Moisture and wood flooring

[seekir]

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If it is solid bamboo, it will most likely be a glue down floor.

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Not in my experience, the floating floors I've been involved with have been solid bamboo.

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Solid wood expands and contracts more on the ends not the sides of the boards

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If you mean that boards expand less across the grain, I have to disagree! Cross-grain dimensional change due to humidity fluctuation is far greater than length-wise movement. Look at panelled doors which are deliberately constructed so that the rails and stiles forming the perimeter of the door are quite narrow with floating panels which can expand and shrink in the frame without excess movement and dimensional change in the door, which must fit inside the jamb structure without binding or excess gaps which would defeat the purpose of the door. The whole intent of paneled door construction where all perimeter boards are parallel to the jamb or carcase with minimal continuous cross-grain is to contain and control the cross-grain movement which is so problematic with doors built up with multiple boards joined edge-to-edge (as in a floor). A glance at paneled door joints in wet Hawaii usually reveals that the rails on the top and bottom perimeter have expanded proud of the stile end-grain. In fact, in Hawaii, raised panel doors imported from dryer areas to Hawaii routinely expand so much that even the loose raised panel widens so much across the grain that the frame joints are driven apart by the expanding center panel.

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I do not recommend undercutting the drywall because down the road you or the next owner may just want to remove this floating floor and you do not want undercut channels surrounding every room if you change to carpet or tile. Just use quarter round finish nails attached to the existing baseboard (not the floor).

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Undercut drywall is completely hidden by baseboards. Modern drywall installation is commonly done with the wall panels parallel to the floor, top panel after the ceiling panels, tight to the ceiling supporting the ceiling panels at the wall with the bottom panel following, clear of the subfloor. Quarter-round base shoe, by nature of its curved profile and position low to the floor, is difficult to nail directly to baseboard. It adds expense and difficulty to baseboard installation, and to me, is aesthetically clunky and busy. If you're using a natural finish base, you'll often need to mill your own quarter-round to match the wood and finish of the baseboard. Conventional baseboards without base-shoe work just fine with carpet and tile, and undercutting drywall does nothing to complicate their installation.