*FINALLY* the floor starts going down

I was at Hilton Head Island for the week with my sister while “Bob” worked with a few different helpers.  I came home last night to see (drumroll)

Bamboo started in the bedroom!

“Bob” says the screwing won’t work because it blows out the tongues of the panels (even with countersinking).  Apparently strand-woven bamboo is harder than any other kind of floor he’s put down.  So he says he’ll go with the recommended cleats with a nail gun.  The good news is that this will go a lot faster than the original screw plan.

He says he’s waiting for clement weather to put in the remaining two windows in the room.

Bamboo – Phase II

The bamboo arrived late on Monday, and for the past two days “Bob” has been unpacking and sorting it by hue and grain. That’s 42 boxes of 12 planks each. Whew!

It turns out that the stair nose they sent is too dark to match any of the planks, so we’re arranging a swap with the supplier.

The furnace guys are coming tomorrow to install a humidistat on the furnace so that the floor will have a more consistent environment to live in.

The planks will be sorted into square footage categories, the transition pieces counted, and then all the “lumber” (can you call grass a “lumber”?) will be stacked around the house in the rooms it will go into, to acclimate for a week. The plan is to have the lightest planks in the narrow hallway in the center of the house, and the darkest planks in the living room which gets a lot of light. All the hues and textures will be blended into each other gradually using the “transition” pieces that have a little of each.

Bamboo!

Two weeks ago a friend gave me an early Christmas present, a friendly honest contractor with a work ethic and time on his hands. I know. Sounds too good to be true, huh?

Well, so far, so good. He’s painting the entire interior of the house, ripping up my nasty beige acrylic wall-to-wall carpet, and installing a floor. He’s also done other helpful things like move the basement door to the other side so it opens *away* from the door-congested hallway, fixed the ventilation fan in the Cat Bathroom, and fixed my storm door so it actually latches – and when it doesn’t, the TWO plungers are strong enough to keep it from flapping open and banging into the porch light on the wall behind it. He’s also found bifold closet doors that actually match my existing doors.

Anyway, the latest Exciting Thing is that we ordered the flooring yesterday morning. I love the look of hardwood, but I don’t love the price. We tried some laminate flooring, but found out that it would require a seam every 20 ft in one direction and 40 ft in the other direction.

SO, I did what I do best, and investigated our alternatives. Bamboo. Yep, you know all those new-fangled cutting boards that are out now? Made out of laminated bamboo strips? Well they make floors out of that. The jury is out about how strong those “solid” planks are, however. Some accounts online claim that they are actually quite brittle.

I also found out about “strand woven” bamboo planks. This is a process where they compress the bamboo stalks with an adhesive and end up with a plank that’s 94-99% bamboo and the rest is phenolformaldehyde resin. Yes it outgasses a little, but it’s apparently well within the strict European compliance regulations for formaldehyde. Then they typically cover this with some kind of finish. Mine has an aluminum oxide finish.

I ordered samples of these and when they arrived “Bob” and I played with them.  (He prefers to be incognito, so I will call him “Bob.”)  I was able to make a slight dent in the “solid” plank with my thumbnail. The “strand woven” plank is unbelievably dense and seems almost impervious. This is consistent with the relative Janka ratings of the products.

“Bob” was more aggressive and tried banging the corner of each sample into the face of the other sample to see what happens when a lot of pressure is applied to a small point.

The “solid” corner itself smushed in,

and barely dented the “strand woven” plank.

The “strand woven” corner showed a little damage

and multilated the “solid” plank.

The supplier recommends either a glue-down or a nail-down application.  “Bob” convinced me that it would be even better to drill out and countersink screws so the planks can be attached through the luan and particle board directly to the joists. The supplier couldn’t say whether this was a good idea because they have never tested it, but admitted that as long as the screw hole in the plank is drilled out and not self-tapped, it should be fine. So “Bob” tried drilling the “strand woven” plank. Even with an old, dull bit it drilled out beautifully.

So we’re good to go, have ordered the 6ft planks, and they’re scheduled to arrive on Wednesday. We won’t actually get to start using them until the weekend because they have to sit in the rooms where they’re going to acclimate. He says he can’t wait to work with them. I can’t wait to see how it’ll look.

Update:  I brought the strand woven sample to show my friend Linda who has Newfies because she’s thinking of getting a bamboo floor to replace her nasty carpet.  We gave the sample to Pop to chew on for a while.  We also let him step on it.  This is the extent of the damage:

Basically, he managed to get through the aluminum oxide finish, but not into the plank itself.