I have purchased some tongue and grove bamboo flooring. Got it
delivered this afternoon. I just tried fitting a few pieces together,
to my dismay they don't fit properly. Please see
http://tinyurl.com/78br8
(pardon the barrel distortion of my digicam)

They are to be installed by myself and friend, glued down over Regupol
over concrete. Which of the following is true?

1. after a day or two they should acclimatize and fit better
2. tapping with hammer during installation will fix it
3. I got a bad product (they came in plain white boxes with no
branding)

Thanks in advance!

Tippi, 12/20/2005,11:01:15 PM, wrote:

I have purchased some tongue and grove bamboo flooring. Got it
delivered this afternoon. I just tried fitting a few pieces together,
to my dismay they don't fit properly. Please see
http://tinyurl.com/78br8
(pardon the barrel distortion of my digicam)

They are to be installed by myself and friend, glued down over Regupol
over concrete. Which of the following is true?

1. after a day or two they should acclimatize and fit better
2. tapping with hammer during installation will fix it
3. I got a bad product (they came in plain white boxes with no
branding)

Thanks in advance!

I can't speak for bamboo flooring but I saw some of what you are seeing
with laminate flooring. Yes, you should let it acclimate if the
directions say so. Tapping with a hammer will make it fit better for
the most part, however I don't think picture 3 would get fixed that
way. You may have bad products.

Avoid locking the planks together until they are installed. You will
damage or loosen the fitting and they will separate later a bit.
However I did not glue my laminate flooring so I cannot say that for
sure.

Bottom line is do what the instructions say as close as you can manage.

--
"Politics is supposed be the second oldest profession. I have come to
realise that it bears a very close resemblance to the first." ~ Ronald
Reagan.

This time of year when most of us have the heating system running in the
house, there is a great need to acclimatize any natural material before
installing it. The swelling / shrinking can be significant in the
materials.
What are those marks that look like bruising or machine made marks going
across the surface of the boards? The pattern of the marks appears too
regular to be natural.

Per

"Tippi" wrote in message
oups.com...
I have purchased some tongue and grove bamboo flooring. Got it
delivered this afternoon. I just tried fitting a few pieces together,
to my dismay they don't fit properly. Please see
http://tinyurl.com/78br8
(pardon the barrel distortion of my digicam)

They are to be installed by myself and friend, glued down over Regupol
over concrete. Which of the following is true?

1. after a day or two they should acclimatize and fit better
2. tapping with hammer during installation will fix it
3. I got a bad product (they came in plain white boxes with no
branding)

Thanks in advance!

"Tippi" wrote in message
oups.com...
I have purchased some tongue and grove bamboo flooring. Got it
delivered this afternoon. I just tried fitting a few pieces together,
to my dismay they don't fit properly. Please see
http://tinyurl.com/78br8
(pardon the barrel distortion of my digicam)

They are to be installed by myself and friend, glued down over Regupol
over concrete. Which of the following is true?

1. after a day or two they should acclimatize and fit better
2. tapping with hammer during installation will fix it
3. I got a bad product (they came in plain white boxes with no
branding)

Thanks in advance!

Are you sure that the flooring is not hinged together?


You need some installation instructions, USUALLY wood like this is NEVER
glued to the foundation. It is floated on top, connected/glued together but
not to the structure.

"Per Plexed" wrote in message
...
This time of year when most of us have the heating system running in the
house, there is a great need to acclimatize any natural material before
installing it. The swelling / shrinking can be significant in the
materials.
What are those marks that look like bruising or machine made marks going
across the surface of the boards? The pattern of the marks appears too
regular to be natural.

The marks are indicative of bamboo, it is natural. You know how the hollow
stalks have a knot every foot or so.

The boards are just tongue and grove that slide together, not
interlocking like some laminates. There are no instructions that came
with it, but the sales person said the manufacturor has said this can
be glued. I've talked to other people who said bamboo can be floated
but not recommended. (The ideal is to nail it but as I live in a condo
I can't put wood subfloor down on concrete, that would make the floor
much too high.)

Bamboo can be floated, glued or nailed. My company (Fair Pacific
Bamboo Flooring) floats bamboo in about 1/4 of our installations with
no problems.

If you have standard tongue and groove planks, you would use a
traditional floating method (glueing tongue to groove) with any of the
variety of good floating floor adhesives on the market.

Unfortunately, what you are seeing with your planks not fitting is
common with low cost planks. The milling and/or drying is not what it
should be, so you end up with planks that have large gaps. Sometimes,
this can be mitigated by applying pressure to the planks to bring them
together while nailing or while the adhesive sets.

As far as acclimitization, up to 72 hours is recommended. That may
help your situation somewhat.

Finally, if putting down over concrete, you will likely have too much
moisture in the concrete for a satisfactory wood flooring installation.
So you must provide a moisture barrier. Typically, this is 6 or 8 mil
polyethylene sheeting, taped at the the seams and along the edges. The
floor is then floated over the top. Bostik has a nice product called
MVP that is a "paint-on" moisture barrier. You basically roll it on
and it forms a moisture-proof membrane. You can then float your floor
over it, or even glue it directly to the membrane.

I hope this helps! There is way to much bad bamboo flooring on the
market - Fair Pacific is here to help correct that situation, because
quality bamboo flooring planks make a very nice, very sturdy,
environmentally friendly floor.

-Greg Pasquariello
---
Fair Pacific Bamboo Flooring
www.fairpacific.com
720-227-9135

In article ,
says...
This time of year when most of us have the heating system running in the
house, there is a great need to acclimatize any natural material before
installing it. The swelling / shrinking can be significant in the
materials.

I haven't noticed my bamboo floor moving around at all, though the
directions did say that acclimation was required.

What are those marks that look like bruising or machine made marks going
across the surface of the boards? The pattern of the marks appears too
regular to be natural.

Those are the bamboo nodules. This is "horizontal" bamboo.
"Vertical" alignment doesn't show the nodules as much. Both are
interesting, though we went with the vertical. There is more
information linked off http://www.diyflooring.com.

--
Keith



Per

"Tippi" wrote in message
oups.com...
I have purchased some tongue and grove bamboo flooring. Got it
delivered this afternoon. I just tried fitting a few pieces together,
to my dismay they don't fit properly. Please see
http://tinyurl.com/78br8
(pardon the barrel distortion of my digicam)

They are to be installed by myself and friend, glued down over Regupol
over concrete. Which of the following is true?

1. after a day or two they should acclimatize and fit better
2. tapping with hammer during installation will fix it
3. I got a bad product (they came in plain white boxes with no
branding)

Thanks in advance!

In article .com,
says...
Bamboo can be floated, glued or nailed. My company (Fair Pacific
Bamboo Flooring) floats bamboo in about 1/4 of our installations with
no problems.

Interesting. I nailed ours down. We went with the 6' vertical
medium-carbonized flooring from Enviro Choice:

http://www.diyflooring.com/item_3344...dium/item.html

It's great stuff, easy to install, and quite inexpensive (about the
same as the mid-grade vinyl it replaced).

snip

Unfortunately, what you are seeing with your planks not fitting is
common with low cost planks. The milling and/or drying is not what it
should be, so you end up with planks that have large gaps. Sometimes,
this can be mitigated by applying pressure to the planks to bring them
together while nailing or while the adhesive set

Interesting. I thought all of the bamboo came from the same place
(China) and was pretty similar. Though, I did try to fit the stuff
I bought with some a friend put down. They were quite different.

snip

I hope this helps! There is way to much bad bamboo flooring on the
market - Fair Pacific is here to help correct that situation, because
quality bamboo flooring planks make a very nice, very sturdy,
environmentally friendly floor.

Since we put it down, we've been noticing more and more talk about
the advantges of bamboo. I'm thinking about putting it in a couple
more rooms (downstairs bedroom, family room, and/or living room),
replacing carpeting.

--
Keith

Without trying to spam for Fair Pacific Bamboo, please visit the
website (www.fairpacific.com). You'll learn why some bamboo flooring
is good and why some other is junk. Even if you don't buy from us,
call us and ask the questions, we'll give you the all the bamboo
education you could want.

Much of what you see on the internet IS the same. Many ( if not most )
of the online flooring companies and liquidators buy their bamboo from
the cheapest suppliers they can find and/or at auction. So what you
end up with is low priced bamboo that does not perform well over time,
or possibly high priced bamboo that is nothing more than low-priced in
disguise. Often quality varies tremendously from lot to lot.

You might also notice that a lot of the online websites have
suspiciously similar catalog text and pricing. Hmm.

Crummy product is the reason for the complaints you hear about
bamboo... there's a lot of poor quality stuff out there. It typically
has lower quality finish (despite the Klumpp brand name that you may
see), may be pressed and milled on hand powered equipment, resulting in
less straight milling and inconsistent construction, and may be
constructed of lower quality bamboo, resulting in lots of use of filler
and bad resistance to denting.

-Greg Pasquariello
---
Fair Pacific Bamboo Flooring
www.fairpacific.com
720-227-9135

Hello
tippi

I have installed similar product and at first they did not fit together when
I tried them. what I did was to temporary screw a board parallel to the
flooring strips and drive a wedge (made from a piece of your flooring)
between the board and your flooring product. this will force the joints
tight. Once your glue is set up you can remove the wedge and temporary
board. you can do this at the ends as well. Just make sure not to bugger up
the tongue or groove (this is why we use a piece of the flooring itself).
You can make them too tight so be careful as the seam will rise slightly and
show up. Duct tape also works well. fasten it to the piece you are
installing and stretch it and fasten it to the adjasent piece and it will
pull the pieces together. If you have any residue use we-40 and it takes it
right off.

good luck
Mike

"Tippi" wrote in message
oups.com...
I have purchased some tongue and grove bamboo flooring. Got it
delivered this afternoon. I just tried fitting a few pieces together,
to my dismay they don't fit properly. Please see
http://tinyurl.com/78br8
(pardon the barrel distortion of my digicam)

They are to be installed by myself and friend, glued down over Regupol
over concrete. Which of the following is true?

1. after a day or two they should acclimatize and fit better
2. tapping with hammer during installation will fix it
3. I got a bad product (they came in plain white boxes with no
branding)

Thanks in advance!