Frequently Asked Questions

Heating systems typically do not affect bamboo flooring. On occasions customers have experienced some shrinking and surface damage to floors that are directly in front of fan forced gas, or wood-heating systems that are installed directly on to the floor. If in doubt, please explain your situation to us and we will gladly share our experience with you.

Internationally, Bamboo is regarded as termite resistant and is not a part of their natural food source. However, as termites will even eat through concrete to get to a timber they want, our experience has shown us that termites can eat bamboo flooring. Therefore, we impregnate the raw material with the mineral boron which has the effect of improving the floors already natural resistance. It is important to note that the floor is not termite proof, so prevention is better than cure.

Typically no. By following the Bamboozle^® cleaning and maintenance guide your beautiful bamboo floor will continue to look great for many years. In the showroom all we use to clean the floor is the Enjo (micro fibre) mop. It is very quick and effective.

Caring for your bamboo floor is very easy and we provide all customers with a floor care kit, which includes a guide to maintaining and repairing your floor. A quick summary to maintain your floor’s beauty:

1. Install protector felt on furniture
2. Use area rugs on high traffic pathways
3. Place mats at exterior doors to trap sand and grit from incoming traffic
4. Remove spills promptly
5. Vacuum or sweep floor regularly with a soft broom to remove sand and grit
6. We recommend using micro-fibre cleaning mops

It is inevitable that your floor will become damaged at some point. This is no different to solid timber, laminate or any other wooden flooring. The type of damage will dictate the best course of action. We provide a care kit with every floor that has a number of products that you can use to fix minor damage yourself, for example scratches and dents. One of the great advantages of a pre-finished Bamboozle^® floor is that damaged boards can be easily rectified. In most cases a great result is achieved by simply cutting out and replacing the damaged floor boards, returning your floor to its original condition. The process is a little more complicated for sanded and polished floors as you may require an additional coat of polish or a resand over the entire floor once a floorboard has been replaced.

Tests at Curtin University, commissioned by Bamboozle®, have shown that the different styles of bamboo flooring have differences in hardness. The earlier vertical and horizontal styles of bamboo are slightly softer than Jarrah whilst Bamwood® style is 73% harder than Jarrah. Additional tests have shown bamboo flooring to be more stable. This means it has a greater structural integrity, without expanding and contracting as much as solid timber flooring due to temperature change or humidity.

When holding the product, you may notice that it is quite heavy in comparison to timber, so it could be assumed there is a lot of glue in the board. In fact, it has just under 2% glue content in total. The increase in density is actually from the compressing process which uses a 2,000 tonne press to compact the raw bamboo fibres. That is what makes it so hard-wearing as a floor.

Our customers have remarked that Bamboozle® floors are very easy to keep clean. You can use many different cleaning products. After years of practice we now recommend the use of micro fibre brooms as one of the best products for keeping these floors looking great. They are a great investment if you want to save time and reduce the use of chemicals in your home. They also leave your floor free from streak marks.

It really depends on the severity of the flooding. It is dependent on the volume of water spilt on the floor and how long it remains on the floor before it dries or is drained away. In minor flooding scenarios there is often no change to the floors appearance, however instances of major flooding can result in the floor having to be repaired by replacing boards in the damaged area or by sanding and polishing. Long periods of excess water tend to damage the polish on the surface of the floorboards. Bamboozle® boards are engineered in such a way that help them to be more resistant to moisture than a solid timber floor and therefore can often withstand these situations with more resilience. These built in features include; coating the boards with polyurethane on all surfaces and having a cross-lamination layer that includes a humidity expansion gap. It is also understood that the bamboo fibre is regarded to be more water resistant than most timber fibres.

Bamboozle’s ranges of bamboo, Australian hardwoods and French Oak floors are all made using the same patented process that ensure the most stable and beautiful floors available.

The main difference in the product range is really the look of the floor. There are some difference in the hardness of the floors (download our “Hardness Guide” for more details) and the gloss level. And whilst there are some price differences between our different floor ranges, we ensure a competitive and value-for-money outcome for all our customers.

All Bamboozle floors are:
– Made with Stay-Flat technology for maximum stability, strength and durability
– Covered by Bamboozle’s Lifetime Warranty
– Prefinished with highest quality coatings to minimise scratches and wear-and-tear
– Managed from start to finish by our experienced supervisors
– Installed to Bamboozle’s industry-leading installation quality standards

The pre-finished floor boards are coated with 7 coats of low emission water based German polyurethane to improve the scratch-resistance of your floor. The floors that are sanded and polished in the home are coated with premium grade products that are capable of withstanding the vigor’s of every day life. The polishes we use at Bamboozle® are tough, but not scratch proof. If properly maintained they will give you years of fuss-free living. We also supply you with a special care kit to help minimise the appearance of any surface scratches.

Our product is manufactured to our specific design requirements in an ISO 9001 accredited factory in China. Bamboo flooring is an adaptation of proven European timber flooring technology and instead of using wood we have substituted bamboo. In fact much of the machinery, polyurethane and glues we use are still imported from European countries. The reason this is primarily manufactured in China is due to the abundant supply of suitable bamboo there.

Spills will simply pool on top of the boards. The pre-finished boards are sealed on all sides with polyurethane to protect them. In addition to this the floor is clamped up tight when laid. The sanded and polished floors have a coating over the entire surface. Both finishes help protect the raw material from absorbing such spills, however, all spills should be cleaned up as soon as possible. If the polish layer is removed the floor will be more susceptible to potential staining.

It is not uncommon to install our floors over tiles. There are a few potential issues that you need to be aware of: If the tiles come loose from the sub floor you are not covered by our installation warranty. Tile floors are rarely perfectly flat so when your bamboo floor is installed it will have some hollow sounding areas. The other thing we must check is that the glue we use bonds very well to the surface of the tile. In most cases we recommend that the floor be wiped over with metholated spirits and given a light sanding to ensure the glue bonds sufficiently. Laying 15mm thick boards over existing tiles can create height discrepancies to adjoining floor coverings and you may need to adjust the clearance height of doors.

Existing timber floors are no different to other types of sub floor and as long as they are level, free from polish and oils then they are more than suitable for installing onto. Installing bamboo flooring over the top of them just means existing timber floors may simply need a coarse floor sanding to level them and remove existing finishes.

This is a difficult question for us to answer without knowing your skill level. In saying this we have had many customers choose to install their own floors and the majority of them have had great results. If you choose to install yourself we give you a self installation guide that gives some useful hints and we also give you phone support. We’ll also invite you to see one of our floors being installed, to help give you further insight into the process. A few customers that have run into difficulty have asked our installers to lend a hand. So if you have the confidence this is a great way to save money and can give you a sense of satisfaction.

We have done this in a number of installations. There are a number of things that need to be considered. Our experience with under floor heating is that the installer of the heating needs to pay attention to the level of the finished floor. On a number of jobs we have found that the screed or mesh that covers the under floor heating cables can be uneven, making it very difficult to install over. You will need to inform the Bamboozle^® team if you intend to install under floor heating under the bamboo. We have a blog post explaining more about bamboo flooring and underfloor heating considerations.

Traditionally, the best method of installing a solid timber floor is to glue and pin the floorboards onto sheets of ply wood. There are several benefits to this type of installation; Firstly, it helps protect the timber from moisture in the sub floor, Secondly, it helps hold down the floor-boards and thirdly it helps minimise the affect of undulations in the sub floor. However, Bamboo is better suited to direct stick installations because it is 15mm thick, more resistant to moisture and movement, and the gluing techniques we use minimise the undulations in the sub floor. Also the way the Bamboozle® boards are manufactured with the cross laminated centre layer effectively reproducing the benefits created by installing boards onto ply wood. Therefore there is little benefit in installing Bamboozle® floor boards onto plywood, unless of coarse your sub floor is unsuitable for direct fixing.

What is the lead time from ordering the product to installation? At Bamboozle® we have consistently achieved the highest standard of bamboo floor installation by only using professional craftsmen experienced in laying bamboo flooring. At present we have several full time installation teams working for us. This gives us the opportunity to install the floor when it suits you. It is a good idea to give us as much lead time as possible to arrange dates that best suit you.

Premium grade bamboo flooring can be installed by various methods depending on site conditions and the bamboo floor you choose. The boards can be glued directly onto the sub floor, fixed direct to battons or plywood, and we have even floated numerous floors.

Bamboo flooring installation time is entirely dependent on the size of the job and the difficulty of the layout. Our installations are typically quick, clean and easy. They usually take about one third the time of laying a solid timber floor. Some homes can be done in a day; others can take up to one week. The only exception to this would be if we sand and polish the floor in your home, in which case you will need to allow at least double the time it would take to install a pre-finished floor.

Pre-finished: There is no need for you to move out. All the boards are pre-finished, which means there is no floor sanding and polishing in the home. The glue we use to bond the boards to the sub floor can give off a faint smell on the first day or two. Once dry there is no release of smells. That’s a big advantage.

Sanded and polished in house: The laying of the boards is quick and clean. The glue we use to bond the boards to the sub floor can give off a faint smell on the first day or two. Once the glue dries there is no release of smell. The floor sanding and polishing process will be a little dusty. We only use state-of-the-art equipment to ensure the process is as quick and clean as possible.

Yes you can. However, it will attract a 1% credit card fee. Your deposit, however, does not incur any fees.

This is an important question. Research from overseas has shown that many bamboo and timber flooring companies that were importing cheap bamboo flooring have gone out of business as a result of a range of issues such as poor quality and customer dissatisfaction. In the last few years there have been a number of local cases of this. As with other products you get what you pay for. That is why Bamboozle^® only invest in the highest quality materials and installers. If you would like added peace of mind about our history and customer satisfaction, feel free to read some of our many customer testimonials. The livelihood of dozens of Australian families and hundreds of Chinese families depends on our success. That is motivation enough for us.

The director was involved in pioneering the introduction of bamboo flooring into WA in 1999 and has specialised in this product ever since. As the international bamboo flooring market developed, the focus became “how do we make the product cheaper”. Many companies wrongly assumed that if they could cut corners and sell at a cheaper price then they would be more successful. Bamboozle® was founded In February 2002 to raise the benchmark for bamboo flooring and installation, thus bucking the trend that cheaper is better and as they say; “the proof is in the pudding”. So while nearly all of the original bamboo flooring companies have disappeared Bamboozle® is going from strength to strength and has long been considered the industry leader for bamboo flooring.

With the correct care and maintenance a Bamboozle® floor is just like a quality solid timber floor that you can expect to last for many years. Most people will either re-sand or recoated their bamboo floor on average every 10-15 years to keep them looking like new. Our bamboo floor coverings are all 15mm thick and therefore can be expected to outlast many of the thinner timber floors being installed today.

Factory warranties from China are difficult to make a claim against if not impossible. The questions to ask are: What is a factory warranty and what does it cover? What happens when your supplier changes factories? The responsibility of the warranty should be held by the company that supplies the product to you and not a 3rd party that you are not able to contact. It is important to bear in mind the warranty is only as strong as the company that backs it. Bamboozle^® does not rely on a factory warranty and so we don’t expect you to have to either.

When you buy your Bamboozle flooring, you automatically get our Forever Young Lifetime Warranty for peace of mind.