Chosing Bamboo Laminate Flooring

Bamboo laminate flooring is becoming a more common choice of flooring. There are many reasons for this. It obviously has an oriental feel to it and therefore suits any décor or interior design theme that leans towards this area. Bamboo laminate flooring is also extremely strong due to the way in which it is manufactured. It is created from several different layers of ply or mdf that are glued together in such a way that they lie across each other. This give the bamboo laminate flooring a huge amount of strength that allows it to withstand all levels of foot traffic from the very light to the extremely heavy. Bamboo laminate flooring comes in two flavours. The first is the true laminate that has a top layer formed from a photo of bamboo. If this photo were to be used as the top layer as is, it would appear too real and therefore quite fake. The photo therefore has to be dumbed down so that it gives the bamboo laminate flooring the genuine appearance of a bamboo floor. This type of bamboo laminate flooring is less expensive than the second flavour called engineered bamboo laminate flooring. This is made with a top layer of genuine shredded bamboo. Obviously, because this type uses real bamboo for it’s top layer, you are guaranteed a floor that appears to be real bamboo flooring. It is because real bamboo is being used in the flooring that it is pricier than that which only uses a photo in the top layer.

Installing Bamboo Laminate Flooring

Installing bamboo laminate flooring is relatively easily handled by the home handyman. This saves the home handyman the cost of hiring a flooring installation specialist reducing the overall cost of the flooring significantly. The bamboo laminate flooring usually comes in packs of five to ten boards that can be bought from a local flooring retailer. Again they can be in two flavours. The first uses glue as the method of keeping the bamboo laminate floorboards in place. As each row of floor boards is laid, glue is squirted into the groove along the side of the row. The next row of boards is then pushed against the first row and any glue that pushes up through the crack is wiped off. This is continued until the entire floor is covered. The second type of bamboo laminate flooring boards that can be purchased doesn’t use glue, but rather uses a tongue and groove system. In this method the first row of boards is laid and then each of the second row boards are pushed and snapped into the first row. This continues until the entire floor is covered.
The glueless system of laying bamboo laminate flooring is less messy than the other method using glue and is easier to install as a result. The disadvantage of the glueless system is the subfloor has to be very level so that there is minimal movement of the floor between the boards. Movement of the floor while someone is walking on it can cause the boards to move against each other that at best can cause squeeking and at worst can cause the boards to come apart. This is far less likely with boards that are using glue. Glue between the boards also helps stop penetration of moisture between the boards if liquid is spilled on them. Continual spillage of liquid over time can cause the bamboo laminate boards to absorb the liquid and begin to warp. This is less likely to happen with glue cementing the boards together. The chances of this happening in bamboo laminate boards that don’t use glue can be reduced by quickly mopping up any spillages soon after they have occurred.

Other Reasons for Choosing Bamboo Laminate Flooring

Bamboo laminate flooring is also wonderful for it’s ease of cleaning. Usually a quick sweep or vacuum will remove most dust and dirt. For stains, a mop over with a gentle cleanser and hot water will usually do the job.

One area where engineered bamboo laminate flooring is better than other types of flooring is it’s environmental friendliness. Because bamboo is a type of grass, it can be grown and harvested every five years. This is very different to the hundreds of years it takes to grow an oak tree. It also affords very many other benefits that include water resistance and resistance to bugs and mites. Therefore it is perfect as the top layer of an engineered flooring.

Some people may be worried that a solid floor will be cold in winter. No problem. Just cover it with rugs or mats. This allows you to create a flooring that suits the climate you live in. For example if you live in an extremely cold climate you may want to use shag pile rugs. Alternatively, if you live in warmer climates you may just want to use mats. Then if your climate heats up again in summer, you can remove the rugs and you have a cool floor to walk on in the heat of summer. A solid floor is also extremely suitable for babies and toddlers who are prone to making mess. The sort of mess they make is often difficult to clean from a carpet. But solid bamboo laminate flooring is simple to clean. And if they make the mess on one of the rugs, the rug can simply be removed for cleaning.

So many people today are choosing to install cork laminate flooring, bamboo laminate flooring or hardwood laminate flooring as part of their effort to renovate their house and give it a different feeling. You only need to start searching the web to get an idea of the increase in people searching for information about laminate flooring. So why is there such a high attraction to laminate? What is it about laminate flooring that is causing so many people to forego the more traditional flooring types of carpet, ceramic tiles and genuine hardwoods? Well the answers to these are many and I’ve listed what I see as the top twelve. Some of these are obvious given even a small amount of knowledge about laminate flooring whilst some are quite surprising but nonetheless important when considering your choice of flooring.

1. The first reason many people choose laminate flooring has to do with one of the main reasons why people renovate their houses at all. People renovate their houses to add value to their property and possibly the fourth easiest way of doing this is to renew your flooring. Just for interest sake, the easiest way to improve the value of your house is to paint the interior, the next easiest way is to tidy up the garden and the third way is to replace fixtures and fittings including door handles, light fittings, light switches, power points, tap ware etc. People add value to their property in all of these ways and whilst installing laminate flooring is possibly the fourth easiest, it provides the same amount of impact as painting the interior of your house. So why do people want to add value to their house? Usually it’s to use their property to give them money in the hand through one of two methods – either they want to sell it at a higher price or they want to draw down (increase the mortgage) on the increased equity in their house. In either case, to maximize the amount of money you end up with, you need to reduce the cost of your renovations and this leads us to the next point.

2. One of the exciting points about laminate flooring is that it usually costs less than other flooring types that give a comparable effect. For example, authentic hardwood floors like oak flooring cost an arm and a leg. Laminate flooring on the other hand can emulate just about any type of solid flooring at a fraction of the cost. The reason for this is that it is made from several layers of durable materials that are joined together to make an extremely strong final product. The top layer then has a photograph of the type of flooring that is being copied. With today’s technology, this top layer appears to be authentic.

3. Adding to the last point is the fact that bamboo hardwood laminate flooring is easily installed by the home handyman. Most hardwood laminate flooring comes with a tongue and groove system that allow the boards to be snapped together without the need for glue and come with clear installation instructions provided by the manufacturer. All you need are a few inexpensive tools that can easily be picked up from your local hardware store along with two or three days of your time and you will end up with new laminate flooring. The beauty of this is that you are able to cut your costs by eliminating the need to hire laminate flooring installation professionals.

4. The next reason many people are choosing bamboo hardwood laminate flooring is that it doesn’t date like other floor coverings. Many of you will remember the shag pile carpets of the 70’s, the slate tiles in the 80’s and terracotta tiles in the 90’s all of which are now somewhat passé. On the other hand, wood finishes in flooring never date particularly when hardwood laminate floorings are used. As a result, while ever your hardwood laminate flooring is kept in good condition, it will continue to add value to your house complimenting point one above.

5. As described in point two above, laminate flooring is made from several layers of plywood combined in such a way as to give an extremely strong product with a photographic top layer that gives it the characteristic wooden finish. Alternatively, engineered flooring can be used where the top layer is made from the genuine wood type that you are attempting to emulate. In the case of hardwoods, this often comes from reclaimed timber (timber taken from demolished buildings). In the case of cork or bamboo, it usually comes straight from the plantation. Whether using photographic or engineered laminate flooring, the range of styles and colours provided by this flexibility is huge and is really only limited to what is available in real hardwood timber, cork or bamboo. This is the fifth reason people are installing hardwood laminate flooring and leads us to the next point.

6. Because of the wide range of textures, colours and styles provided by hardwood laminate flooring, there is usually one type that can be found that will match the décor or interior design of your house. Whether your house has an antique feel in which case mahogany or oak hardwood laminate flooring may be suitable, or an asian theme where bamboo laminate flooring could be what matches, you will always be able to find laminate flooring that matches your interior.

7. The next reason people choose laminate flooring is because it gives them a choice of technologies. As stated before in point five, it is possible to get engineered laminate flooring with a top layer of genuine wood. Alternatively, people can choose to go with the photographic top layer which is usually a little less expensive. The advantage with engineered flooring is that you are guaranteed a genuine looking product because the top layer is completely genuine and it can be sanded back to some extent if it happens to get damaged or stained in the future and therefore returned to its original state. Also, if you are choosing engineered bamboo laminate flooring or cork laminate flooring, these materials have the environmental stamp of approval being easily replaced due to their fast growth in the case of bamboo and high yield in the case of cork.
Also buyers of laminate flooring can choose between laminate flooring that uses glue and laminate flooring that is glue free. The advantage of glue free laminate flooring is that it’s less messy when being installed, you don’t have to wait for the glue to dry and the floor can be taken back up in the future and moved elsewhere if so desired. The advantages of using glue is that the floor boards are solidly anchored to one another and hence there is no moving between the boards and therefore no squeeking as they are walked upon. This can be a problem with glue less laminate flooring. Also the glue makes it harder for liquids to penetrate to the lower layers of the laminate flooring reducing the possibility of warping of the laminate flooring boards.

8. Although some people like the idea of laminate flooring because of all the advantages that come with it, they still find it difficult to move from the more traditional carpet. They feel that carpet is far warmer and much nicer to walk upon bare footed, whilst hardwood laminate flooring is solid and can be cold in winter. The solution to this dilemma is simple though – simply drop a large size rug on the laminate flooring and you have the equivalent of carpet on the floor. In addition, because the rug is not fixed, you can change it from time to time to suit your taste. The rug can also be far more easily cleaned, even left in the sunshine to kill any dustmites or other bugs. Carpet on the other hand is a major breeding area for dust mites. And this brings us to the next point.

9. Laminate flooring is great for people with allergies as it simple does not allow the hiding places for dust mites and other bugs to breed. As mentioned above, this is a major problem associated with carpet. With laminate flooring, a simple sweep or vacuum will remove all dust whereas vacuuming carpet never removes all of the dirt.

10. Following on from the last point, laminate flooring is easy to clean. Usually a quick vacuum or sweep is enough to remove any dust or dirt that accumulates. But if the dirt is a little harder to remove, then a wipe over with a damp mop and a gentle cleanser will usually do the trick.

11. Because laminate flooring is easy to clean it is perfect for children and families. Children are renowned for walking dirt and mud through the house, so having a solid floor that’s easily cleaned is a perfect choice. It also a necessity with babies as vomit and poo is guaranteed to get on the floor at some point and it’s much easier to clean that off a solid floor than try and remove those stains from carpet.

12. Finally, hardwood laminate flooring is hard wearing. The reason for this was explained earlier and comes down to the manufacturing of laminate flooring that uses several layers with either a photo or genuine wood top layer. The strength of the final product results in a tough, strong, hard wearing laminate flooring that resists damage and scuffing.

So hopefully this has given you an ideas of the many reasons bamboo, cork or hardwood laminate flooring is being more widely chosen as the flooring of choice when people are looking at renewing their home.

So lets assume that you’ve done your research and have decided that you really do want to lay bamboo hardwood laminate flooring. Well exactly how do you go about this. Firstly it’s worthwhile taking a quick visit to your local bamboo hardwood laminate flooring supplier – retailer or wholesaler. If you can find a bamboo hardwood laminate flooring wholesaler than that’s great since it is probably the best way to get cheap bamboo hardwood laminate flooring that is also new and therefore has a high level of quality. But if the best you can do is a bamboo hardwood laminate flooring retailer than that will do also. I usually get mine from Ikea as they have an excellent tongue and groove glueless system that helps to hold the floor together whilst you are laying it and afterwards. Anyway, I digress. It’s worth dropping into your bamboo hardwood laminate flooring outlet just to get an idea of how they supply their bamboo hardwood laminate flooring boards and what accessories they supply for free with those and what you have to pay for. For example, to lay the bamboo hardwood laminate flooring, you will also need underlay. This has several functions including a cushioning effect as well as making up for any minor dips in the subfloor. The subfloor of course needs to be flat, but there are generally alsways imperfections in the subfloor and as such the underlay can take up some of the slack. You will need to look up the bamboo hardwood laminate flooring manufacturers instructions to see exactly how much of a dip the underlay will handle. If the dip in the subfloor is deeper than allowed for the bamboo hardwood laminate flooring, you will probably need to get a levelling compound that you mix up and pour over the area where the depression is. The compound then self levels providing a perfectly flat sub floor. This levelling compound can be bought at most hardware stores but I’ll warn you now, it’s incredibly expensive but still worth it if the unevenness of your subfloor exceeds the bamboo hardwood laminate flooring suppliers recommendations. Next you may need a plastic polyethylene barrier if you are laying the flooring on a sub floor that can become damp. The best example of this is concrete but it can also include floor boards or generally any sub flooring that comes in contact with damp underneath the flooring. You can get this plastic barrier from your bamboo hardwood laminate flooring supplier. What else will you need? You will be able to purchase, or if you are lucky they may throw it in for free, a simple tool kit that includes spacers and a Z angled piece of metal that allows you to knock the bamboo hardwood laminate flooring boards together without damaging them. On top of that there are other accessories including skirting boards or moulding depending on which you intend to use. If you have existing skirting boards that you are going to leave there and lay the bamboo hardwood laminate flooring between them, then you will need the moulding which sits atop the bamboo hardwood laminate flooring edges and against the skirting boards. This is one way of doing things and in my opinion doesn’t look as professional as the second way. The second way is to remove the existing skirting boards and lay the bamboo hardwood laminate flooring between the walls and then either re affix the existing skirting boards back in place against the wall and above the bamboo hardwood laminate flooring or affix new skirting boards in place against the wall and above the bamboo hardwood laminate flooring. You can generally buy new skirting boards for this purpose from your bamboo hardwood laminate flooring supplier or you can buy them in raw timber form from a hardware store and paint them yourself which generally turns out cheaper. Remember though that when you remove the existing skirting boards, there may be a chance that you will damage the wall. For example, the paint on the wall may peel off along the point where the skirting board meets the wall. But if you are prepared to take this chance and are in a position to fix any small problems that may occur, then removing the skirting boards before laying the bamboo hardwood laminate flooring will definitely give you a far more professional look. Ok, so we’ve looked at the bamboo hardwood laminate flooring, the underlay, the waterproof barrier, the tool kit and the mouldings and skirting board. The only other accessories that you may be interested in are the mouldings that can be used to finish off the bamboo hardwood laminate flooring at a doorway leading outside or a doorway between rooms where the floors in each room need to be smoothly connected. Usually these are made from aluminium and in the case of the connector between the rooms, is in the shape of a T piece. These can be difficult to obtain and hopefully you will be able to get them from the bamboo hardwood laminate flooring supplier but if not you may be able to get them from a hardware store.

Tools Required to lay Bamboo Hardwood Laminate Flooring

Next we need to look at the different tools you will need to actually lay the bamboo hardwood laminate flooring. First and formost you will need a hand saw. This is used to cut the bamboo hardwood laminate flooring boards to the desired length as will be described shortly. Next you will need a hammer to use with the Z metal piece found in the tool kit that you will have purchased from the bamboo hardwood laminate flooring wholesaler. The hammer is used to hammer one side of the Z piece while the other side grips the end of a bamboo hardwood laminate flooring board – the result being that the bamboo hardwood laminate flooring board is hammered into the next board. We are of coarse assuming here that you are using the glueless variety of bamboo hardwood laminate flooring that uses a tongue and groove system. One bamboo hardwood laminate flooring board fits into the next lengthways and the friction of one against the other makes it too difficult to move the first bamboo hardwood laminate flooring board lengthways along the other for the first board to meet the next board at it’s end. Therefore the Z piece and hammer are needed to hammer one end of the first bamboo hardwood laminate flooring board so that it moves along the second board at it’s side into the end of the next board. Sounds confusing I know but once you look at the instructions that come with the bamboo hardwood laminate flooring, it will all become clear. Next you will need a knife to cut the underlay and a square and ruler to mark the lines along the bamboo hardwood laminate flooring boards at the point at which you will saw them. Also you will need glue and or nails to attach the moulding or skirting boards to the walls and finally you will need some sort of mitre box or drop down mitre saw to cut the 45 degree angles of the mouldings or skirting boards where they meet in the corners to produce a professional finish as though a bamboo hardwood laminate flooring contractor had performed the job.

Laying Bamboo Hardwood Laminate Flooring

Getting down to actually laying the bamboo hardwood laminate flooring. Firstly you need to store the bamboo hardwood laminate flooring boards in the room where you will be laying it for 48 before actually laying it to give it a chance to acclimatize to the humidity of the room and either expand or contract according to this. This mean that once you have laid the flooring, any further expansion or contraction will be minimal although it will still happen. Once this period of time has passed you will need to read the instructions carefully as these will tell you exactly how to lay it (hopefully) along with any idiosyncracies that your particular bamboo hardwood laminate flooring system may have. But to give you an idea of how it is done in advance, you will start by laying one bamboo hardwood laminate flooring board along a wall, placing spacers between the board and the wall. In fact spacers will be placed around the entire room against the wall between the walls and the bamboo hardwood laminate flooring, ensuring enough room to allow any further expansion of the flooring. By having that space available the bamboo hardwood laminate flooring has room to expand into rather than hitting the wall and causing the floor to lift and buckle. Once the first board is laid, the end of the next board is placed in one end of the first. This is continued until the opposie wall is reached. Of course the last board will probably not fit so the end of it will need to be sawed off allowing room for the spacers between the end of the bamboo hardwood laminate flooring board and the wall. Unless it’s too short, the piece you have just cut off will be used as the start of the next row of boards. So go back to the end you started and push the off cut lengthways into the first board that you laid mading sure that they are even at the end near the first wall. Then take your next board and slot it into the next position along the first row and using the Z piece and the hammer, hammer it along into the offcut. Continue this until the entire floor has been laid.

Additional Points when laying Bamboo Hardwood Laminate Flooring

A couple of points worth mentioning. If you can possibly avoid cutting around things like doorposts i.e. if you can find an alternative to cutting around obstacles then use the alternative. One example of this is doorposts. It is almost impossible (but not quite) to cut your bamboo hardwood laminate flooring board so that it fits around a doorpost so closely that it looks like a professional bamboo hardwood laminate flooring contractor has done the job. It is far easier to measure the height of the boards and mark a line from the subfloor up the doorpost to a height the same as the bamboo hardwood laminate flooring boards and then cutting the bottom of the doorpost off at this point. Then the bamboo hardwood laminate flooring can just slide in underneath the doorpost and there is absolutely no gap showing between the bamboo hardwood laminate flooring and the doorpost – a very professional job. Also, if you are game to try it, continuing the flooring from one room directly into another without using a joining piece of aluminium moulding looks far better. But this can be difficult to do if your bamboo hardwood laminate flooring tongue and groove system forces you to lift each board before slotting it into the next lengthways. If it’s a system where the boards can remain flat when slotting them into each other, then it shouldn’t be a problem. Another point worth noting is that it is possible to buy moulding that allows you to connect the bamboo hardwood laminate flooring with other flooring types like carpet or tiles. Again you may be able to obtain these from you bamboo hardwood laminate flooring supplier or a local hardware store.

bamboo hardwood laminate flooring running underneath a doorpost

Bamboo hardwood laminate flooring passing through a doorway

Finally, once the bamboo hardwood laminate flooring has been laid, its time to install the moulding or skirting boards over the edge of the boards against the wall. This has two purposes. Firstly it covers the space between the bamboo hardwood laminate flooring boards and the walls and secondly it provides a professional finish between the flooring and the walls. As you install them, make sure you cut the ends using the mitre box or mitre saw to give you a 45 degree angle that allows two pieces to meet professionally in the corner and make sure you nail or glue them to the wall and not to the flooring as you need to leave the flooring free to expand and contract under the moulding or skirting boards.

Hardwood Laminate Flooring vs Hardwood Flooring

I have a friend who recently decided that he wanted to renovate his house and as part of that decided to renew his flooring using either hardwood laminate flooring that glued to the subfloor or hardwood laminate flooring that acted as floating boards. He gave me a call to get my advice – strangely enough I had done exactly the same thing several years ago. I was faced with the decision of whether to go with the glue or glueless hardwood laminate flooring. So I went through the advice with him that I had received. This wasn’t the only thing that he was considering – he had also been looking at cork laminate flooring and bamboo laminate flooring. Ultimately the reason he had decided on hadwood laminate flooring was because it provided a cheaper flooring alternative whilst still looking as good as the real thing. This of course wasn’t always the case. In the past hardwood laminate floor boards often looked fake in comparison to the genuine article. Lets face it – what can really compare to oak hardwood floorboards or maple hardwood floorboards or even pine flooring. These days though, the technology that hardwood laminate floors are made with is outstanding. It’s made of several layers including a core made from mdf or plywood. It’s layers also act as a noise retardant and they resist scuff, stains, scratches and burns. Not only that, the top layer incorporates an actual photo of the hardwood allowing you to have the full range of patterns and colours of just about any type of wood including oak, pine and maple. What’s fantastic about this is that the hardwood laminate flooring, because it is made up of layers, has the superior strength and yet allows you to have the look of hardwood flooring in woods that would normally not be suitable for flooring due to their softness, stainability etc. So now the argument between laminate vs hardwood is not so weighted towards the hardwood.

Laminate Hardwood Flooring costs

Anyway, I digress. So he was mainly choosing hardwood laminate flooring because  it was cheaper than traditional hardwood floorboards. That reminds me. It is also possible to get engineered hardwood laminate flooring where timber that has been reclaimed from old building sites is used as the top layer of the hardwood laminate flooring boards or planks. Obviously this gives a more genuine appearance along with the texture of the wood. But I’ll delve into engineered hardwood laminate floors in a later post. Actually, now that I come to think of it, there is a form of bamboo hardwood laminate flooring that falls into this category that uses shredded bamboo as the top layer. Again this would take away any possibility of the bamboo hardwood laminate flooring appearing fake.
So with costs in mind he also wasn’t very excited about having to get hardwood floor installers to come in and install the floor for him. This is another area where he was able to save money – through installing the hardwood laminate flooring himself. Even though he was a beginner, ge does after all have a small amount of skill in the handy man area but even for beginners hardwood laminate flooring installation is fairly straightforward. All you really need is a flat subfloor, a hand saw, measuring tape, marking pen and any mouldings for joins between doors or where the flooring ends at doors. In terms of a flat subfloor, the level of flatness required is determined by the hardwood laminate floor boards or planks themselves. If they are relatively thin i.e. only 5mm thick, you’ll need an extremely flat surface with very little variance over the a yard length. If the boards are thicker, then they will be able to stand a little more difference between the highs and lows of the floor over a certain length. Either way the hardwood laminate flooring manufacturer will include this information with the instructions. Make sure you read these instructions before attempting to install the hardwood laminate flooring as this is the type of essential information that they will share with you.

Laminate Hardwood Flooring Installation

So just to recap, my friend had decided upon hardwood laminate flooring because it was effectively like getting cheap hardwood flooring – the hardwood laminate boards looked as good as the real thing, were very strong, durable and resistant to scuffing and damage and didn’t need professional hardwood floor installation. In fact if there were some form of damage occurred to the laminate floor, hardwood laminate flooring repair basically just involved disassembling the floor up to the board or boards that had been damaged and replacing those boards with new ones. This is assuming that a completely floating hardwood laminate floor is being used which means the boards are not glued together, or to the floor. It is possible to have a floating hardwood laminate floor where the boards are glued only to each other but obviously if this is the case, the floor is there permanently. My friend also had to make the decision as to whether to use a flooring system where glue was required to fix the boards but in the end decided against it. Although glue would create a tighter fit, he wasn’t interested in having to go to the trouble it involved. Obviously it’s a lot messier and its important to keep the glue from drying on the laminate surface. One advantage using glue has is that it keeps the flooring slightly more resistant to water as it can’t seep between the laminate planks if you drop some water on them. The other advantage is that if your subfloor is a little less flat than you expected, and you go ahead and lay the glueless hardboard laminate flooring, the unevenness under the floor can cause the hardwood laminate floor boards to separate leaving an unsightly gap. This wasn’t enough to cause my friend to go with the glue – he was quite happy that he would make sure he had a very even floor and he didn’t expect to be spilling to much water. Also being a beginner, he felt just laying a hardwood laminate floor without the added stress of getting the glueing right, was enough. As it turned out, he was installing the hardwood laminate flooring where he had previously had carpet. When he pulled the carpet up, there were floorboards underneath (no, not the attractive oak hardwood floor we were talking about earlier but rather fairly unsightly builders flooring planks), and these created a very even floor – obviously the builders of the house had done an excellent job. This also meant he didn’t even need a plastic barrier between the subfloor and the hardwood laminate flooring which would have been necessary had the subfloor been concrete. The last reason he decided to go with this flooring is that hardwood laminate flooring care and cleaning was fairly straightforward – simple vacuuming was normally sufficient and if there was any dried on dirt, just a quick damp mopping over with a gentle floor cleaner would keep the floors looking new.
So for my friend, as he was a beginner when it came to flooring but still wanted to do-it-yourself, the decision was almost complete. The final part of the decision was to make sure he wanted hardwood laminate flooring over another type of laminate e.g. cork laminate or bamboo laminate flooring. Both of these were also attractive but in the end, he preferred the dark richness and texture of oak hardwood laminate flooring.
I’ll leave it there and in the next post I’ll probably cover exactly how his beginner hardwood laminate flooring installation went. Say that 10 times fast!

Bamboo, hardwood, cork or laminate flooring… As a beginner what do you choose? Well after having been faced with this question on several do it yourself remodelling jobs, I decided to write a blog covering my experiences and what I’ve found over that period of time. So join me as I explore the fascinating world of bamboo hardwood laminate floor coverings for beginners.

The list is endless when it comes to the choice of floor coverings available to us today. Usually the key factor in deciding which of these to use is price. Then ususally it is determined by the look that is needed, the durability of the flooring, it’s use and whether it will be used in the bathroom, kitchen, living room, bedroom or basement. Of all of these, when it comes to beginners, my choice is hardwood laminate flooring or bamboo laminate flooring. I’ll explain why later on.

Hardwood Flooring

Another factor that needs to be considered is whether the home where you are laying the flooring is where you are living or an investment property that you are remodelling to improve your rental return or the overall value of the property. If you are laying flooring where you live you may be tempted to go for the more expensive hardwood flooring. This comes in several different types that include in decreasing order of hardness, Mahogany, Hickory, Maple, White Oak,  Ash, Beech, Birch or Pine. Each of these has huge differences in hardness, colour, texture, the tightness of the grain and how many knots occur in the wood e.g. pine tends to be softer, less expensive with a lighter colour that suits more contemporary dwellings whereas mahogany hardwood has a dark rich colour that suits more rustic, antique settings and with it’s incredible durability, will last through the generations. As a flooring option for your own home, these hardwoods are often preferred as they give a more solid, richer experience for your home. They come in either wide or narrow planks with the wider planks possibly being prone to cupping or warping if the wood is not of the harder types. Often the higher cost of these materials can be prohibitive and they do take more maintenance – particularly if the hardwood is one of the softer ones. Knocking, scuffing and staining can be a problem though it is nice to know that down the track you can always get them sanded back, repolished or stained and they are as good as new.

This can also be another of those negatives associated with laying hardwood floors. They usually require professional installation as the use of strong glues or nails are needed to attach them to the sub floor (the flooring beneath). It is handy though that floor boards can be layed on just about any existing flooring including other floorboards or concrete. Unless you are a very handy do It yourselfer, the machinery and skills required to lay the boards can often stop the home renovator from attempting the job. A combination of saws, levelling equipment, underlay, industrial sanding machines and a good knowledge of glues and varnishes to finish the job are required. This is yet another expense when considering laying hardwood floors.

If you have recently bought an investment property that has carpeting and you want to renew the flooring, it wise to have a quick look under the carpet to see if the property already has quality floorboards. If it does – often they will look old and dirty, but with some professional work, they can come up beautifully.

I recently wanted to remodel a one bedroom unit that I own which was part of a duplex building that was roughly 50 years. It had clearly been a single house at one point and was later split into 2 units with a bedroom and living room having been added for the 1 bedroom unit. The unit had dingy carpet throughout with linoleum tiles in the bathroom. When we lifted the carpet, we found oak hardwood flooring in the kitchen and hallway, and pine floorboards in the living room and bedroom. We simply hired a sanding professional to come and sand back the hardwood floor boards. Since the oak was much darker than the pine, they stained the pine with a darker wood stain, and finished with a laquer. This took all of about one and a half days. The first day was spent sanding with a first coat of stain. The second day they sanded back and relaquered. The result was wonderful allowing us to charge hight rent and increasing the value of the unit allowing us to draw down more of the equity to invest in other properties.

Bamboo or Cork Flooring

If the cost of the standard oak or pine hardwood flooring is too much, then two cheaper alternatives include bamboo and cork flooring. If you are interested in environmental conservation then either of these options will also appeal to you. Both are very renewable resources. Bamboo is a grass that takes 5 to 7 years to grow so each crop can be harvested in that time and then it renews within another 5 to 7 years. Alternatively cork comes from the cork tree which takes 25 years to grow, but the cork can be harvested from that tree every 9 years for the next 200 years.
Both cork and bamboo are very durable resisting scuffing and guauging. Cork is also resistant to pressure having the ability to bounce back after having had a heavy object placed upon it. It is also impervious to water due to a natural waxy substance it contains called suberin.

Bamboo, Cork or Hardwood Laminate Flooring

The next alternative to actual hardwood, cork or bamboo is a laminate floor and includes hardwood laminate flooring, bamboo hardwood laminate flooring or cork laminate flooring. I’ll be talking about the bamboo hardwood laminate flooring for those beginners that wish to install laminate flooring themselves. These floors are made of several layers made from a variety of materials each of which serves a different function. The layers include melomine or mdf particle board for the core, with sound, heat proofing and shock absorbing layers as well as a top layer that includes a photograph of the actual bamboo hardwood that is being mimicked. Although the technology used in recent years has allowed for these hardwood laminate floors to appear real and genuine, there are many out there that still have that artificial look to them. To guarantee that these floors look genuine, you can use an engineered pine flooring. This has an actual layer of the real pine hardwood as the top layer that allows it to look as realistic as the genuine product. The wood for this top layer has been reclaimed from old buildings that have been set to be demolished. To all intents and purposes, the flooring appears to be real even though it is primarily made of plywood.

Bamboo hardwood laminate flooring usually comes in varying width planks, but can now also come in tiles. The planks are made with a tongue and groove  system on all four edges that allow for easy installation. This is perfect for the beginner as they just snap or click together and many of these systems no longer require glue. The boards come with a ready to use finish and once they have been laid, they are ready to use immediately. Bamboo laminate hardwood flooring is resistant to scuffs, marking, staining and dirt. They are easily kept clean with vacuuming or the occasional mopping with a damp cloth and a gentle floor cleaner. It is important though that any spills are quickly mopped up particularly in kitchen areas so that moisture does not build up which can lead to warping. The fact that this type of flooring can be laid by the do it yourself handyman means an added saving without the need to call in professionals. This saving is in addition to the savings made on the material itself.

When choosing the supplier of  your hardwood lemonate  boards, it is important to check the quality of the tongue and groove system they are using. Some boards simply slide straight into each other and can just as easily slide back out again. This is fine once the floor has been laid, but can prove annoying whilst laying it. A better system is one where one board has to be liften on the side opposite the joining side, for the board to be able to slide in. When the board is then dropped back down, it locks in and can only be removed by lifting it again before sliding it out.
Another point to consider when choosing your supplier is how many meters or feet squared of flooring do they provide in a pack. Usually the more you order the cheaper it becomes as well. It is also wise to order an extra pack or two of boards as mistakes are bound to occur no matter how proficient a hanyman you may think you are.
Finally, and this is primarily the case for bamboo hardwood engineered laminate floors, make sure you get all the floor boards you need in the one go. The reason for this is the color of the bambo can change greatly between crops and if your boards use a layer of actual bamboo on top, it is important that all your lamenate boards come from the one batch so that there is no variation in the floring once you have laid it.
Finally, the manufacturers should provide you with a tool kit for installation that will include spacers and a Z shaped hammering tool – more on these later.

There are so many wonderful advantages that hardwood laminated flooring give you. With todays technology, they appear to be genuine hardwood, cork or bamboo flooring. They can be installed by the do it yourself handyman doing away with the need for professional and costly installashion. The material used in the makeup of the laminated hardwood boards reduces the cost of the flooring markedly resulting in an overall great look at a fraction of the price of the genuine article. This makes them perfect for renovating or remodeling investment properties or even your own home.

I was recently in a position where I needed to remodel the lower living area of my mum’s house. The area already had a bedroom, living room and study as well as the laundry and faced into the underground rock that the upstairs house was built upon. To this I needed to add a wall to separate the entire area from the underhouse rock. A kitchette was also added and the ceiling rafters covered with plaster board. We decided that the perfect solution for the flooring would be laminated bamboo flooring. We ordered our flooring from Ikea – that wonderful home living store from Sweden that allows you to furnish and fit out your entire house. They have wonderful flat pack furniture and all of their products are of the highest quality. This includes their hardwood laminate timber and bamboo flooring. I believe they also have cork flooring as well. They have the tongue and groove system that requires you to lift the board before fitting it to the next board.

Something else that needs considering is the underlay. There are 2 main types of underlay – the first is a form of felt that can be used if you are laying the floating laminate boards on a non concrete surface that is very flat. This includes carpet, linoleum or other floorboards and acts as a sound repressant in the case of floor boards or lino. The other type of floor underlay is a thicker dense fibre cardboard style underlay that is more suited if your sub floor is slightly uneven or requires a greater form of sound muffling. In our case we were laying the floors on concrete that was very uneven and not level. In fact we hired builders to come in and pour a layer of cement to both even out the floor and to make it level. As it turned out they didn’t do a completely satisfactory job as the floor still wasn’t quite even enough for the bamboo timber laminate boards we were using. They required no more than 3mm difference in the level of the floor over a meter of floor length. The resultant job of the concreters had a greater difference than this. The thicker underlay that we used certainly helped but it wasn’t quite enough. As a result we ended up with two small gaps occurring. If you find that your cement floor isn’t flat enough for the laminate boards, you do have some alternatives. The first is to use a levelling agent over the concrete. This is a powder that is mixed with water to a slightly runny consistency and then poured over the concrete. It will self level into the lower areas of the concrete and then harden, making the concrete level overall. The problem with this levelling agent Is that it is extremely expensive.
The other solution to an uneven floor is to use thicker hardwood laminate flooring boards that allow a greater unevenness in the underlying sub floor. The bamboo laminate floor boards we used were only about 5mm thick. Obviously the thicker you go on the flooring boards, the more money you pay.
The final part of the underlay which is only necessary when you are laying the laminate floor over a concrete slab is a polyethylene plastic layer. This forms a barrier to moisture rising from the concrete into the floor boards. Most laminate hardwood flooring doesn’t handle continuous moisture well and will warp if exposed to it continuously. Concrete is notorious for rising moisture or damp particulalry in basements and rumpus rooms. A plastic barrier is therefore necessary which needs to run underneath the laminated hardwood planks to about one inch up the wall on every side. The plastic barrier that appears on the wall is then hidden with skirting boards.

Once having ordered the flooring, it is often necessary to stack the packs of boards horizontally in the room you will be installing them into. This is necessary to acclimatize the boards as they can expand and contract depending on the level of humidity and temperature existing in the room. It is far better to have them acclimatised to the room having expanded or contracted as much as they will rather than laying them without acclimatizing them and finding that they then either expand, causing warping of the boards or contract causing gaps.
Yes this is possible even when using the system of tongue and groove mentioned above since this system only locks the boards in length ways. It does not lock the boards at the ends of the boards. If the boards contract, they can leave gaps at the end.

The next point to consider is that you have all the necessary tools required to install the boards. These include a knife to cut the underlay, scissors to cut the polyethylene plastic barrier, a good sized handsaw for cutting the timber boards themselves, a square for making sure the ends of the laminate boards are square, a tape measure and the spacers and Z shaped tool provided by the manufacturers and a good hammer. Also once you have finished laying the bamboo laminate boards, there will be a gap between them and the walls. You will need to use either an edging or skirting boards to hide this gap. The gap is necessary to allow expansion of the laminate hardwood without warping. Both the moulding and the skirting boards can usually be obtained from your floating floor supplier, but are usually cheaper if bought from your local hardware store. In this case they will come unfinished and require a coat of undercoat paint followed by top coat paint in a colour that suits the walls and the laminate flooring you are laying taking into account the specific colour of the cork, bamboo, oak, maple, pine or other hardwood boards you may have. To install the edging properly, it will also be necessary for you to have a mitre box or a drop down saw that allows you to change the angle of the saw so that you can cut 45 degree angels on your skirting boards or moulding so that they fit together nicely in each corner.

Once you have everything ready to go you need to choose the direction the laminate harwood boards will lay – usually they lay lengthways in the direction where most of the light is coming from i.e. in the direction of the window. Once you have the floor level, the plastic barrier laid, and the underlay down, you can take the first board and begin. Make sure you follow the manufacturers directions to the T but basically the method involves laying the first hardwood laminate board down against a wall with the spacers in between the laminate board and the wall. Then fit  the next bamboo laminate board at its end, and keeping doing this until you hit the opposite wall. Then measure how much room is left allowing for space at the end, cut a length of board equal to this and place this in the gap between the last board and the wall. Use the offcut as  the starting point for the next row. This makes sure that the joins between the ends of the planks are offset from one row to another which adds strenght to the bamboo laminte floor and improves its appearance. Continue doing this until you have covered the entire floor.

You will need to buy some form of moulding either from the laminate flooring board supplier or from a hardware store to cover the ends of the boards at doorways leading outside. I used a C shaped piece of stainless steel channelling that I placed over the end and glued to the concrete underneath. You may also want to use T shaped mouldings between the boards at doorways leading into other rooms. I chose to run the boards staight through the door so that the hardwood flooring was continuous without a break. To use this method though you need to be able to push the floorboard straight into the next floorboard whilst lying flat. I therefore needed to slice a little bit off the tongue of the tongue and groove of one laminated board so that this could be achieved.

Another tip worth noting is to cut the bottoms off door posts at the height of the bamboo hardwood laminate floor boards so that they can slide underneath. This saves cutting the boards around the door posts which will likely appear unsightly since there will always be gap between the door posts and the boards. Sliding the laminated boards under the doorposts eliminates this problem.