Experience with bamboo flooring, esp in a kitchen and/or underfloor heating

[MotherofPufflings]

We considered bamboo for our last house but decided against it and went for engineered oak and karndean, both of which scratched horribly.

We're about to renovate the downstairs of our new house and will need the same flooring throughout hall/kitchen/dining and living areas. I keep flip-flopping between oiled engineered oak and karndean but then saw some bamboo parquet online which looked beautiful and now I'm thinking maybe it's a good option? I dislike the feeling of Karndean underfoot compared with wood but I'm worried about wood in a kitchen. Bamboo seems like the best of both worlds or is it too good to be true?

I’ve been thinking about bamboo too so posted to give your thread a bump

Had bamboo in previous kitchen. Really hard wearing. Loved it.

I'm having this same dilemma, so I'm joining in too. I'm also considering cork.

That's good to hear! Do you know where you got it? There don't seem to be many suppliers and even fewer now than when we were looking 15 years ago!

Not quite sure why your oak is getting scratched. I have oak in my hallway and it is as hard as nails and pretty much bulletproof.

I suspect the key is in the lacquer rather than the actual type of wood used.

My parents had bamboo. It was in for a long time but by its end it was really damaged. They wouldn’t have got cheap bamboo either. My dad’s a stickler for these things. Heel damage was the most prominent and we are all slim light people and rarely wear stilettos.

Metal bits in heels are going to wreck any wooden floors as well as stuff like stones trapped in trainer and boot treads.

If you have decent wooden flooring the best way to protect it is just to insist on everyone using slippers inside the house.

Yes we weren’t a shoes off at the door house.

We have bamboo flooring in a lot of our house. 15 years in and it's really hard wearing. We got the 'high usage' grade. I dont know anything about underfloor heating. We bought it from a company in Brighton.
I would recommend.

Would it work in a bathroom?
I've got underfloor heating in the bathroom, with tiles on top. Despite them allegedly preparing the floor before laying the tiles they've all cracked due to the heating / cooling and flex in the floor. I want to keep the underfloor heating, but don't know what to replace the tiles with.
(sorry op if this is a bit of a derail, but with the exception of mine being a bathroom we seem to be wanting the same thing)

We have it throughout the downstairs of our house, including bathroom. Make sure you get a competent fitter who is used to working with bamboo - ours wasn't laid correctly (by some absolute cowboys) and has has a lot of issues with lifting.

It's also quite scratched in places, e.g. where chairs have scraped across it, so not as durable as I'd been led to believe. Overall, it looks good but I probably wouldn't choose it again tbh.

oh I wouldn't go cork. my mother in law has cork in her kitchen and god I distest looking at it evey time I see. never ever looks clean gives a manky dirty look all the time. if she ever decides to renovate I hope it's gone.

I don't know why you would fit wood in a kitchen tbh. Kitchens have got the humidity changes, the spillages plus the dropping of hard objects much more frequently than other rooms, plus the kitchen if it has a door to outside will get wear from shoes and stones.

I am not sure of the "need" to have consistent flooring all the way through a house. A kitchen will almost certainly wear more quickly, therefore you will have to take it up, redo it and then the flooring would not be consistent. If it separated out it is easier just to redo the kitchen in the future when you need to replace it faster than the other areas.

Just my 2c.

Look up CoreTec flooring, feels like real wood, lovely underfoot and is waterproof.
https://coretecfloors.com/en-gb?srsltid=AfmBOoqAZ496Wp9IHDVfo_0iJx_CTSFswM8uE6psDSjhpWIBeneBxz_z

We had bamboo previously and it scratched and ended really badly. It didn’t especially bother me but it drove hubby mad. We now have engineered oak and it’s not any better to be honest. Next time we will go with SVT as we have it in our bathrooms and looks like wood but is tough as nails and totally waterproof.

We have solid oak parquet throughout (including the kitchen) and it still looks as good as it did when laid 10 years ago. We have used osmo oil on it every 4-5 years.

Thanks for all the helpful comments. Seems like there's mixed experience with bamboo - I'm leaning back towards oiled oak again - need to make up my mind eventually 🤣

We have CoreTec in our kitchen. It's fantastic!

How does Coretec compare price-wise to wood? I’m really resistant to the idea of a plastic floor, but maybe it’s the sensible choice. I’d have tiles except the hall is tiled and I can’t think of a way of making that work in terms of colours/pattern.

We had Strand Woven Bamboo Flooring from this company https://www.bambooflooringcompany.com/all-flooring/construction-type/strand-woven-flooring/

Installed in 2010 and still looks good as new. We dented it moving a heavy appliance but no heel marks. The only place we got wear and tear was using a wheeled chair in study area, so we put one of the IKEA floor protectors down.