Oh, thanks for the highlight - I think the flooring lingo just went a bit over my head. I certainly don't want boards popping apart.

Is IFloor.com generally considered reputable?

Not totally familiar with them.
I can tell you on a couple jobs I installed that they supplied... They sold the wrong adhesive to the customer, and the adhesive was way over priced. You have to use a Urethane adhesive on that product NO ACRYLIC. Your better off purchasing the adhesive at a local floorcovering supply house. You can also purchase the correct trowell there. Bostik TKO is a user friendly, good priced, urethane adhesive.

I have not had an experience with them, since they were bought from circumstances out of the economic down turn. A Chinese Company owns them now.
I believe Steve, the original owner is still somehow involved in the operations, somehow.

Before that, I never had a client that purchased from them, have a complaint .

I'm trying to wrap my head around the idea that I'm just getting smoke totally blown up my ass by all the folks I talk to at various flooring places; they keep saying that with proper expansion spacing it'll work just fine to float this product. Grrrr.

I live in Seattle, we don't have the most dramatic seasons, is there any chance that it works better in some areas than others? Thanks for being patient, I know this must be annoying. I'm just having trouble giving up my fantasy of an easy float install.

One last other question, I guess. If you were compelled for some reason to float a 5" solid strandwoven bamboo floor over a plywood subfloor on the 2nd floor of a house, against your will, forced to do it, what sort of tips / tricks / things to watch out for would you keep in mind? I'm reading that I shouldn't nail even the starting pieces so that the whole thing can float a bit, that I should make sure to leave lots of expansion room, that I should stagger the edge pieces properly... what else?

Thanks so much guys, you're being great.

Nailing stranded is no problem I've done it a dozen times and doing 600sf next week. If you have the right nailer. I use a Powernail P50 which stoots 18 guage cleats. top nailing is another story. I usually just glue the first and last rows down some p400 if you want to face nail you will have to pre drill and hand nail. It's all about the right tool for the job.

Jeff, that's pretty encouraging. So face nailing the first and last boards with like an 18 gauge finish nailer is out of the question due to the hardness?

Whenn I first tried to face nail with the 18 gauge the nails just folded up. so you definitely have to predrill.