Horizontal Bamboo Flooring, Solid 3.78″ Narrow Plank, Tongue & Groove, Refinishable, 15mm Honey, 19.8 sq ft/Case

Horizontal Bamboo Flooring, Solid 3.78″ Narrow Plank, Tongue & Groove, Refinishable, 15mm Honey, 19.8 sq ft/Case
A bamboo plank floor in the literal sense: this is solid bamboo, milled into a 37.8 in plank with a tongue and groove on all four edges — no engineered core, no veneer, no backing board. It is the same floor that has been the best seller on this site for three years, in a narrow 3.78 in width that reads as a traditional strip floor rather than a wide modern plank.

What You Are Actually Buying

Bamboo poles are split into strips, carbonised to a honey tone, coated in adhesive and pressed into a solid block. The strips in this floor lie flat, side by side — that is what “horizontal” means, and it is why you can see the bamboo’s node pattern running across the plank. Strand woven bamboo is the other construction: strips crushed into fibre and pressed into a denser, harder block, with a straighter, more uniform face. Horizontal is the warmer-looking of the two and the easier one to sand back.

Because the plank is solid, it can be sanded and refinished — once, maybe twice over a lifetime, depending on how much foot traffic it sees. An engineered floor with a 0.6 mm veneer cannot. That is the practical difference you are paying for, and it is why this plank is specified for fixed-down installation rather than as a floating floor.

The 3.78 in width is deliberate. Narrow planks give more joints per square metre, which hides a subfloor that is not perfectly flat and gives a period, strip-floor look. If you want the wide, calm look instead, the click lock bamboo in 3.78 in is the same width but floating, and the dark walnut embossed plank is the same family in a 5.11 in board.

Specifications

Sold as a 20-plank case at $159.00 — about $8.03 per square foot — or as a 2-plank pack for a sample or a single-board repair.

Where This Plank Works

Bedrooms, studies, corridors, dining rooms, a living room that is not open to a wet kitchen. It is a water-resistant floor, not a waterproof one: a bamboo board swells if water sits on it, so it is the wrong choice for a bathroom, a laundry room with a floor drain, or a basement that has ever taken on water.

It is the right choice where the floor is going to be down for twenty years and someone might want to sand it back halfway through. Hallways and doorways, where the joints take the punishment, are exactly what a solid bamboo plank is for.

Fitting It

• Acclimatise first. Leave the cases in the room, opened, for 48 hours at normal living temperature. Bamboo moves with humidity, and a board fitted straight off a cold truck will open up at the joints.
• Flatness matters more than level. 3 mm over a 2 m straight edge. Sand high spots, fill hollows. A 15 mm solid board will not bend into a dip — it will rock.
• Fixed down. Full-spread adhesive is the default; a hidden nail or cleat through the tongue works over a timber subfloor. This is not a floating floor and there is no click joint to fall back on.
• Leave a 10 mm expansion gap at every wall and cover it with skirting, not with sealant.
• Stagger the joints. At least a third of a plank between rows — the standard staggered layout, which is also the one that wastes least.

One case covers 19.8 sq ft. For a 200 sq ft room at 8% waste you need 11 cases; measure the room rather than the box, and add the waste for doorways and a chimney breast before you order.

Living With It

Sweep or dry-mop daily — grit is what dulls a Gloss 30 finish, not footfall. For a deeper clean, a damp mop with a pH-neutral floor cleaner, wrung out so it is barely wet. No steam mop, no wax, no oil soap: a modern bamboo floor is factory-finished, and anything that leaves a film will sit on top of the lacquer and go dull and grey within a season. Felt pads under chairs, a mat at the door, and wipe spills as they happen.

When it eventually does look tired — eight to fifteen years in a busy house — the whole floor can be sanded and recoated rather than replaced.

Questions

Not sure how this compares with the rest of our bamboo range? That page has all seven floors side by side with thickness, width and price per case.