Great Floor Debate: New Bamboo vs. Restore Old Floor

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Posted on: September 21, 2010

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Great Floor Debate: New Bamboo vs. Restore Old Floor
In home improvement projects, the popular eco-friendly products are not always the best solution.  Lester Graham has the story of a home improvement intervention.
Kevin Leeser was not happy with the floors downstairs in his one-hundred year old house.
KL:  Well, weve lived here five years and just over the five years theyve started to get grayer and you can tell that the finish was in the high traffic areas—you could tell where we were walking it looks like we were hamsters walking through this place.
LG:  This is maple, right?
KL:  Pfft.  Yeah, thats what they tell me.
Kevin toyed with the idea of finishing the maple floors but that sounded really involved.
And then the in-laws visited during the holidays.
KL:  My mother-in-law was like “Why dont you get new floors.” (laugh)  And I was like “well, yeah”, it would be easier, cause the things I was concerned about were sawdust, and cause I have a newborn, just dirtying up the house and figured just getting some clean stuff, cutting it outside, sticking it down and be done with it.
LG:  So, wanting to be eco-friendly, he thought hed put down bamboo flooring.  Bamboo is renewable and it grows fast and its pretty popular these days.
Then his neighbor stopped by.  Matt Grocoff the eco-friendly home improvement guy with www.Greenovation.TV who had some eh—thoughts about Kevins plan.
MG:  And, I, like, practically smacked him in the face and I said “What are you thinking?”  This is a gorgeous floor.  Go rent yourself a sander or even hire someone for a few hundred bucks to strip the floor and then refinish it.
LG:  So, you’re not a big fan of bamboo?
MG:  Bamboo is a great product if you have to do something new.  You have to ask a question: do you need that new product or do you have something that works now and just needs to be renewed.
Oh, yeah.  Reduce.  Re-use.  Recycle.  So, Kevin’s wife, Lauren and their baby were away for a few days.  Kevin rented a sander and then started looking for an eco-friendly sealant for his maple floors.  Matt had an idea for that.
MG:  Kevin’s using a natural oil from BioShield which is a mixture of tung and linseed oil that is so easy to use.  It’s easier to use than even a low-VOC or zero-VOC polyurethene finish and easier to maintain in the long run.
And in the end renting the sander, buying sanding pads, buying the floor sealant, paint brushes and all that stuff ended up costing Kevin about HALF of what it would have if he put down bamboo.  Not a bad deal.
But the big question what did his wife, Lauren, think of the refinished old floors.
LM:  It looks absolutely beautiful and we didnt have to get new floors.  Win, win.  We love it.  Beautiful.
Matt Grocoff says he was sure Kevin and Lauren would be happy, because he did the same thing at his house.
MG:  The first thing that I did when we finished with our floor is I took a glass of red wine when we were celebrating and I poured half a glass of red wine on the floor and my wife was like “What are you doing?!”  And I was like, “look, were going to spill wine on it eventually, lets see what happens now.”  The wine beaded up on the floor.  We took a little sponge, wiped it clean and its gorgeous, five years later.
LG:  That’s Matt Grocoff with www.Greenovation.TV.  Thanks, Matt.
MG:  Lester, this is always so much fun.  Im glad to be doing it.
LG:  That’s The Environment Report.  I’m Lester Graham.

In home improvement projects, the popular eco-friendly products are not always the best solution.  Lester Graham has the story of a home improvement intervention.

Kevin Leeser was not happy with the floors downstairs in his one-hundred year old house.

[Transcript of Lester's story for the Environment Report on public radio - Watch video above to see Kevin refinish his floors and see the gorgeous results]

CLICK IMAGE TO LISTEN TO RADIO STORY

CLICK IMAGE TO LISTEN TO RADIO STORY

Kevin Leeser:  Well, weve lived here five years and just over the five years theyve started to get grayer and you can tell that the finish was in the high traffic areas—you could tell where we were walking it looks like we were hamsters walking through this place.

Lester Graham:  This is maple, right?

KL: Pfft.  Yeah, thats what they tell me.

Kevin toyed with the idea of finishing the maple floors but that sounded really involved.

And then the in-laws visited during the holidays.

KL: My mother-in-law was like “Why dont you get new floors.” (laugh)  And I was like “well, yeah”, it would be easier, cause the things I was concerned about were sawdust, and cause I have a newborn, just dirtying up the house and figured just getting some clean stuff, cutting it outside, sticking it down and be done with it.

LG: So, wanting to be eco-friendly, he thought hed put down bamboo flooring.  Bamboo is renewable and it grows fast and its pretty popular these days.

Then his neighbor stopped by.  Matt Grocoff the eco-friendly home improvement guy with www.Greenovation.TV who had some eh—thoughts about Kevin’s plan.

Matt Grocoff: And, I, like, practically smacked him in the face and I said “What are you thinking?”  This is a gorgeous floor.  Go rent yourself a sander or even hire someone for a few hundred bucks to strip the floor and then refinish it.

LG: So, you’re not a big fan of bamboo?

MG: Bamboo is a great product if you have to do something new.  You have to ask a question: do you need that new product or do you have something that works now and just needs to be renewed.

Oh, yeah.  Reduce.  Re-use.  Recycle.  So, Kevin’s wife, Lauren and their baby were away for a few days.  Kevin rented a sander and then started looking for an eco-friendly sealant for his maple floors.  Matt had an idea for that.

MG: Kevin’s using a natural oil from BioShield which is a mixture of tung and linseed oil that is so easy to use.  It’s easier to use than even a low-VOC or zero-VOC polyurethene finish and easier to maintain in the long run.

And in the end renting the sander, buying sanding pads, buying the floor sealant, paint brushes and all that stuff ended up costing Kevin about HALF of what it would have if he put down bamboo.  Not a bad deal.

But the big question what did his wife, Lauren, think of the refinished old floors.

Lauren: It looks absolutely beautiful and we didnt have to get new floors.  Win, win.  We love it.  Beautiful.

Matt Grocoff says he was sure Kevin and Lauren would be happy, because he did the same thing at his house.

MG: The first thing that I did when we finished with our floor is I took a glass of red wine when we were celebrating and I poured half a glass of red wine on the floor and my wife was like “What are you doing?!”  And I was like, “look, were going to spill wine on it eventually, lets see what happens now.”  The wine beaded up on the floor.  We took a little sponge, wiped it clean and its gorgeous, five years later.

LG: That’s Matt Grocoff with Greenovation.TV.  Thanks, Matt.

MG: Lester, this is always so much fun.  Im glad to be doing it.

LG: That’s The Environment Report.  I’m Lester Graham.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR:

Bioshield Natural Paint & Oil Finishes (In the story Kevin uses Bioshield Hard Oil #9)

Safecoat Paints and Finishes

Home Depot Tool Rental

The U.S. Green Building Council

The EPA’s site on green building techniques

LISTEN TO THE RADIO STORY: The Environment Report

6 Responses to “Great Floor Debate: New Bamboo vs. Restore Old Floor”

  1. Larry Tobos Says:
    March 16th, 2010 at 8:47 am

    Not to bitch, but a generic link to BioShield is not that helpful- I would have liked to see a link to the specific product he used; otherwise, this story is just a myth !

  2. Larry Tobos Says:
    March 16th, 2010 at 8:52 am

    And since we are at it, some pictures before/after would have also been nice. I understand this was a radio story in the first place- but again, this is no documenting- it’s just “folklore”, and I am saddened to say this, but I do not think it helps the cause.

  3. Larry Tobos Says:
    March 16th, 2010 at 9:26 am

    OOPS, just feel like a d!#k- I just missed the movie link !

  4. Matt Says:
    March 16th, 2010 at 10:15 am

    Larry – thanks for the emails. The product Kevin used in the story is Bioshield Hard Oil #9. You can click here to find it.

    You are correct that we should have posted the specific link and mentioned the product Kevin used in the story. We’re trying to do quite a bit with an exceptional small group of people and sometimes things get through the cracks.

    We do have a post in a prior story about the Bioshield product. But, I’ll be sure to update this post today . . . and add a before and after photo (just for you!).

    Thanks again – it really does help to get feedback. If you missed it . . . then we didn’t do our job. It’s all for the cause!

  5. Wood Floors: Replace or Re-furbish? | BuildDirect Building Materials Blog Says:
    March 17th, 2010 at 1:29 pm

    [...] a look at this video courtesy of Greenovation TV, the story of a couple in this very [...]

  6. Pam Kueber Says:
    April 26th, 2010 at 10:37 pm

    I have read in other media that bamboo is not a green product when you consider the embodied energy — all the resources necessary to process it into flooring. It would be helpful to see in-depth analysis / update on this issue. Thank you.

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