laying bamboo flooring

becs

Hi,

Has anyone got any tips for installing bamboo florring? My Husband has never installed any flooring before and we now have 74m2 to put down. Failing this if anyone knows anybody in the Peterborough area that does flooring installation at a reasonable rate.

ritesh

Hi Becs

I presume you have tounge and groove joints on the flooring rather than a click system.

Is the floor going directly on to the floor?

Is the floor a screed floor (concrete)?

If it is a screed floor then you will need to put down a layer of insulation with a polythene backing (about 2mm). The polythene backing will prevent moisture coming up from the floor and making direct contact with the wood, otherwise this will cause damage to the wood and swelling.

You might even want to use on top of this a further 3mm layer of insulation. The green square boards from Wicks should do it.

When putting the floor down leave at least 5-10ml gap from the wall. This gives the wood room to expand.

In the groove joints make sure you have a good bead of wood glue and NOT just a few dabs here and there. This will make sure that the wood does not come apart in the future.

Other than that a good sharp saw and jig-saw.

Also, are your skirting boards off. If so this will make a cleaner job.

Once done you can put the skirting boards back which will cover up the gap around the walls.

Hope this helps and good luck

becs

Hi,

Thanks for the advice. Yes it is the tongue and groove stuff and yes it is going onto a concrete floor. We have taken the skirting boards off aswell so hopefully not too bad a job. He's going to start in the downstairs loo and see how he get's on. If ok then I think he will try and tackle our new conservatory. At least that's just a big empty box at the mo nice rectangle shape and no pipes out of the floor to cut round so should make it a bit easier.

Thanks again

ritesh

:j Don't forget the thanks button if the post helps ;-)):j