Bamboo is growing in the home

Consumer Reports has tested bamboo towels, bamboo flooring, and even bamboo plates, many touting the claimed green aspects of these products. And last week we saw all kinds of bamboo offerings at the 2008 Kitchen/Bath Industry Show, including Rio Grande Imports' Zoom bamboo bath sink, Totally Bamboo's bamboo countertop panels for kitchens and baths, and Teragren's Studio bamboo flooring.

Learn about the latest green-themed bamboo products in the video (right) featuring Bob Markovich, Home editor of Consumer Reports.

Protect Your Investment: Wood Floors

Part of the beauty of wood floors is that they change over time, taking on character and patina. You might even appreciate the squeaks and creaks that sometimes develop—as long as they’re not too loud.

But you still need to manage the aging process of your floors. Severely worn wood floors don’t look good, and when you sell your home, prospective buyers won’t see the “character” of the floors so much as several thousand dollars they’ll have to spend having the surfaces refinished or replaced. Here’s how to keep your wood floors looking their best.

Daily Duty
Sweeping is essential to maintaining the integrity of the finish. Regularly sweep wood floors with a soft-bristle broom. If the floorboards have beveled edges that trap dirt and crumbs, use the bare-floor option on your vacuum instead of a broom. (In our tests, canister vacuums perform better than upright vacuums on wood floors. The trade-off is they can be heavier and pricier than uprights. For more advice on choosing a vacuum, read our latest report and use our expert shopping advice.)

Occasional Tasks
Clean your floors periodically with a wood-cleaning solution. (If you sweep or vacuum diligently, cleaning a few times a year might suffice.) Which cleaner you use will depend on the type of finish you have. To test, apply a few drops of water in an inconspicuous area, says inside a closet. If white spots appear within 10 minutes, the finish is wax. If no white spots show up, it's polyurethane. Another way to identify a polyurethane finish is to scratch the surface (again, in an out-of-the-way area) with a coin or other sharp object. If the finish does not flake, it’s polyurethane.

Clean floors with a polyurethane finish with a solution of 1 cup distilled white vinegar and 3 to 4 gallons of warm water. (Or use a waterborne cleaner designed specifically for urethane finishes, such as Bona.) Damp-mop the floor damp—don’t soak it: Dip a terry-cloth towel into the solution, wringing the towel of excess solution and covering a standard flathead mop with the towel to clean the floor.

Clean wax-finish floors with a solvent-based cleaner and liquid wax designed specifically for wood floors.

Regardless of the finish, never use products intended for vinyl or tile on wood floors, as they can dull the finish and make the floors slippery. Be careful when using a sponge mop; some have hard metal edges that can easily scratch floors.

Preventive Measures
• Place a doormat outside entrances to your home to keep people from tracking dirt and grit indoors.
• Better yet, instate a no-shoes policy, which will preserve the floors. If you can’t ban all footwear indoors, at least ask people to remove high-heel shoes; they can have an impact of 2,000 pounds per square inch, enough to mottle the surface of a wood floor over time.
• Use plastic or felt protectors under furniture legs to prevent scratches. When rearranging furniture, always lift pieces instead of sliding them.
• If you have a wood floor in the kitchen, place a mat in front of the sink and range to prevent steady foot traffic from wearing bare spots into the finish.

Essential information: When you need to install new floors, read our latest report on solid-wood, engineered-wood, and plastic-laminate options.

Doing It Right: Flooring Installation

How to get the best installation for your new floor

Installing a wood or laminate floor is a big job that can take over a room for days. Whether you’re doing the job yourself or hiring a contractor, proper preparation and attention to detail are essential for high-quality results. To ensure a beautiful, level, squeak-free floor, follow these dos and don’ts.

Buy more material than you need. Most wood or engineered-wood (plywood covered by a wood veneer) flooring should be matched for color and grain by the manufacturer. But there could be variance from batch to batch, so buy all the flooring you’ll need all at once and from the same manufacturer. Experts advise buying seven to 10 percent more flooring than you need for your project to allow for mistakes, bad boards, and waste.

Plastic-laminate floorboards are essentially fiberboard with a picture of wood grain under a clear protective layer. But laminate panels can have similar patterns, so you may want to pull from multiple packages when installing to avoid repetition.

Inspect the subfloor before installation. Solid-wood flooring must be nailed to a plywood or oriented strand board (OSB) subfloor. Engineered wood can be nailed or glued to a subfloor or glued directly to above-grade concrete. Laminate flooring locks together and goes over a vapor barrier and foam padding in a process called “floating.”

You can check that the subfloor is level by stretching a string or laying a 2x4 on its narrow edge against the surface. It should be level within 1/8 inch within 10 feet in any direction.

If the flooring is going over above-grade concrete, be sure the contractor inspects the subfloor for excess moisture before installation.

Acclimate the boards. Wood or engineered wood should be unpacked and left to acclimate to the moisture level in your home for 24 to 72 hours before installation (laminate flooring may or may not need to acclimate—check with your manufacturer). “Almost all the problems with wood floors are because of moisture,” says Ken Schumacher, of Schumacher & Co. Custom Hardwood Floors in Newport, Kentucky, and the chairman of the board of the National Wood Flooring Association. “If conditions are right before installation, you won’t have problems down the road.”

Allow for expansion. Molding should be removed from the walls during installation, and the installer should allow a 1/4- to 1/2-inch gap between the edge of the flooring and the wall (often done with spacers). To avoid ending up with overly thin boards at the finish wall, measure from the start to finish wall, then divide by the width of the boards. If the remainder is less than one half the width of a board, trim the lead boards by one half the remainder. (The same principle applies to the start and lead walls, widthwise.) Be sure to measure each board at the finish wall before cutting to allow for irregularities in the wall.

Know your sealant. Laminate floors need no stains or sealants. Your installer will, however, need to sand solid-wood floors and some engineered-wood products and treat them with three to seven coats of polyurethane. Water-based poly dries faster (about one hour per coat) than oil-based sealant (about a day per coat) and leaves less of an odor, but might need an extra coat to fill in the wood grain. In between coats, the installer should use a buffer or sander to prepare it for the next coat. Newer, prefinished wood boards are more expensive, but allow for a faster installation with less mess and fewer fumes. With prefinished boards, you might also notice small gaps between the edges since the boards are beveled.

Protect the floor. Sweep or vacuum floors with a soft broom or brush and clean with a damp but not overly wet mop. Consult the manufacturer’s guidelines for suggested cleaning products. Finally, put felt pads on the bottom of all furniture to prevent scratching.

Essential information: Read our latest flooring report, “Latest isn’t greatest,” which covers six different types of flooring and includes Ratings of 39 different products.  Also refer to these illustrations, which show you what to look for in a topnotch installation. For help hiring a contractor, read “Remodeling: Secrets of success.”

UV light can alter wood flooring

We’ve recently been testing, reviewing, and rating all types of flooring for an upcoming report in our August 2007 special section on kitchens. In our test labs, we rigorously and scientifically administer punishments that simulate what the typical family does to their flooring everyday: scuffing, scratching, dropping items, and spilling liquids (everyday drinks, condiments, even cleaning fluids).

You can’t always avoid damaging your floors, especially if your house is a high-traffic zone with kids or pets. But as I discovered in reporting this story, our testing revealed one factor that might be a deciding factor when you choose a floor.

We expose flooring to ultraviolet light to mimic the effects of sunlight. Some types change more than others as a result of UV light. Bamboo, for example, quickly darkens to a deep brown; Brazilian cherry, to a mahoganylike red. Oak takes on a pleasant amber over time. Different species change at varying rates, and a given floor will change most noticeably in spots that receive the most sunlight. (In the photo above, maple is on the left and Brazilian cherry is on the right. The part not exposed to UV light is in the foreground of each plank.)

My advice when you’re shopping for a wood floor: Ask the retailer to see a sample of the same flooring that’s been exposed to sunlight. The color change isn’t necessarily a reason not to buy a product you otherwise like. But this way you’ll be prepared for any shift that might occur after installation.

If you decide wood isn’t right for you, consider another type of flooring material, like plastic laminate, vinyl, linoleum, or ceramic tile, among many others.—Ed Perratore

Essential information: If you’ll put down the flooring, follow our expert installation advice to make sure the job’s done right. Our flooring Ratings (available to subscribers) will help you choose the right product.

Don't miss our Kitchen-Planning Guide if you're considering a remodel at your home. And be sure to check out our 30-page special kitchen section in the August 2007 issue of Consumer Reports, on sale in July. The package is filled with our latest reports on appliances, materials, and other products and, as always, includes our unbiased Ratings.

Toilets can last forever

While your toilets might clog from time to time, it’s unlikely you’ll ever need to replace them since they ought to be around at least as long as your house is. That’s just one of the findings of a study recently released by the National Association of Home Builders that details how long you can expect dozens of appliances, fixtures, materials, and other elements in your home to last.

Gas ranges (15 years), dryers (13), and refrigerators (13) top the list of the most durable appliances, according to the National Association of Home Builders/Bank of America Home Equity Study of the Life Expectancies of Home Components, conducted during the summer of 2006. Dishwashers and microwaves, at nine years apiece, don’t hold up quite as long. Many types of flooring could last you a century, the report says, but not carpeting, which is good for about a decade.

(Download NAHBLifeExpectancy.pdf.)

Among parts of your home exposed to the elements, your deck could last 20 years under ideal conditions, says the study. (Lifespan will be shorter in the humid South and a bit longer in dryer regions.) Treating your deck to reduce the effects of weather is key to its longevity. Your roof’s survival, which also varies by the weather it is subjected to, varies widely depending on what it’s made out of. Asphalt shingles should last 20 years while slate, cooper, and concrete could hold up for half a century.

Of course, that doesn’t mean you can count on these products to endure as long as the report says nor expect them to fail in the same time frame. Every appliance, for example, is affected by care and maintenance. Other factors influencing product lifespan include the quality of manufacture materials used, as well as usage conditions.

An even more valuable resource than the NAHB study is the Frequency of Repair, or FOR, information Consumer Reports has compiled, like this report for ranges (available to subscribers). Our FOR data, based on tens of thousands of replies to our Annual Product Reliability Surveys and compiled by the Consumer Reports National Research Center, will help you choose a reliable brand and avoid future headaches with problem products.

This DIY flooring gets a grip

Allure vinyl flooring comes in planks instead of the typical sheets or tiles. But what distinguishes it is the “grip strip”: You lay down the planks and align the strips—no adhesive required. Once the planks are down, you have up to 20 minutes to pull them apart and fix any gaps. What’s more, you can lay the flooring directly on top of an existing hard surface, according to the folks at Home Depot, exclusive marketer of Allure. The cherry, hickory, and oak finishes are reasonably convincing, though it’s unlikely you’ll mistake them for the real thing. The flooring (an inexpensive $1.69 per square foot) should be in all Home Depot locations by the end of April.—Celia Kuperszmid Lehrman

Product preview: Making hardwood floors a snap . . . literally

No glue, no nails, no staples—just wood-veneer, engineered-wood planks that lock together to create a floating floor that the manufacturer claims is ready to walk on right after installation. Simply insert the tongue of one board of Bruce’s Lock & Fold engineered flooring into the groove of the next board, and the flooring snaps together, says Bruce. Glueless floating installation also makes it easier to remove and replace damaged boards. Easy repairs and a 25-year warranty could come in handy, since the real-wood surface of other engineered-wood floors we’ve tested wore relatively quickly in our labs, dented easily, and were easily damaged by small spills. Lock & Fold flooring costs $4 to $8 per square foot, uninstalled, and comes in cherry, hickory, maple, oak, and walnut in a variety of finishes. It’s available now at Lowe’s and should be at flooring retailers by March.
Web site: www.bruce.com

Essential information: Choosing the best flooring is daunting especially since the same material can be perfect—or perfectly awful—depending on whether you have a sunny house or a house full of kids. Find out which flooring material is best for your application. Installing flooring: The inside story will help you make sure the floor you choose looks good for years to come.