There are three different ways to install your solid bamboo flooring:

1.Floating floor (gluing the tongue and groove joints together over an underlay)

2.Secret nailing the floor down to a wood sub-floor.

3.Gluing the floor down to a concrete or wood floor.

All need careful preparation: The floor must be clean, dry and level, if you have had newly laid concrete you must check for moisture. The bamboo flooring is a natural product and needs to acclimatise, place your flooring in the room/s which it will be laid, lay the boxes flat and open, leaving the floor in the boxes for minimum of 48 hours. If you do not let the flooring acclimatise you will have problems once laid. Because bamboo flooring is a natural product there will be differences in colour and patterns/grain, when you are ready to lay the flooring take it out of the boxes and inspect the colour/ pattern and build piles light, medium and dark. When you lay the floor you can stagger the colour/pattern through out the whole area. With all panel flooring you should lay the boards in the line of the greatest natural light source.

Floating Floor (using underlay Cush’n’wood underlay) Once you have laid your underlay, place some 10mm spacers round your room once removed they will leave an expansion gap. Start to lay your flooring by gluing the tongue and groove joints (do not glue the boards to the underlay) together with waterproof PVA glue, stagger the planks in whatever pattern you want to achieve.

Secret Nailing. Prepare a plywood sub-floor, nail any loose areas that move or squeak. Sand and or plane any high spots, also fill any low areas, once the floor is level sweep/clean surface. The first row of the bamboo must be secured leaving a 10mm expansion gap, once the first row is straight and secure carry on building up the rows secret-nailing into the groove (min. three per plank) being careful not to go to close to the end to prevent splitting. PVA glue can be used as well to fully seal the floor, stagger the planks in whatever pattern you want to achieve.

Gluing down (concrete or wood floor) Prepare your floor first. If it is wood, sand and or plane any high spots also fill any low areas. If concrete use self leveling compound to level the floor, once the floor is level sweep/clean surface. Remove any chemicals/adhesives that may affect/react with the adhesive used to secure the flooring down. The first row must be secured leaving a 10mm expansion gap, once the first row is straight and secure carry on building up the rows by gluing them to the floor, stagger the planks in whatever pattern you want to achieve. Use Bona R850 or Sika T54 for this method (this is in our adhesives page).