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.