Hardwood floors

[Doc]

Had a very good day today. Visted with our 7 month old grandbaby (Bree) and helped Bree's daddy & mommy work on their new house.

The big project for the day was to start laying the hardwood. They are putting teak hardwood on all floors except for Bree's bedroom. Boy is it going to look nice. I learned how to install hardwood (I had never worked with hardwood floors before) and I learned teak was the 2nd hardest hardwood.
So, if teak is number 2, what is the hardest hardwood?

 

[thcri]

Had a very good day today. Visted with our 7 month old grandbaby (Bree) and helped Bree's daddy & mommy work on their new house.

The big project for the day was to start laying the hardwood. They are putting teak hardwood on all floors except for Bree's bedroom. Boy is it going to look nice. I learned how to install hardwood (I had never worked with hardwood floors before) and I learned teak was the 2nd hardest hardwood.
So, if teak is number 2, what is the hardest hardwood?

Number 1 is.

 

[DaveNay]

Lignum vitae is generally considered the hardest wood. It is actually more dense than water, and will sink.

 

[Erik]

Cumaru & Ipe will also both sink, as will pretty much any variety of "ironwood".

I started installing our bamboo flooring yesterday.
pretty happy with the performance I got out of my "el cheapo" HF floor nailer.

 

[Dargo]

Lignum vitae is generally considered the hardest wood. It is actually more dense than water, and will sink.

Hmm, I'm fairly certain that my wife bought a wood dolphin made of lignum vitae (wood of life in Latin, I believe) when were in the Bahamas. It feels as if it is made of lead.

My oak floors have lasted though 5 kids, all their toys, and several dogs and only seem to look better with age. A few years ago I posted on here where I did our bedroom to match in the same oak. It was a major task, but I saved huge money by doing it myself.

I'm considering using bamboo in the floor of a recreation room I plan to build on the 2nd floor inside my new barn. I've read where it is very hard and durable yet reasonably priced due to it's abundance and fast growth. I would think bamboo would not only be strong, but also somewhat flexible. Obviously, I love wood flooring. All of the beautiful old homes I've ever toured have featured hardwood floors that show character with their advanced age and still look great.

 

[Av8r3400]

We've got Hickory in our house. I never thought yo could bend a flooring nail until I worked with this stuff. has to be one of the top ones for hardness.

 

[Erik]

Dargo, check Lumber Liquidators when you're ready to shop for bamboo - they had the best prices we could find, local or online, and if they have a storefront anywhere near you, they'll price match any online sales. (Plus picking it up at the storefront means there's no shipping to pay, as opposed to $600 or more delivered to your front door)

 

[ALLEN PARSONS]

Bamboo floors They do look nice but be ready to do a lot of work to install it right.
The wife and I just installed bamboo in your living room, and what a pain that was. She said. I want bamboo (I will install it) Been the nice person I am I said OK. My better half even made the custom heating air ducks.
They recommend using 18 Gauge nails or stapling. Anything larger then that will crack the tougue of the flooring. The bamboo is so hard the a 18 Gauge staple will not set itself in the touge With out bending. So we tried nailing with 18 Gauge nails It did work , but still the bamboo would crack on the tongue, about 10 percent of the time The last recourse was to pre drill and hand nail the bamboo.
If anyone has used 16 gauge on your bamboo. All I can say Is Good Luck.
My better half has been into woodworking for the last 20 years and she said never again will she play with bamboo flooring. We will go oak or maple for the rest of the house.

 

[Erik]

I'm using cleats and so long as i'm careful about placement, I'm not seeing any cracking unless I get too close to an end.

 

[Raspy]

One nice little trick is to get the bamboo that is pre-coated on both sides and all four edges. As you install pre-coat any cut pieces, where you cut, with urethane. You don't have to be particularly careful or wait for it to dry, just coat the cut and go on.

I glued mine down and avoided the splitting issue which also makes a path for moisture. But it's much harder to do it this way.

I found that bamboo was the most water resistant of all wood materials I tested.

I think it's the nicest natural "wood" flooring there is.

 

[Melensdad]

One nice little trick is to get the bamboo . . .

I think it's the nicest natural "wood" flooring there is.

We put down "tigerwood" last October. I looked at Bamboo and really liked it, but could not find it in 'just the right color' so we passed on the choice. Sad too because our dining room is very oriental in decor and the bamboo would have looked very nice. But it only seems to come in two basic colors, natural, which would not have worked for us, and a caramel color that was just wrong for us compared to our other wood (the house trim is mostly cherry stained, cherry cabinets, cherry paneling, etc.)

Not sure how hard tigerwood is, but its harder than oak by a good margin.

 

[Dargo]

Of all things, my attorney picked out his own flooring and paid someone to install it. What did he pick? He picked out his own 'wood' from Sam's Club. His, um, wood is actually plastic with a wood look painted on it's surface. In less than a week it had dozens of places where the wood look had scratched off.

He said that he remembered me telling him that the commercial, urethane impregnated, oak I used cost me nearly $9 a sq. ft. to put down myself. He was bragging that he only paid $2.75 a sq. ft. installed. The problem is that it shows. I wouldn't put the stuff he bought in a mobile home! Two months after installing he is getting quotes to have it replaced. Something tells me he won't end up saving money in the long run.

 

[Erik]

wild - we tore the 1979 orange carpet out of the place we were renting and replaced it with sam's club laminate. 5 years later when we moved out it still looked new. Maybe their current stuff isn't as durable.