I'm a foolish do-it-yourself. I just built a little house by myself. In the living room I installed 5/8" natural horizontal bamboo. It looks great. It sounds bad. I put 30# roofing felt down over 3/4 osb subfloor. I let the floor acclimate for about a week before installation. I nailed the floor down as per the manufacturer's spec. I didn't do a moisture test, which i assume is the problem (like i said...foolish do-it-yourselfer).

the boards are loose in spots and i can hear them peel away from the roofing felt when I step on and off them. It annoys me. my girlfriend doesn't notice and thinks I'm ridiculous. to a certain degree, i agree with her.javascript:emoticon(':wink:')

I've face nailed the worst spots.....but, after filling the holes with putty, dirt gathers and looks lame. and, really, the whole floor seems less than solid under your foot.

so, i'm thinking about sanding or screening the floor, face nailing the whole floor, refinishing with a water based finish.

does this sound stupid?

anything else i should consider?

would the snap-off screws be better than nails for the whole floor?

The bamboo has an aluminum-oxide finish. Can I screen and recoat it? Or do i need to sand it all off?

I'm thinking that the next house i build will have wall to wall TILE.

I'd love to hear your thoughts!!!!

OSB?

Stapled to OSB is the problem.
Noised originate from movement and the board rubbing together.
I suspect your floor is loose due to lack of stay power nailing to osb or fastener problem.

Yes you can Re-Coat the floor.

NOFMA says OSB is acceptable. Although not ideal, I can't imagine it should be the OSB creating the issue?

Well even though OSB is acceptable there are other factors that werent followed/overlooked.

1. No moisture testing, this could be a large portion of the problem.
2. 5/8th bamboo... Most likely installed with a 3/4 staple gun?
3. Its on a 45, while going over OSB.. Did you hit every joist with staples?
4. Was the subfloor flat?
5. How often did you staple


Bamboo can be sanded, recoating over an aluminum oxide finsh requires additional steps and may not yeild the results you are expecting

Another issue that MAY be at play here is poor milling of the T&G. Most bamboo flooring is manufactured in China where there are few, if any, standards. I have installed bamboo flooring by stapling and due to the loose T&G, the flooring was noisy. There may and probably are other factors involved but loose T&G milling could be one of them as well.

I didn't use staples. I used 1-1/2" cleats. (the funny shaped nails). The floor wasn't perfectly flat in spots so I added peices of roofing felt to adjust floor height. by the time i started nailing, in my opinion, the floor was flat.

so would you reccomend sanding the floor, face nailing, refinishing.
or is there something else i can do. I don't mind doing all the work to refinish the floor. I just don't want to wind up with a noisy refinished floor. I didn't realize osb was an undesirable substrate. Did I Screw Myself?

Also, Do you know of any good online tutorials on floor refinishing. In case haven't figured it out yet...I'm pretty new to this.


thanks a lot for your input thus far!!!javascript:emoticon(':mrgreen:')

If you can acess it you may be able to screw down the spots from below. It also could be the subfloor itself squeeking on top the floor joist. Door shims will work well to fix that of couse thats if you can get to them as well. I dont know where exquiste flooring buys his nails but even with a 2" nail/ staple you only get maybe a 1/4" protruding from the bottom of a 3/4" subfloor with a 3/4 floor, which means if you are spending lots of time trying to hit the floor joist then you are wasting your time there is not enough nail to grab the joist.

Hitting all the joists doesnt solve all the problems, as you say only 1/4 in max will be in the joists. But it helps, Im sure each and every one of us (when we were originally trained) had the guy showing us how to use the staple gun (power nailer for me) and he said something like "make sure to put a cleat on those joists"

Gary has something here. Look at the side match and see if there is movement when putting them together on a flat surface.

OSB: I'm not sure what is going on, but we've inspected failures on OSB this past few months... Sent in the OSB for testing and found the OSB not meeting specifications (glue failure).... Wonder if it is Chinese...

OKAY....I took a couple of leftover boards and fit them together on the driveway. The tongue and groove are definitely loose! javascript:emoticon(':evil:'). I guess i should have recognized this problem before i put the floor down. newbie mistake. In case you're wondering....the flooring is Morning Star Bamboo...made in china. they sell a ton of it @ lumber liquidators.....so said the sales rep.

I did hit all floor joists when nailing the boards down...even though it seemed pointless since the nails only went through the osb an 1/8th" at the most.

after reading up on the aluminum oxide finish, it seems like face nailing and refinishing would be a ton of work. The floor is on the second story above a finished garage. I'm thinking it might be easier to take out the drywall on the garage ceiling and screw up into the hardwood from below, then repair the drywall. I guess what it boils down to is:

I know i can fix drywall
I don't how good of a wood floor refinisher i am.

any thoughts on doing this without a tremendous mess?

thanks a lot guys!!! i really appreciate your ideas!!!

That's about the only reason I order samples. To check the tongue and grooves. Color may or may not vary from lot to lot, but the T&Gs to me are the killer thing. I've dinged most inexpensive generics becaue of the poor T&G interconnecting.

Morning Star.... Lumber Liquidators, strikes again!!


Isn't that a gluedown only product??

That stuff is an installation nightmare.

Farren,

Did you buy the "odd Lot" deal from them? Just curious.

No. it wasn't an odd lot. I just bought the retail boxed hardwood. I guess i should have come here first. lesson learned.

anyone else had bad luck with morning star bamboo?

thanks everybody!

I've had bad luck with some imported flooring, both bamboo and exotics. It's a real crap shoot ( get it, CRAP ). Anyway, the only imports I will now buy are from my local distributors who pre- select/test and judge the shipment before reselling it. I check the T&G fit first and if there's a problem, the order is returned. But that doesn't solve your problem. Oftentimes, once it's installed, you own it. All you can do is pester LL and see if they'll give you a refund or some more flooring. And IMO, all 1/2" bamboo should only be glued down, even if the manufacturer says it can be mechanically fastened (nailed/stapled).