RUSTY

Looking at putting down either hardwood or bamboo flooring. Any feedback concerning brand names, types, good/bad, durability etc. welcome please.

welder

My cousin Tom, Oldflathead here on PFF has the Bamboo floor and man that stuff is tough .

PM him and ask about it.

Lester

waterboy6921

I put bamboo down in my house. Its a good looking wood but if you have dogs I would not recomend it. They both have their pros & cons.

dsar592

I am currently installing an engineered hardwood 3/8 inch thick. Its made by armstrong. I have never did this before so its a learning experience. I have a guy teaching me thatuse to install it for a living until his knees started hurting. After doing it for a few days i can understand why his knees hurt. My wife and I shopped around for about two months looking at several different places and products. We had wanted to go with bamboo but the one we wanted was way to expensive. I went to lumber liquidators in pensacola and found them to be very helpful and thats where i spent about 3200.00 on everything I needed. They had the best prices on what I wanted. I would look them up. I don't work for them or know anyone that does. I found them by doing a google search for wood flooring. I'm just telling you that so you don't think that I am bias to them.

floors4less

Rusty,

Assuming that you are going onto a slab A few things to consider...

Bamboo is a grass so it is eco-friendly if that is of any concern to you. The stalks are cut either horizontal or vertical and then compressed in layers until the product is formed. What does this mean to you? Well, if you ever want to try to take up bamboo, it canbe a nightmare! Imagine scraping layer after layer off the floor. You have less choices with bamboo as well. The colors are either carbonized or not. They do make stained bamboo which only has the surface colored. The problem with this is that it easily scrapes and shows damage.

I would recommend a 3/8" engineered wood. We have a major humidity problem here in Pcola, and it can wreak havoc on your wood floor from moving to cupping! A minimum 3/8" engineered will have less tendency to do this. Stay away from solids that are thin as they will have this tendency. If you want solid hardwood, thicker is better, and also consider the GLUE!! Never use a cheap glue as this is a recipe for disaster. Also, consider doing a moisture test in different areas where the wood will be put down. You can get kits at HD or Lowes.

Sincerely,

Matt

www.floors4lessonline.com

oldflathead

Hi Rusty,



We put bamboo floors down in our new house, March 2004. We like it. It is wearing well.



If you want to come over and take a look, call me at 572-1225.



Tom

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Bowed Up

Put down 1200 sq ft in my great room of carmelized bamboo, looks great.

60hertz

We put down 1600 sqft of bamboo about 2 years ago - everywhere except wet areas (kitchen and baths) and the master bedroom. My wife and I did it ourselves and it was a real time consuming but rewarding process. Took a lot of time b/c we were only working on it during weekends and at night after work. The glue is real messy too so you'll go through a lot of clothes (assuming that you're putting it over a concrete floor).



All in all, the floor looks great and is wearing fine. By wear, I mean that we have 2 kinds and a dog, so it gets a lot of foot traffic.



We have been very pleased.



Like others have stated - it is a green product too, even though it comes from China!





Just my $0.02!

Corpsman

I dont know anything about installing it... but it looks great.

John B.

his career must have lasted all of 20 minutes....

i used to help my dad install and refinish hardwood floors, knee-pads are a MUST!

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