bamboo flooring
 

I hate to ask this question here. I know we are here for tile but it actually relates.
I've never done tongue and groove wood floor before.
My wife and I are set on having 3/4" pre-finished bamboo floor in our new house. I am going to do it in the living room (14 x 20' rectangle).
Here's my dilemma. All I can find via internet says you need to have 1/2" to 3/4" expansion perimeter on all sides. I want to but this stuff to the L-metal with no joint. I've seen other wood floors done this way and I like it. Don't like the T-mold. My tile's finished height is 3/4". So can I but the full piece of wood to the L-metal and leave expansions everywhere else? And if I can do I face nail the groove side of the the plank? Then what putty it?...it's pre-finished???
Can you also tell me how to install wood floors? 15 or 30lb felt over 3/4" subfloor? I've got use of the nailer, own table saw and chop saw.
Seriously :)

photo

with cabinets and grout

Go here, very nice fella and helpfull too.:)

http://woodfloorist.com/index.html

Dan shoot me a private message. I have done thousands of square foot of bamboo and other wood. i have been trained in bambo flooring. there is aolt you need to know before you get started. Some of theese are very very very important with bamboo. The biggest thing is the wood has to sit for at least 72 hours to aclimate. Bamboo is a natural wood stronger than any other. It still breathes on the floor after installed. I put a hwole house in Bamboo took about 3 weeks to install. by the time we were done we watched the floor move 1/8". The size trowel is very important as well. The way you lay this floor is very important too. this is floor is to be installed as wet lay. my email is opiethetileman@aol.com. Or send me a private message. Ill give you my number for you to call or I will call you. Bamboo if not done rite will buckle.

...and that, my friends, is why the floor mat is open to this website...

Bamboo Flooring
 

The first thing you need to know is anyone who calls bamboo flooring ... wood flooring is someone I would be a little wary of. Bamboo is a Grass. It is not wood.

As far as expansion goes any flooring will move in the direction of least resistance. Most tongue and groove flooring is nailed or stapled at an angle thru the tongue. -\==== In this little diagram the flooring will not move toward the groove or to the right. To do so would simply drive the flooring into the subfloor. The movement of least resistance would be towards the tongue or to the left in the diagram. The movement will drive the flooring away from the subfloor by following the staple or cleat.

With that said if you start your bamboo flooring tight up against the tile and work away from it you should be fine. :yipee:

This is my first time here. My stats for my website at http://woodfloorist.com told me someone had visited my website from this forum. I'm gonna add this to my webpage at http://woodfloorist.com/1/forums.html

Franklyn

But mr floorman. Most of the floors here in Floria are glued down to concrete due to height problems. Bostiks best is the only glue I use for Bamboo floors. Yes bamboo is grass. But they also can harvest a fiedl for up to ten years not like wood wood you cut thtree its gone. Bamboo comes back and back.I have put in about 6 thousand sq feet of Bamboo so far. I only do staright lays or 45 lays. If the want inlays and other things thats not my bag of trick and let them know up front. I dont have the proper tools todo inlays and tricked out wood floors. Bamboo is also stronger than most wood.

:topicoff: Hey Franklyn! Long time no see!! Hope your Christmas was a good one!!

Nice site Franklyn.

Fastener placement is critical with bamboo as the tongue likes to split if using a nail or staple. Make sure your floor is flat before youi start. I like to use a double layer of 15 pound felt overlapping the layers.

Hi Franklyn, welcome to the site. You could add a signature that will show up in all your posts. If you want, put your name and web page in there. If you want it to be a link, put a little code around it like this: {url}http://woodfloorist.com{/url}
but change the curly brackets { } to square brackets [ ]. You also need to click on "Show your signature" in the miscellaneous options.

Small request, add the "www" to our link at your site? I don't know if it helps with the search engines or not, but we're trying to standardize on this: http://www.johnbridge.com/vbulletin/index.php

Now if I could get John to change all the links on his site. ;)

Dave-- does it screw anything up that on my links page I've just got http://www.johnbridge.com ?

Let me try this again
 

I never said bamboo was inferior to wood . I just was saying it isn't wood. As a rule I have found that people that talk about bamboo Wood Floors often don't know what they are talking about. Evidently Opie you are an exception to the rule. I have only done one bamboo floor and it was staple down. Carbonized, vertical grain laid at 70 degrees to the walls. I'm glad I took geometry in school.

Bill if you are gonna use www on the links page you need to use a vapor barrier Just kidding

Thanks Dave for the ideas. I think my www's are in my van someplace. Lord knows if I will be able to find them. I have seen some search engines where I have two consecutive listings for my index page. One with the www's and one without. Google treats them as two different urls.

I just got back from a 3 week vacation. I drove from Centralia, WA to Cape Canveral and back. Over 7,000 miles of driving , 26 different states and over 700 pictures. My son heads back to Iraq tommorrow morning so we wanted to get my immediate family all back together before he leaves.

It's been hard getting back into work mode again.

One of the reasons I don't live in Florida is I hate glueing wood floors down. I usually end up wearing more glue than I get on the floor. Most housing in Florida is on concrete slabs. There's enough work between Seattle and Portland, OR to keep me busy.

Franklyn If I came off rude Im sorry. One thing for sure in tile and wood I am NOT THE BIG DOG by far. And yes you get wood glue more on your clothes than the floor. lol. I love to learn more and more about everything I put my hands on. I hope I didnt come by as being cocky about wood. I just have done alot of Bamboo and have done my book research on alot of wood floors and alot of Bambo. seeing how florida has a high market for them. Wood it up and have fun. What the hell were you putting a floor in at a 70 degree angle for. I thought most floors get 90 or a 45. Yes i saw ur site some real nice stuff to read and learn from.

Normally it is 90 degrees or 45 degrees. When the father in law is the architect and he is designing a house to fit the property lines things get away from normal. The focal point of the kitchen was the bamboo cabinets. The island was installed 70 degrees to the walls by design and the floor was installed to conform to it.

I seem to learn something on every job. Don't worry about about being rude. I'm used to it. I have worked with General Contractors before. :yipee: