bamboo flooring?

Anybody have bamboo flooring?

My neighbor sells hardwoods at his store and he is really pushing the bamboo lately.

its cheaper by almost a dollar a sq ft.

Just wondering if anybody has had any luck...good or bad...with the stuff...

Thanks

 

I like Bamboo it's just soft and dents easily. I did a wall in my front bathroom with bamboo and it's turned out awesome! Let me see if i can find a pic.

 

I have it in my house. Love it. A lot stronger and it seemed easier to work with than traditional. Although, I should have gone with a lighter shade of it than I did. There are some people that complain about a "smell" of it. Its from when they glue the strands together... I didn't notice it though.

 

Here is an uncleaned up picture of it.

 

Here is the bathroom

 

All your joints seem even across the whole floor every 3 boards or so. You like that look? I think my wife wants scattered joints just randomly placed...

 

It's cheap because it grows very fast and is a very sustainable resource. Now you can say you're GREEN. Or at least you're offsetting the 16 mph Taco.

 

I've got it and it looks great. Dimensionally stable through big humidity swings, so also very good for basements. If you get the *good* $tuff, it's as hard as or harder than white oak. If you get the stuff I have (from Home Depot), it dents when you drop your phone on it and the dog scratches it up with ease. I'm told that it's softer because it was harvested too young... At any rate, the deal was really good and if/when I refinish it down the road, I'll give it one of those rock-hard protective poly coatings.

HTH,
Marc

 

that is the way i am gonna go..unless i find a building they are demoing and i can salvage the floor.

 

^this. It's a nice product but will dent on you. Depending on where you put it, it might not hold up as well as some other materials. I see that you've posted this in the garage/workshop area. I don't know as if I'd want this type of flooring in either of those spaces.

 

The nice thing about this stuff is that it's like using engineered hardwood - each box has the same size pieces. So yeah, you have to shuffle up the boxes a bit if you're not anal retentive and want it to look completely random.

Also, very few to zero bad pieces like you'll get with regular hardwood planks.

 

You can put it in any way you want. The hallway that joins to it just happened to be an even board... so I had to cut the second two rows in 1/3 and 2/3 increments to get it to be off. You can cut it down any way you want. Scattered is nice as well.

 

Not putting it in the garage, i just really didn't know where else to put this thread...

Its going in my kitchen, dining, hall, laundry.

And as far as denting...The samples i have, i took a hammer to them and you can't tell i did anything at all.

I have 2 samples...One is 1/2" solid bamboo, the other is 5/8" engineered bamboo. The engineered stuff is solid plywood, none of the press board stuff in the middle. I can't dent either one of them...Believe me, i've tried.

I'm having a hard time even scratching them. My neighbor installs this stuff and he said he normally goes through 2 saw blades per job this stuff is so hard.

I've never worked with it and just wanted some opinions from you guys. I think we might try it. My wife wants more pics though...lol

Keep em rollin...

The engineered stuff looks sorta like this but darker...just showing the plywood...

 

We've got it at my folks house in the kitchen. More blond like Jim's bathroom. Stuffs great, and if I'm not mistaken its the only 'wood' available that can be used as a basement floor. Seeing as how it's not a wood at all and doesn't soak water in the same way.

 

Here ya go. This is some of them... I don't have any current pictures. But if you go with bamboo and have dogs, don't go with dark wood. I made that mistake and i can slightly see some scratches in the finish after 2 1/2 years.

 

Yep... As nice as it looks, I don't know that I'd go with a dark finish next time...

 

Yours is nail down correct? not the floating?

 

I floated it. You can do either one. I have one area on my stair landing (split level house) I need to nail down on the sides, but that is it.

 

Here is the flooring we are looking at...

http://www.wellmadefloors.com/walnut-hand-scraped/

 

I will second the comment about not getting a dark color. The dark color looks great when it's clean (one day out of the week ) but the other 6 days it shows dust, dirt, hair, etc very easily. If I had to do my flooring all over again, I would go with a lighter color.

I don't have bamboo, but I did replace my floors last year with a dark colored single strip laminate floor. I have 3 dogs so any wood or bamboo was out of the question because their nails will trash the floors. Their nails trashed the engineered oak hardwood I had in my foyer before.