Bamboo and Exotic Wood Floors - bamboo flooring?

Hello! I am recent homeowner and have heard a lot about bamboo lately. I am taking up the carpet in my living room (12x23) and dining room (11x13) and want to put some type of solid flooring in. The living room is a "high traffic" area but we don't have any kids yet so the flooring shouldn't take too much of a beating. What are the advantages/disadvantages to using bamboo and what type would anyone suggest? I hate going into stores clueless so any help would be appreciated:)

I am about to purchase about 2000sqft of bamboo from build-direct.com. After some extensive research, seems like the hardness scale for bamboo is as follows:
horizontal < vertical < strand woven
carbonized < natural or stained.

I am going with stained strand woven for downstairs and vertical carbonized for upstairs.

advantages: cheap flooring, eco-friendly, bamboo is closed-cell vs wood which is open cell, making it more resistant to moisture, lighter weight than wood, exotic looks

disadvantages: limited selection of stlyes and colors.

that's all I know so far...

Hello! I am recent homeowner and have heard a lot about bamboo lately. I am taking up the carpet in my living room (12x23) and dining room (11x13) and want to put some type of solid flooring in. The living room is a "high traffic" area but we don't have any kids yet so the flooring shouldn't take too much of a beating. What are the advantages/disadvantages to using bamboo and what type would anyone suggest? I hate going into stores clueless so any help would be appreciated:)
My wife and I installed three bedrooms with vertical (9/16" X 75" X 7") Shoen Mfg and sold through Lumber Liquidators. It is the "floating" type placed directly on a concrete slab. We went with the most expensive underlayment @ $50 per 100 square feet but it was worth it. The floors are beautiful and were a snap to install. A radial arm saw is almost mandatory and a table saw is helpful but a circular saw can be used too. We also found that a a piece of scrap flooring and simple flat bar (the type with the slight curve and a claw at the end) was much better for tightening joints than the kit sold by Lumber liquidators just be sure to use a piece of scrap to protect the walls. Our total cost including installing new baseboard and painting was ~$3500 for the three rooms.

I purchased my flooring from builddirect.com and got about 2100sqft for under 7k since I was able to pick it up locally.

let me know if you want to buy from them as I can give you a discount code. :-)

overall, I am really impressed, and so is my installer, who tried to seer me away from bamboo at first due to the variability in quality from mfg to mfg.

Make sure you can stand the off gassing from the chemicals used to produce it. I have had many inspections, where the bamboo had a smell that ran the homeowners out and into a hotel, until the new bamboo was removed and thrown in the trash.

Make sure you can stand the off gassing from the chemicals used to produce it. I have had many inspections, where the bamboo had a smell that ran the homeowners out and into a hotel, until the new bamboo was removed and thrown in the trash.

Can you tell me more about this problem, I am getting ready to have some wood flooring installed, and was thinking about using bamboo. Thanks

H.

Made in China, where they use chemicals that we here in the State cannot use during production. It is shipped over here, for unsuspecting consumers to blindly purchase.

Formaldehyde, is the main culprit.

A lot of it is highly toxic.

Make sure you can stand the off gassing from the chemicals used to produce it. I have had many inspections, where the bamboo had a smell that ran the homeowners out and into a hotel, until the new bamboo was removed and thrown in the trash.

Just to clear up the "FORMALDAHYDE" issue/comments... There are bamboo flooring products out there that are now "formaldahyde free".

To address other questions that were raised on this particular posting:
Bamboo flooring is pressed together and thus makes it very stable... but caution must be used when installing it. I only recommend using CLEAT NAILING along the tung and groove (unless you are floating the floor, then of course you would use the manufactures glueing specs). On outside boards when you can NOT nail along the tung and groove and you have to top nail, I suggest pre-drilling and finish nailing - rather than using a pneumatic finish nailer. This is due to the fact that pneumatic nailers (due to the pressure involved) tend to creat splits in the bamboo.

Also if you go with the natural bamboo (blonde in color) be forewarned that the sunlight will cause the floor to darken, emmensily! Rotating rugs/furniture ect... is advised.

When installing, as one other has posted, use caution! DO NOT use excessive force! Buy a good "tapping block" or simply use a scrap piece of bamboo to tap the pieces together!

Most bamboo is manufactured in one length only - 36". You need to decide if you want a "repeated pattern", or a classical wood floor layout (Stair Stepped). You can achieve the stair stepped appearance, you just need to take the first board and cut it into thirds. Start the first row with a full 36" piece (save the scrap piece from the end of the row if it is more than 10" in length, you can use this for your next starter piece or at some point later during the installation). The second row will be done with one of the 12" pieces that you cut from a 36" board... continue the row to the end, again saving the scrap piece from the end of the row if it is over 10-12" long. Next start with a 24" piece of flooring and continue to the end. This will give you (3) rows of unrepetive installation! You can simply repeat this process over again, or start to use the first (3) sets of scraps that were left over from the ends of each row.

Keep us posted on your decisions. Hope I cleared up some concerns and answered your questions as well.

Greg (Retired Hardwood Floor Biz Owner)
Maine

Here is the type of bamboo flooring I was looking at. I will go today and look at some different types at a local warehouse that is close to me. If you could look at this web page, and let me know what you think. It will be going over concrete, and unless someone talks me out of it, the floor will be floated. Thanks for any input back on this.

H.

Is it true that you would only need water and mop to maintain a bamboo flooring? Or is there a need to apply something else to prolong its usage?

I have to say that the bamboo weave in the carbonized finish is super nice looking. I could only find it in the more narrow width, and not the 5 inch stuff, at the one place I looked at. I am a little disappointed in the fact that this heaver flooring will have to be glued down to the concrete floor, and a vapor barrier be spread down first. I so wanted to float this floor, but from what they said, it should be glued down. The 30 year bamboo flooring has 7 coats of clear coat finish on it, so when it starts to get some wear, you can refinish if you want, or even sand it down to bare wood, and put on more. The finish is the same all the way through the wood, so not to worry about going through the thin top wood like some flooring. Just a damp something to clean the floor is what I have found, perhaps one of those devices advertised on TV. Please let me know if someone else has some information of bamboo.

H.

As an update, I received the samples of the woven strand bamboo flooring today, and it has locking tabs along both sides of the wood that let you snap the pieces together. They say that makes it so you don't have to glue the wood to the concrete floor. I will be checking with some professional wood floor layers to get what they think about this stuff.

H.

As indicated in the replies here, be aware of
VOC level (volatile organic compounds) offgassing. There are low and no VOC bamboo products available. Be aware of warranty. Read and follow all manufactuer's recommendations for for acclimation, surface prep, vapor retarder, underlayment, and installation. For care and maintenance, it is best to follow manufacturer's instructions. Water and wet mops are not recommended. A damp mop squeezed nearly dry is effective. Cleaning questions can be posted on Cleaning Forum.

In reply to a discount code from builddirec,That would be great I need to buy 1000sq ft and i cant pick it up.Beer 4U2