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As I was making my way to the checkout with 20+ boxes of bamboo tongue in groove flooring, man is aid,"Hope you're not installing them near the ocean. Took a month to pry them out after the floor buckled..."
Never one to let practicalities interfere with my impulse purchase, I said , oh no, of course not.... I live in lower HPP, 1200ft from sea. I intended to open the boxes to breathe and expand etc for a week before laying, and didn't really want to get into a discussion at the checkout but suffice to say I didn't get them. Any experience or advice?
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1) what is your subfloor...the most problems I have heard of & seen are installation on slab (& have seen problems with new slabs with vapor barriers & older with most likely none...I was very interested in the slab installations, as our house is on slab & I really wanted wood or bamboo (always had wood in the past)....after more than 2 handfuls of buckeled wood on slab & no smooth wood on slag (maybe those with smooth floors do not complain & just that the floors do not appear "wrong"...) - we went with porcelain tile...
2.) there were some concerns about 7 years ago about bamboo floors all buckling....but have seen some that look good...so either there was a process to make them that did not work, or a mfg was send bad stock, or the installers figure it out, or the naysayers 7 years ago were wrong... take your pick
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Good. Thanx. These are old and now carpeted. Imagine sub is wood-ish.
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My brother in law builds houses on Orcas Island in Puget Sound, he always tests manufactured flooring (veneer, bamboo, laminate, etc.) by putting samples in a garbage can full of water and then pulls them out on a regular basis to watch their breakdown. The most expensive did not always hold up the best, but he has never had to rip out and replace a floor after doing this test. He has found that flooring that did well in one test might not 3 years later, due to changes in manufacturers specs.
Carol
Carol
Every time you feel yourself getting pulled into other people's nonsense, repeat these words: Not my circus, not my monkeys.
Polish Proverb
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We tested samples the same way basically. Took pieces and soaked them in water for days. Also used a screwdriver to scratch the surfaces. Ended up installing laminate flooring and so far so good. We are on post and pier, not slab, and made sure there is room for expansion and contraction under the baseboards. We have not had any buckling.
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Sorry message cryptic above. These floors are not on slab, raised (pnp) and the current flooring, carpet, must be on a wood-like sub. I plan to open the boxes up for a week to allow for absorption/expansion ...I think I'll go back and get those boxes. HD will love me; take two! Thanx for all the advice.
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We have engineered bamboo flooring from HD. We live across the street from the ocean. Floors have been down for 3 years. Wood sub floor. So far no buckling. There are a couple of places where the space between the boards end to end have become wider than the others, and they do dent and scratch from heavy objects or dragging things across them. All in all we are happy with them.
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We own a flooring business and have sold and installed a lot of bamboo. Our challenge is that in AZ it is too dry and homes do not maintain the minimum humidity of around 60% that is recommended by many of the bamboo flooring manufacturers. We end up with buckling here because it is soooo dry that when we hit our monsoon season the moisture introduced to the slabs from a good rain causes the bamboo to swell and cup. I have been thinking engineered bamboo as we have been designing our home interior ideas. I would only do it on a raised pnp subfloor, not on slab. It does scratch, just like a wood floor, but unless your crazy lazy you can keep them pretty nice and the scratches become character. The most critical part of the install is leaving your spacing between the board and the wall for expansion. Good luck, I'll be watching for what you think once the new floor is in.[
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a m here
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The most expensive did not always hold up the best, but he has never had to rip out and replace a floor after doing this test. He has found that flooring that did well in one test might not 3 years later, due to changes in manufacturers specs.
X-man
X-man
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Most of these floors are "floating" floors which aren't nailed or glued to the subfloor. The manufacturers recommend (or require for warranty coverage) the sort of on-site acclimation previously described before installation. The boards can be removed from their boxes and "sticker-stacked" in layers running in perpendicular orientation to promote air flow, though I doubt if excess materials can be returned once the boxes have been unsealed. Flooring should end short of the walls, usually 3/8", (especially on the walls parallel to the boards I would think) to allow for expansion. Thinner baseboards and door casings may not be sufficient to hide shrinkage in dry periods in this scenario. One solution to prevent this potential is to cut drywall short of the floor level so that the floor boards can expand underneath it in moist times. This can be accomplished after the drywall installation if necessary by screwing a blade to a board a bit thicker than the floor (and any additional thickness vapor barrier or under-layment adds) and drawing it around the perimeter of rooms to cut the drywall bases short of the floor. Once this is done, the floor can be installed closer to the walls since there is room under the drywall for the floor to expand.
