We have 42 boxes of bamboo flooring sitting in our living room. Enough to cover 1,000 square feet. We planned to install a chunk of flooring this past weekend, but hit a snag.
We bought a nail gun, air compressor, and a bunch of nails hoping to get started on the floor. Our friendly local hardware stores (Lowe's & Menards) had only 1 size flooring nail and all flooring nail guns obviously used this one nail. The problem is our flooring (and all bamboo flooring) requires smaller nails and a different nail gun - as air-powered nail guns can only drive nails of a specific thickness. Darn.
The gun we bought wasn't driving the 16-gauge, 2-inch nails all the way through our bamboo. We figured a shorter nail of the same gauge would fix the problem. After luckily running into a flooring installer, he said we needed BOTH a shorter nail and 18-gauge nails. So off we go to order this new $500 gun and a bunch of nails...
In the meantime, we also learned that bamboo flooring swells in the summer (or shrinks in the winter, depending on your point of view). Thus, we are semi considering installing our floor this summer to avoid swelling and cracking. I'm not sure if the floor would crack or just creak more, but given the $4k price tag of the wood, it's probably worth considering the options.
We bought a nail gun, air compressor, and a bunch of nails hoping to get started on the floor. Our friendly local hardware stores (Lowe's & Menards) had only 1 size flooring nail and all flooring nail guns obviously used this one nail. The problem is our flooring (and all bamboo flooring) requires smaller nails and a different nail gun - as air-powered nail guns can only drive nails of a specific thickness. Darn.
The gun we bought wasn't driving the 16-gauge, 2-inch nails all the way through our bamboo. We figured a shorter nail of the same gauge would fix the problem. After luckily running into a flooring installer, he said we needed BOTH a shorter nail and 18-gauge nails. So off we go to order this new $500 gun and a bunch of nails...
In the meantime, we also learned that bamboo flooring swells in the summer (or shrinks in the winter, depending on your point of view). Thus, we are semi considering installing our floor this summer to avoid swelling and cracking. I'm not sure if the floor would crack or just creak more, but given the $4k price tag of the wood, it's probably worth considering the options.
Great article! The bamboo flooring will look great when you are finished. I never that bamboo swells in the summer, that was very interesting.
ReplyDeleteBrett,
DeleteThanks for thinking the article was good. I also heard that bamboo is very prone to sun-fading, so you need to move furniture/rugs around regularly. Would you worry about installing the floor this winter knowing the summer will bring swelling?
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ReplyDeleteBrazilian Cherry Flooring