It is important that the recomened 3/4″ sub floor is adhered to when nailing down bamboo floors. Whether your sub floor is solid wood, plywood or OSB this is a requirement that needs to be followed.
If your sub floor is thinner than 3/4″ you risk having visible “waves” between your floor joists, although the floor would be structurally sound it would not be visually pleasing.
Full installations instructions can be found here.
Everyday I receive tens of emails from exporters trying to sell me bamboo products. 9 times out of 10 I usually ignore them, but today I got one that I couldn’t delete.
”Glow in the Dark Bamboo Flooring”……yes you read this right, bamboo flooring that glows in the dark!!!!! Brilliant (said with tongue firmly pressed in cheek), a floor that absorbs light during the day and gives off a “jade green hue” during the night. It’s true, I can’t make this stuff up.
Does anyone out there have any need for this? Maybe a 70’s disco could find a use, but the average home owner?? Let me know.
Debby Boone would be so excited!
Just like traditional hardwood floors bamboo is not recommended to be installed in a bathroom. Although bamboo floors are usually finished on all sides, the humidity changes and the chance of sitting water are too great and the floor will develop open seams within time.
Maybe not as hard as nails but Strand Woven floors are far harder than your traditional bamboo, oak and maples floors. Because of the way in which it is manufactured(explained in my January 17th entry, below) the Strand Woven floors are twice as hard as North American Maple which themselves are harder than Oak floors.
The Strand Woven floors rate at 2820PSI on the Janka scale, as hard as a Brazilian Cheery, which is considered an extremely hard floor. A Janka rating is determined by the number of pounds of pressure it takes to press a stainless steel ball into the wood.
To see how other other woods rate on the Janka scale please visit here.
Because Bamboo Floors are more stable than Traditional Oak or Maple hardwood floors and they expand and contract less with changes in humidity, they have the ability to be glued directly to a concrete slab.
When installing over a concrete it is imparative that a 100% urethane based glue is used, such as Dri-Tac 7600 or Bostik Best. But before you go out and start spreading glue and installing the floor you will be required to preform a moisture test on your concrete slab (required by all glue manufacturers). Depending on your findings you might be required to seal your concrete before install. The allowable moisture levels will be in the glue manufacturer’s Installation Instructions. An example of which is here.
There are a lot of customers who love the idea of traditional bamboo flooring but are not keen on its contemporary style, although it is beautiful, it looks unique and is not for everyone (my wife included).
Horizontal Vertical
During manufacturing the bottom 2/3 rd of the bamboo stock is used to produce the Horizontal and Vertical floors and the top 1/3rd was considered waste and used as fuel. Out of a desire to utilize this scrap a new form of bamboo flooring was developed, Strand Woven.
Natural Carbonized
To manufacture strand woven bamboo flooring, the top 1/3 of the bamboo stock is ripped into strips and crushed. These strips are then mixed with resin, compressed with heat to form a timber and then milled into flooring. This process is muck like the manufacturing of HDF board but instead of sawdust and the base material bamboo strips are used.
Due to the manufacturing process the look of traditional bamboo flooring is lost and a more conventional hardwood style is produced. Which my wife loved so much I had since installed it in my own home…..
There are plenty of questions and misconceptions with regards to the hardness of Bamboo Floors. Before you take the plunge and purchase Bamboo flooring it is important to know the difference in hardness between the Natural and Carbonized coloured floor.
The natural coloured floors are as hard as Maple Floors, harder than Red Oak, but the carbonized floors are slightly softer, they are as hard as a Domestic Walnut, softer than a Red Oak. The reason for this is to obtain the rich, warm, brown colour, the flooring is boiled during manufacturing causing the natural sugars within the bamboo to caramelize. The caramelizing changes the chemical structure of the floor, softening it.
At the end of the day what does this mean?? If you were to drop the same object on both floors from the same hieght the carbonized floor will dent more.
One of my biggest pet peeves has to be companies that advertise ”anti-scratch” finishes?? There is no such thing….if you apply enough pressure on a sharp enough point you can scratch concrete. It is true that some finishes are harder than others, which will reduce wearing from regular foot traffic. But to advertise something as ”anti-scratch” your just asking for trouble.
My vent for the week.
One of the first questions I asked when I was introduced to Bamboo Flooring was “how do they make a flat floor from the hollow round bamboo stock?”…..
The bottom two thirds of the bamboo stock is cut to length and then split into approximately 1″ wide strips. These strips are then milled square, glued and compressed together with heat to form boards. A tongue and groove profile is then cut into the sides of the board, it is sanded to thickness and the protective finish is applied.
Depending on how the strips are glued together will determine if the floor is horizontal or vertical.
Having answered numerous questions over the holiday season with regards to “Nail Gun” settings, I thought this topic was as good as any to kick off the “New and Improved Bamboo Blog”!!!
A specialized nail gun is not needed when installing a solid bamboo floor; a traditional pneumatic nail gun(with a slight adjustment) will do the job. Because bamboo floors are typically thinner than a traditional Oak or Maple floors (5/8″ verse ¾”) it is important to adjust the nail gun to the height of the floor. This is easily done by adhering a 1/8″ shim to the bottom of the nail gun; a scrap piece of linoleum will do the trick. Not adjusting the nail guns hieght can cause the tongue of the product to split resulting in floor joints that are not smooth and flush.
Please feel free to visit our installation instructions for further info.
Mother Earth News - Green Homes and Green Building Information
