When it comes to home flooring, everyone’s got a preference. Some swear by the natural look and feel of a hardwood floor. Others prefer vinyl flooring or laminate flooring. Whatever a person’s preference is for flooring, he/she tends to choose flooring for its look and feel as well as its durability.
What’s more is that people are willing to pay for flooring. In fact, total 2017 flooring sales topped out at nearly $22 billion.
While carpet, vinyl and laminate flooring may be popular flooring options, there are also many reasons to consider bamboo flooring.
- Top-grade bamboo flooring is very durable, but make sure to find flooring with a warranty. The Janka test is often used to deduce bamboo flooring hardness. This test measures the force required to embed an 11.28 millimeter (0.444 inch) steel ball into wood to half its diameter (0.222 inch). This method results in an indention 100 square millimeters in size.
Only three flooring options have a harder Janka rating than strand bamboo: Brazilian Teak, Tiete Chestnut, and Brazilian Walnut. - Bamboo flooring outperforms most traditional hardwoods because it has a clean and contemporary look.
- Bamboo flooring can be refinished, but keep in mind the thickness of the floor.
- Bamboo flooring, particularly laminated flooring is very DIY-friendly.
- Bamboo flooring outperforms most traditional hardwoods because it is termite resistant and generally costs less to install than traditional hardwood flooring.
- Bamboo flooring also outperforms most traditional hardwoods because it is more eco-friendly.
If you’re a contractor who’s working with bamboo flooring, there are several ways to install it:
- Using tongue and groove flooring
- Using uniclic flooring
- Using nails to put the floor over top of a wood subfloor
- Gluing the flooring down to a subfloor
Before you install anything, it’s best to do a jobsite inspection of the flooring. Doing a jobsite inspection allows you or your company to inspect the bamboo for finish, color, grade and will also give you time to make sure you’ve got enough lighting to do the job. Simply put, a jobsite inspection gives a chance to eliminate any chances of error before you put down your bamboo flooring.
To put down bamboo flooring using the tongue and groove method, put some spacers (usually 10mm) around the area where you’ll be putting the flooring. This is done so that when you put the flooring down, it can expand and contract after you’ve removed the spacers. To put the flooring, glue the tongue and groove joints together with adhesive. It’s important that the boards are not glued to your underlay. To complete the job, lay the planks in whatever pattern you’re hoping to achieve.
To install bamboo flooring using uniclic flooring, lay down your underlay, put spacers around your room and then play down your flooring by clicking the joints into place. Once again, you can stagger the flooring planks for whatever pattern you want.
If you’re going to use the nail down method, you have to first prepare a wooden subfloor and nail it down to make sure it doesn’t move. Leave some space for expansion around the perimeter of the room you’re putting the flooring in. Next, secure your first row of flooring and nail it down (it’s recommended that at least three nails are used for each plank). Repeat the process with your next row, but take care not to get close to the end of the plank because you don’t want it to split. You can stagger planks for a desired pattern in this method too and you can use a PVA glue to make sure the planks are fully sealed to the subfloor.
If you’re gluing the floor, you can essentially follow the same steps as you do using the nail down method, just using glue to secure your planks to your sublfoor.
There are plenty of benefits to using bamboo flooring and many ways to install it. For whichever way you choose, take time to do a jobsite inspection to make sure everything is properly in order and then follow the steps based on your desired method of bamboo flooring installation.
