Installing bamboo floor....advice?

[Calvin Crutchfield]

I'm getting ready to install a 5/8" Bamboo floor in our kitchen. I have installed this exact product in the adjoining family room in 2003 and am pleased with the results..

However, there are some diffs. The first room was carpeted with a plywood sub-floor. I removed carpet/padding, repaired a few spots, added 15# felt and installed the floor.

The kitchen has linoleum on top of 3/4 MDF on top of 3/4 plywood. Since the linoleum has good adhesion, I was told it would be fine to apply 15# felt over the lino and install the floor. The added height isn't problem.

I just wanted to bounce the method off of you guys.

Also, I previously used a manual porta-nailer and was going to use 2" nails (cleats). I have recently read that 2" crown staples are now the preferred method. I was also thinking of adding a bead of Titebond III to each board as well.

Any thoughts or experiences would be great.

[Ron Dunn]

Bamboo floor suppliers in Australia advise against its use in kitchens and bathrooms. Apparently it hates moisture.

Sorry I can't answer your installation question.

[Noah Levy]

Interestingly, I'm contemplating putting this in the bathroom of our master bedroom. I'm getting about 50/50 yes and no, so who knows! I've read stranded bamboo is ok but I can't find anyone who carries it. Costco's bamboo flooring has a 25 year finish warr and lifetime on the bamboo itself if that's worth anything.

[Bert Johansen]

Calvin,

The floor shown below was installed five years ago over linoleum with no nails--just the incredible glue you can buy at the Borg. No problems so far.

[Mark Rios]

Coincidently, I just got done installing the Costco bamboo flooring material this morning in a spare bedrooom for a customer. It went down well and fast. I nailed (stapled) it down which is my preferred method. Actually, I won't install a floor any other way, just my preference. (I hate the messiness of the glue so I don't EVER use it. :D) I found that I had to increase my air pressure by about 10 psi to accommodate the hardness of the bamboo. I used 1 1/2" staples as recommended in the installation instructions. You may need to increase your psi more to allow for the extra 1/2" length of your staple.

Is there a chance that you meant to say that the vinyl floor is over 3/4" partical board instead of 3/4" MDF? It could be MDF I guess but I haven't seen MDF used under vinyl here in CA. Also, is it actually Linoleum and not vinyl flooring? Lino is quite old and hasn't been used for many, many years. You can install over it but since vinyl is somewhat soft, eventually you could get some squeaks due to the vinyl compressing and the planks moving/sliding on the staples. Personally, I would only do a floating floor over vinyl. (Actually, only in theory because I only like to nail wood flooring :D).

The material from Costco was fairly nice to work with but it did have some discrepancies in the width of a few pieces resulting in some gaps that are not as tight as I would like to have. A couple of corners had small dings in them from handling at the store I presume. You will have to be careful in cutting and orient the piece in your saw to minimize splintering. It splinters a little at the bottom of the cut and at the end of each cut. I was using a Freud LU85010 blade for cutting the flooring and trim. Otherwise, it was fairly nice flooring to lay overall, for a bamboo floor and for an inexpensive floor.

While Costco (mine anyway) doesn't sell any trim for their bamboo flooring, I did happen to find three different profiles of transition pieces and quarter round moulding for baseboard at my local HD. Go figure.


I do have to say, however, that I also don't recommend laying ANY engineered flooring in a kitchen or bath. Moisture WILL eventually get into the cracks in the flooring from spills and cleaning no matter how tight it's installed (and no matter what the salesman might tell you). I will not install an engineered floor in a kitchen or bath for my customers. I tell them that I won't because I can't guarantee the floor from problems (which WILL happen in a kitchen or bath) and that I won't do any work for them that I can't guarantee. If they want it done, they will have to get someone else to do it.

I had one customer a couple of years back that just had to have a particular wood floor in their kitchen. We agreed to put it in only if they had a floor refinisher come in and sand and refinish the floor immediately after installation. This obviously provided a complete, single finish/surface that couldn't be penetrated by spilled liquids. This added an extra $800 dollars to the price but the particular floor was that important to them so they paid the extra dollars, gladly actually.

I would strongly recommend that you rethink the engineered floor in your kitchen. If you just HAVE to have a wood floor, you might give some thought to laying a regular hardwood floor and sand and finish it yourself or have someone else come in and sand and finish it after you lay it.

Just my opinion. HTH

P.S. There have been one or two other threads on the "engineered floor in kitchen or bath" topic. You might do a search and read those as well.

[Calvin Crutchfield]

Little confused. What is your definition of an engineered floor?

I can see how engineered floor could be any floor that is milled? I thought engineered floor was the pergo or snap-together type floors...

Odd as it sounds. We don't use our Kitchen that much, no kids, no pets, dine out mostly. Thus possibility of excess moisture is minimized albeit no elimnated.

We are using 5/8" vertically laminated carbonized by Bamboo Mountain. We are happy thus far with my installation on the family room from 2003.

[Mark Rios]

The bamboo floor is actually three layers of bamboo strips laminated together and, of course, prefinished. I would call any flooring that is not one piece of solid wood and that is pre-finished an engineered floor material.

The bamboo seems to be a nice floor if you like the look. No problems that I can forsee in any room other than a kitchen or bath.

[Brandon Shew]

I've had bamboo in our kitchen for over 5 years now and we've had no problems with water (or other) damage. (I have 2 young kids and a yellow lab).

I did remove the old vinyl flooring before putting down the bamboo. The vinyl tore out and there was some residue left on the plywood subfloor. I applied a paper barrier which was recommended by the flooring shop and used 1 1/2" staples.

I would take up the linoleum or vinyl. If it's true linoleum, the tiles may have become brittle over time and they may start to crack or break when you shoot nails through them.

I would not use glue and staples together. The only thing that the glue/adhesive will do is to stick the bamboo to your paper barrier.


Mark Rios has some good advice overall. I agree about the no-go on engineered flooring in a bathroom, but I have used it in two kitchens with no ill effects so far. I probably wouldn't use it in either a kitchen or bath on a concrete slab though.

[Sue Wise]

I have an engineered oak hardwood floating floor in my kitchen. No problems at all. However, when I installed it, I did give it plenty of space around the dishwasher so the drips would only be drip on a transitional piece.

I had linoleum on a an additional particle board subfloor. I took the particle board out so I could install the floating floor directly over the plywood subfloor. I had to rent a toe kick saw to do it. That is one nasty saw.

[frank shic]

bert, nice looking floor. do you really have a flower pot in the middle of it? ;)

[andy brown]

Hi,
We laid bamboo flooring in some hotel rooms here in London and then found that it scratched really easily so we took it all up and threw it away! Lets face it, bamboo is a grass (and there's nothing wrong with that), but wood it ain't.

Andy.

[Eric Franklin]

I've bought and installed the Costco bamboo flooring in my living. I found that it scratches and dents extremely easy compared to the red oak floor in other parts of the house.

After some research, I found that there are 2 grades of bamboo depending on when it is harvested. If it is mature bamboo (5 1/2 - 6 years) it is generally harder than oak. Young bamboo (under 3 years) it is quite soft.

Eric

[Benjamin J Martin]

As the saying goes on here, buy quality and only cry once. I have 750 sqft of Teragren Synergy Java sitting in my family room awaiting installation in a week or so. If you want bamboo that is hard and WON'T scratch, you have to check out Teragren. Their Synergy line is rated with a 5 year commercial warranty and 25 year residential warranty. But be prepared to pay for the product. I got it for around 5.30 a sqft from online after being quoted about 7.70 if I bought it local. But, the best part about buying it online was that I didn't have to pay taxes (saved $500) and got to pick it up from the distributor.

The best part about Teragren is that they don't slack with quality anywhere. They are a very green company. They ensure that no "sweat shop" type labor goes on where it is harvested, heck, the pallet that the stuff came on was even made of bamboo. Also, you need to look into what the company uses for glue to manufacture that planks. Most companies, like Lumber Liquidators, use a lot of phermaldehyde (sp?) in their glue which produces a nasty odor and take a long time to air out.

[Mike Spanbauer]

I've installed engineered flooring in 2 of my homes so far. engineered as defined by multi-cross grain layers and snap together installation.

Those houses had plywood subflooring to install over. My new problem, and one that I haven't resolved yet is that I live in an "on-slab" foundation currently. Getting a DIY package for HW installation over concrete is tough as the application options are limited.

Glue down solid flooring (non-engineered) with essentially grout like mastic glue, or engineered over a well installed vapor barrier + felt....

Mature Bamboo is harder than red oak, around 1700 Janka iirc vs. 1400 for Red Oak.

mike