Island in the Sky: Planning site for our new home in Roosevelt Ridge, Gilpin County, Colorado

The wooden flooring category might include prefinished, or unfinshed hardwood,harvest sustainably collected natural woods, reclaimed/resawn woods, engineered flooring (looks like wood ie. Pergo http://www.pergo.com/ ), and laminated planks made in a few different ways. Cork might be another consideration for you - neat stuff....

http://www.lumberliquidators.com/home.jsp - we use them as a supplier occasionally

Bamboo is considered to be a Sustainable Building product because it grows like a really strong weed. Bamboo forrests replenish quickly - flooring is made from plants that are typ. only 5-7 years old, as opposed to, say 100 year old walnut trees......hardwoods are now being farmed sustainably as well, but the old growth stuff is, unfortunately, still out there for retail purchase..

'Solid Bamboo' is typically still a laminated product made up of slices of farmed, or carefully harvested, kiln dried, and sliced bamboo. 'Engineered Bamboo' is still made of all bamboo laminates, but its typically 3 layers thick as well as being laminated across its width with strips.

http://www.bamboo-flooring.com/bamboo-floor-faq.html

We've used many combinations of different flooring materials in the past to achieve unique looks on our projects. For instance..the bulk of the floor could consist of a light colored strip bamboo, and create a 'border' or 'mat' arround each area we'd like to emphasise, or protect with dark woven, hand brushed bamboo (lifetime warranty on woven bamboo..its as hard as a rock..might go well with a more contemporary appearance, while using natural materials. Phase 1 has about 1,000 square feet of flooring outside baths. We dont reccomend wooden floors in wet areas.

Solid Bamboo might be $9-12 psf installed and finished properly Hardwoods runs about $7-15 psf reclaimed resawn $16-20 psf Exotics $ +

Great Carpet is $3 psf, but will 'trap and hold more Ralph' inside

As for radient heat, it is true that all sorts of wood will have a slight insulating effect, but wood is a poor insulator. If wood is used, I might suggest pouring a lightweight concrete floor surrounding 'sleepers' and pipes 1 1/2" thick. The sleepers would be 2x2's laid every 12" and are used to attach the wood flooring.

Another finished floor system that has become popular is to pour concrete arround the radient pipes, then stamp, stain, and finish it. There are some quite dramatic finishes that can be acheived.

http://www.concretenetwork.com/concrete/InteriorFloors/