Wife said the tax money is going to paint and floors, not the truck

Soooo, She wants Bamboo laminate I've researched this till I'm blue in the face. Is this laminate or solid wood 3/8, 5/8 or 3/4" stuff any good. It's all the rage around here and does look good but I'm old school and like oak or cherry (hard wood) Everything I've read about bamboo is that it is like a hardwood but will scratch and dent easy. Then I read about white and red oak and they say the same??? If so I'll let the bamboo win. I've had 3/4" oak in our old house and it was bullet proof. I sanded, stained, and verithained it and it held up great and was over 50 years old and looked like new when we sold.

Back to the laminate (snap in place board type) We have some of that in the basement office on a cement slab and I am impressed with it but it does look like laminate. We are planning on doing the entire main level, family room living room and dining room ~600sq ft. The other areas, entry doors, hall, bath and kitchen will be tile of some type. Obviously the laminate is cheaper than solid board but if it will last ~15 years and look as good we'll do that.

I guess I'm asking for opinions from those that have laminate vs. board bamboo and any installer preferences.

 

I'm in the process of doing an addition and planning on wood floors so I've been looking at different flooring and doing some research. If you have a Lumber Liquidator store near you it would be worth your time to visit them. So far they have the best prices I can find and the staff at the store near me know their stuff.

 

mesquite is a tough wood i believe wood flooring that is what the flooring guys call engineered is supposed to be nice and durable.

 

I put in Bamboo. The solid stuff 5/8" thick and glued it down over a wood subfloor.

The solid stuff is so much better than laminate because it is really hard and can be refinished over and over if needed. Bamboo is cheap enough and stable enough that there is no reason to make a laminate out of it. You can get it finished on all sides ready to go and in different colors. Very nice stuff and a renewable product.

If you get it in different colors you can make some accent perimeter stripes or some other pattern on the floor. Then split some pieces lengthwise on a table saw and route one edge for base moulding. It makes a cheap moulding that looks very nice and is quite durable.

Mine is still perfect after about 4 years except where a couple of tall floor lamps fell over and broke their glass shades. A little touchup of urethane and all is well.

It's also the most waterproof of all wood flooring materials I tested and was not very expensive at a liquidator place.

 

If possible, stay away from 3" wide board I purchased ours a few years back about 1800 sq ft and it is starting to cup. I glue it to concrete don't know if that caused it or not but if your nailing it might do better.We bought ours from lumber liquidators as well an they have a wood hardness chart that u can refer too

 

i install flooring for a living, the engineered wood is more stable and is less likley to cup in a moisture rich or below grade environment, ive seen bamboo as soft as cardboard to as hard as steel i guess it depends on the species, the vertical cut bamboo is rediculously strong but expensive. and make sure to aclimate your flooring at least a week and check to make sure your moisture content of the wood and floor are within specs or it will for sure cup.

 

I researched the solid bamboo stuff last fall and the hardness is directly related to how light or dark the stuff is.. The darker the wood, the softer it is as they heat it to darken it. The hardest variety is the natural bamboo color (light, light yellow). It gets softer as it is made darker.
The laminated bamboo stuff I never even gave a 2nd look.
There is solid stuff called "woven" bamboo where they mash the bamboo wood fibers like a rope and then re-constitute it. Just as hard, has a different look.

 

Laminate is cheap, and very easy to install! It probably won't hold up if your dishwasher floods your kitchen though. But it is pretty durable otherwise. It seems like more and more people are putting in laminate these days.

 

Yes, it's true that laminate wood flooring is very cheap and easy to install. Laminate wood flooring is eco-friendly as it makes utilize of more fiber substance than wood. Laminate wood flooring is a multipurpose flooring product and can be mounted in anywhere of a house.

 

We are building a house right now and decided to try a product called Adura that is made by mannington, it's a vinyl plank flooring (now I know you are thinking-vinyl, my grandma had that in her house.) It looks very much like wood and is supposed to be extremely durable and easy to clean, my builder who was a flooring guy before he started building, swears by the stuff. He uses it in some pretty high end houses and says everyone is pleased with it. It was fairly inexpensive (about the same price as tile) and per our flooring installer is easy to install. The only thing I didn't like about it was that it is pretty thin so the transitions take a little bit of crafting to make them look good when going from tile to Adura. It comes with a 15 year warranty and I tested the durability of it on some scraps that were laying around and I was only able to scratch it with a pocket knife and a decent amount of pressure. That being said it doesn't have the same feel as wood or laminate and it is very non-slip so no waxing the floor and sliding Tom Cruise style across the living room.

 

Go with solid wood........bamboo is a good flooring product.

 

X2 - cant refinish laminate.

 

I wouldn't glue wood flooring to a concrete slab, especially if yo are unsure if a vapor baririer was installed, and instaled correctly.

Concrete and wood products do not have the same expansion/contraction rates and are not a good mix.

The bamboos are a good flooring product. They have a good range of colors and are very durable. Solid product is refinishable, laminated is pretty stable and easy to install. By a quality product from a known reputable manufacturer and make sure you get a reasonable warranty.

If you need to install ocewr concrete, use a good vapor barrier and float the flooring on it.

 

x2.....I've always used wood nailers if I was installing above concrete. I don't care for laminate......mt B-I-L used it in two town homes........nice to install and originally looks good. However, your future options are limited.