But the bamboo is what supplies that stability at its core under stress.
How many other examples of the robust nature of bamboo are there out there? . Stay tuned!
Cheers!
Rob.
I can’t resist a pun, so forgive the title. But, there’s something about the pen being mightier than the sword which seems to bring out the pun in everyone. When I say everyone, maybe I should say that I mean me. But, I’m sure there are others. Well, not exactly sure. Never mind.
The point is (that pun was not intended - honest!) that bamboo pens are making writing green in more ways than one. Here’s an article about bamboo pens that explains that even the smallest change in buying habits are making a cultural impact. And where buying a bamboo pen may not save the world, it certainly changes perceptions about our choices as consumers, and the prevalence of plastic in manufactured items. Yet, there are efforts into making an even more direct impact on our world.
The pen in question is the new Bamboo Tornado(TM) by Retro 51 which retails for about $40. That’s kind of steep for a pen, maybe. Or maybe not for some. I tend to get the ones in the pack, so that when I chew on them (which I will do), I get the most out of my investment. In any case, when you buy the bamboo tornado pen from the Retro 51 site, you’re making a donation to the Arbor Day Foundation. The organization is dedicated to saving 250 square feet of rainforest through this campaign.
If only they made chewable green pens, I could give up my plastic habit.
Cheers,
Rob.
Bamboo pen image courtesy of www.paradisepen.comOne thing we’re noticing here at BuildDirect is that bamboo flooring is really coming into its own, not as something of a substitute for hardwood, but in a league by itself. Most of this enthusiasm is spearheaded by homeowners looking to use sustainable materials in their projects.
Sustainability is becoming a cultural mindset for a lot of homeowners, and approaching a building project is not as it once was. There are now all kinds of considerations about how carbon footprints must be minimized being thrown into the decision-making mix. Global awareness, for many, has changed everything.
Yet not for everyone, according to some sources. From what I’m reading, it seems like the green building movement is currently championed by high level industry parties - organizations like USGBC, architects, big time builders - but not so much for the independent contractor who generally sticks to more traditional choices.
Here’s an article from sustainablebusiness.com which talks about this observation from the floor of the GreenBuild Conference this year. From that article:
There were plenty of green architects, green designers and larger corporate customers, but I didn’t notice many people from small constructions firms or representing the trades. From what I heard people talking about, one of the problems for the green building industry is there’s still a hole at “Main Street.” Although there’s strong demand from the public for green features in home renovation, the average tradesperson doesn’t have the knowledge, skill and access to green products and green construction techniques. Either tradespeople aren’t getting the green message or they’re still resistant to change. Customers seem to still have to drag their contractors to the altar of green.
I wonder if attendance at one of these types of conferences is indicative of the home renovation and construction population as a whole. It could be that it isn’t, and there are more independent contractors promoting green building and materials like bamboo flooring than this article indicates.
But, if the cross-section of attendees is representative of the whole, it will be an interesting to see how the architects and other parties who have bought into green will convince the people on the ground actually doing the renovations.
Cheers,
Rob.
Hey everyone!
When you’re around building materials, talk about them a lot, and are generally proud of the company you work for, when your stuff gets on TV show you respect it’s like watching your kid in a school pageant! Well, not completely like that, but you get the idea.
We donated a few products to the “Holmes on Homes” HGTV program - some slate tile, some porcelain tile for the bathroom, and some decking too. But, we also donated some natural bamboo flooring, which was installed on the ground floor, and on the stairs too.
Here’s a video of Rob Banks our co-founder speaking to Mike Holmes about our Yanchi bamboo flooring on the program. The full episode is called “Pasadena 911″.:
Mike Holmes is a major figure in Do-It-Yourself circles here in Canada. He’s known for being something of a home reno superhero, coming in with his guys ‘n’ girls to fix the disasters caused by disreputable contractors. The reason he does it is really to protect his industry, and let people know that getting ripped off by someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing is not characteristic of the industry itself. And more importantly, that dishonesty and shoddy work shouldn’t be tolerated by homeowners.
He also genuinely cares about helping people out of desperate situations, including the staggering costs and financial uncertainty that they bring. As such, we here at BuildDirect are big fans, which is why we wanted to get involved in this program. This was Mike’s first job in the United States, and we were really stoked about helping him as best we could, and the family who needed his help.
Thanks to Mike and his production team for having us on his show. It was kind of a rush for us to be a part of what he’s doing for the contractor industry in our own small way. And nice to be on TV too, who are we kidding!
Cheers,
Rob
I was reading a post by Tim, a self-styled eco-remodeler. He’s recently completed a bamboo flooring installation job in his dining room. This is a continuation of a job that began in his study. Part of the way through the job, Tim realized he needed two more boxes of bamboo, which he went out to get at his local retail location.
When he returned, he was confronted with a problem; the new bamboo floor planks didn’t match the rest of the installation. This is of course a pretty common problem. After all, bamboo is a natural material. And natural materials all have slight color variations. What to do, then?
Well, Tim decided that instead of trying to hide the difference, he’d use it to his advantage. In laying the planks, he chose ones from the new batch and the older batch alternatively. The result was a varied, and ultimately more interesting look. Smart. And good advice for the rest of us.
Cheers!
Rob.
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