Hi Everyone,

My wife and I are embarking on the journey of installing strand woven bamboo in our home. We got our order of strand-woven carbonized bamboo from Ifloors yesterday and are hoping to start the acclimation process.

I had some questions on this that I hope you folks would be able to answer.

1. How long should it acclimate? When I called iFloors to ask this question they said "5 days", which from everything I read about strand woven is ridiculously short. The instructions that are provided on their website for installation do not even mention acclimation... I know that this is more geared around humidity rather than time which leads me to the second question.

2. What type of moisture meter should I use? We have about 1000 sq ft to install and while I don't need a professsional grade meter, I do want something that will actually work for the strand woven.

3. "How" should I acclimate it. It is wrapped in cellophane inside of boxes. Should I take it out of the boxes and stack them a particular way? Should I take off the cellophane but leave them in the boxes?

I know that bamboo can cause some problems and it seems like most of those primarily deal with acclimation so I want to make sure I get this step correct and take my time to do it right.

Thanks for all the help!

Strand bamboo is very dense, so it can take weeks to acclimate. Acclimation will happen sooner if the temperature is warm. The planks will need to be exposed to the air on all sides, too. Having an accurate meter for the exact moisture percentage for strand is almost impossible, since the strand is incorporated in resin. If you are installing a floating floor the whole floor may expand or contract over time and the expansion/ contraction gap at the edges will show movement of the flooring if it is installed right out of the box. The expansion/ shrinkage will depend on your ambient air during the seasons. This type of flooring is so dense that it will take a long time to acclimate if it didn't arrive at the right moisture content.
If you have an accurate moisture meter, you can compare the moisture content of a floor that has been installed in your area, maybe at a showroom, with the flooring that you plan to install before you fasten it down.

Thanks Pete. I think with that I'm going to go with a 3-4 week acclimation period and see where that gets us.

So you are saying I should take them out of the box and stack them? Do I need to stack them a particular way to prevent damage? It's heavy and so I'm concerned about it damaging the boards underneath.

Three to four week acclimation would be a good start. Do you have a meter to see if the moisture content will have changed?
Standing the flooring against a wall would be one way to let air get to most of the surfaces.

Geez, is ifloor still around? Is there a rh requirement stated anywhere in the literature?
If the rh is to low your going to have more issues than just shrinking if you unwrap it. These days they want th rh up to a certain level (35-40%) minimum usually. Unwrapped planks can twist and bow making installation difficult.

The installation instructions states the following:

Strand is a crap shoot at best. Comparative readings in another location will never hold water just because no one knows how much moisture is in a different shipment of flooring, how they acclimated it and conditions are not the same in every location.
Even professional meters cannot tell the correct moisture content of strand. The only way to tell is the oven dry test. This was done at virginia tech wood extension class for Selva Tuckers Flooring Educational Guild class for engineered hardwood which included bamboo.. Every meter was wrong.

Thanks for the info. Is there a video that you know of, or instructions, on how to perform this "oven dry test"?

An oven dry test will show how much moisture content is in the sample. What you need for a successful installation is to compare the moisture content of your material with an installation in your area to determine if your flooring has reached the same moisture content. A showroom or a home where the flooring has been installed for some time will show the moisture content that should be prevalent in your area. If you do not match the same values as averaged over several planks, then wait until it is close, or plan so that the material will have some movement depending on whether your material is drier or not.
A non-invasive meter will be the one to use so you will not need to force prongs into the sample. This type of meter uses electrical field to penetrate to a certain depth. You can read it to within a tenth of a percent. It measures the electrical resistance of the product to get a moisture reading which you can compare with your material. Lignomat is one brand of meter company that can test wood or other building materials.