Bamboo Flooring?

October 2, 2005 12:50 PM

Does anyone here have experience with buying and installing bamboo flooring?

I am a newbie homeowner, but the wall-to-wall has to go. Bamboo floors please me, and I appreciate that they are ecologically a good choice. I am looking for quality economical sources, brands to buy vs. brands to avoid, and installation tips. The subfloor here is C/D plywood. If there are other sustainably-harvested trpical hardwoods I should consider as well, I would be interested in hearing about them. Thanks!

posted by vers to Home & Garden (8 answers total)

Best answer: Yes. I have installed a thousand feet or so, and have about that much to go.

Bamboo is not necessarily ecologically great: there is some concern that the bamboo farms are using intensive farming practices that may be long-term damaging.

I believe your best source for bamboo will be Bamboo Direct, located in Vancouver but shipping all over North America. The prices are, as far as I was able to ascertain, the best value available bar none. The quality is superlative, the price is remarkable. Get him to send you a sample, and compare to anything you look at locally.

Installation can be performed by a brain-damaged ape. You will need an flooring stapler, an air compressor that's up to the task of driving it, and a chop saw. You might as well also purchase a brad nailer and rubber mallet with replaceable heads. The former to nail down oddball cuts and against the walls; the latter to tap wood into place before stapling it. You should be able to sell the stapler and compressor after you're done.

You do need an extremely flat floor. You will need to use non-gypsum floor leveling compound, and I suggest you practice before attempting any significant leveling (ie. anything more than about a quarter-inch thick). You will then use untarred felt paper to cover the floor before laying the wood.

TAKE YOUR TIME. The floor leveling is a bitch of a job. You will need a partner and a very long straight edge; you will need to proceed intelligently; and you will need to work very quickly (the stuff has a 10m working time). Do small patches instead of trying to do it all at once.

Your C/D plywood should be acceptable if it's 3/4" on 12" joists. The key here is flex: flex = squeaky floor, regardless whether it's the subfloor moving between joists or the hardwood bouncing because there's a gap between it and the subfloor.

Make damn sure your first line is perfectly straight. Do what you have to to ensure it does not shift when you nail it, otherwise you'll end up with a wobble that makes its way across the entire width of the room. Do not leave more (nor less!) than a 1/4" gap between wood and walls.

Once the first line is down, installation is a breeze. Flooring staplers are child's play. I do suggest putting some felt feet on the stapler base to prevent marking the wood; and make sure the stapler is square when you smack it or you'll end up with a dent in the edge of the wood. Air pressure will control the depth of stapling; if you had to use a thick layer of levelling cement, you'll be fiddling with tuning the pressure higher for it, and lower for where it's thin or non-existent.

For the best visual appearance, cut-off ends are rotated to the start of the next strip. However, this leads to the appearance of joints that are evenly staggered diagonally across the floor. This may be acceptable to you. If you prefer a more random look, I suggest rotating the cut-off ends three or so planks down the line; the staggered look is obscured by the intervening two planks.

And, finally: cooked bamboo (darker colours) are softer than natural. Bamboo is hell on sawblades, perhaps as much to do with the glue as the wood. Bamboo is not undamageable: it does dent easily enough and will chip if you are careless. And shoe soles can leave black rubber marks (removed easily enough with a bit of elbow grease).

If you have the shop tools, you can make your own floor molding from the bamboo strips. Trim the tongue, apply a 5/8" round-over, trim off the round-over, apply a 1/4" round-over, and trim the ends to about 25 degrees (this helps hide any misalignments caused by unsquare walls or floor). Air-nail the baseboard to the wall, then front with the 5/8" roundover. Looks smashing.

Email me if you need further help. Laying flooring is easy, interesting, and somewhat fun. IMO it is silly to pay someone to do something so easy, so don't be afraid to go for it!
posted by five fresh fish at 2:22 PM on October 2, 2005 [1 favorite]

What FFF said. I work pretty slow so instead of renting, I bought the nailer from Harbor Freight. They have pretty cheap compressors too. Most nailers are designed to nail 3/4" flooring; most bamboo is 5/8". I made up the difference by laying up protective felt on the stapler base.
posted by klarck at 2:49 PM on October 2, 2005

I just had bamboo flooring put in our new house. I was also attracted by it being an environmentally-friendly material. We had carbonized Premium Green installed (6' planks). I saw a couple of write-ups about the brand having nice visual uniformity, which it does. Teragren was the other brand I heard good things about. I have to tell you (and anyone else who cares to know) that bamboo flooring is extremely soft, especially the carbonized variety. It dents very easily and shouldn't be considered if you have kids, a medium-sized (or larger) dog or are fixing a house up to sell to a family. We renovated a house and it was the biggest mistake I made. It looks great until you get close up and you can see every little scratch and dent. Get pads for every bit of furniture you have. You can email me directly if you have other questions. If I had to do it over again, I would go with some sort of reclaimed hardwood, which is also environmentally friendly. Best of luck.
posted by whatevrnvrmind at 4:54 PM on October 2, 2005

Here are some articles you might like to read:

An article on bamboo from Treehugger, a great eco-blog. In general, it might be worth going to treehugger and searching for "bamboo floor" - lots of goodness there.

LA times article which inspired the above post

Wikipedia entry for bamboo
posted by blindcarboncopy at 6:20 PM on October 2, 2005

whatevrnvrmind's experience surprises me, because everything we read on bamboo was that it was hard as all get out, and my husband's former employer had it all over their offices, and the floors always looked really nice. Huh. Maybe it's a brand thing? I have no idea now.

Anyway, we considered bamboo but determined that we could not afford to do the whole house in it (we have partial hardwood and partial carpet) and when we chose a floor for our addition, we went with a snap-together laminate. It is utterly silent, looks great, and we are happy. fff is very correct in his flooring guidelines -- if you do not think you have the patience, craftiness, wherewithal, etc to really take your time with it, then I would consider professionals or some other product.

Also, many products you may look at (say at ifloor.com or whatever) are going to be GLUE DOWN rather than NAIL DOWN. Keep the cost of glue in mind when you do this. If you have to use glue, don't use cheap glue (possibly this is obvious, but just puttin' it out there).
posted by Medieval Maven at 7:32 PM on October 2, 2005

It's partly a carbonization thing: the natural (blonde) bamboo is very hard, the darkest (brownest) bamboos are much softer. It may also be a factor of the surface coating: mine's got some exotic German UV polyurethane, and has put up quite nicely to the abuse I mete out.

Better than MMaven's use of "craftiness" would be craft-ness. Working with T&G hardwood feels to me much the same as building popsicle-stick houses in kindergarten: not much finesse required, just a bit of forethought.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:25 PM on October 2, 2005

er, craft-ness as opposed to artisticness, that is. i can't paint like Rembrandt, but i can lay a floor about as good as anyone!
posted by five fresh fish at 8:28 PM on October 2, 2005

Response by poster: Wow. You all rock. Thank you each, and fff and whatevrnvrmind - when I embark on this project and start spitting nails, you may get a message from me!
posted by vers at 4:09 PM on October 3, 2005