Bamboo flooring: what to know before the boards go down

What a bamboo flooring job involves

A typical installation starts before any boards appear: the old floor covering comes up, the subfloor gets checked for level and moisture, and any humps or dips get ground or filled. Bamboo is usually laid as a floating floor over underlay, clicked together like engineered timber, though it can also be glued down. Trims, scotia, door bars and stair nosings finish the edges.

One step matters more with bamboo than most floors: acclimatisation. Bamboo moves with humidity, so the packs should sit in the room for several days before laying. An installer who wants to deliver and lay on the same day is cutting a corner you'll see later as gapping or peaking. Most floor layers handle bamboo, so you're choosing between flooring installers rather than needing a separate specialist trade.

What drives the price

Bamboo is priced per square metre, supplied and installed, and sits between laminate and solid hardwood — as a rough indicative guide, a single room lands around the low thousands, while whole-home jobs in premium boards run well into five figures. The live calculator on this page gives you a feel for your own area.

The board itself is roughly half the story. Strand-woven bamboo costs more than horizontal or vertical boards but is dramatically harder, which is why it dominates the Australian market. The rest is site work: old floor removal and disposal, subfloor levelling, underlay quality and the fiddly trim details. Two quotes that look far apart often differ only in what they include — one covers rip-up, levelling and trims, the other quietly leaves them as extras.

Choosing an installer

Floor laying is a finishing trade, so there's generally no licence to check — reputation and process do the work instead. Look for an installer who measures on site rather than quoting off a floor plan, asks about your subfloor, and raises acclimatisation without being prompted. Photos of previous bamboo jobs, not just laminate, are worth asking for because the material behaves differently.

Get the inclusions itemised in writing: board brand and grade, underlay, old floor removal, levelling allowance, trims and waste disposal. A quality installer will also talk warranty — both the manufacturer's wear warranty on the boards and their own workmanship guarantee on the lay.

Mistakes to avoid

The most common regrets with bamboo aren't about the material — they're about skipped preparation and mismatched expectations. Bamboo in a wet area, boards laid straight off the truck, or a budget horizontal board in a busy hallway all produce problems the installer should have warned you about.

• Comparing quotes without checking whether rip-up, levelling and trims are included
• Skipping acclimatisation — several days on site before laying is non-negotiable
• Choosing horizontal or vertical boards for high-traffic areas where strand-woven belongs
• Laying bamboo in bathrooms or laundries where moisture will get into the joints
• Ignoring the subfloor — boards telegraph every hump and dip in a slab that wasn't levelled
• Buying boards yourself without confirming the installer will warrant a floor they didn't supply