You have a ton of questions and I will do my best to address them, I also have AADD so if I start to ramble and jump back and forth just overlook that :). We need to simplify this more because there are certain issues you can't change..... being on a slab and the weight issues. Any slab has to be reasonably flat and dry, but in your case it needs to be almost dead flat and dry. We are supposed to always check slabs for vapor emissions that can go unoticed when there is carpet over top that allows the slab to breath and release moisture without any problems. You have an 18yr. old glued down wood floor that has exhibited no problems, in my view that is as good an indicator one is going to get..... so we'll just say you are dry. I don't know how many sq.ft. is involved but it takes some space for an installer to check the slab for flatness and then take measures to correct it. Sometimes a low spot can be a few feet in diameter and with the feathering needed I may need 6', 8' or more to deal with it. If I don't have space I could be featuring up to a high spot underneath furniture. It is best to try and figure a way to go one room a time, clean it out, then go on to the next room. If you have your heart set on an engineered BC, then get it :), life is too short to fret over that as long as you know about this issue and are okay with it. On glued down floors the thickness does not really matter as much as opposed to floating. What does matter is the top wear layer thickness and using the right adhesive. A 3mm or 4mm thick wear layer is actually better in the long run as a 5mm thick . Going too thick with the wear layer can cause a phenomenon called "dry cupping" .... the NWFA and NOFMA are aware of this and it is being addressed. If you go with a glued down engineered wood floor and want to put on a sealer as "insurance" , then do it. In your case I would strongly consider using Stauf 960 which is a quality sealer and adhesive combined in one application. You pay alot more for the adhesive but you only have one labor issue. Imo you could also go with a floating floor. But to pull this off you must use a quality product and (here I go again)..... the concrete must be flat. There is a laminate out there that I have personally installed that is almost bullet proof. That would be Wilsonart , which is a high pressure laminate referred to as an HPL. Putting that down along with using their blue fusion glue in the joinery can take any weight you want to put on top of it. When I do that I recommend to the client upgrading the underlayment to a product Sound Solutions. You cannot walk on this type of install and tell that it floats. You could also go with a floating engineered wood... this is where thickness comes into play. I prefer to use nothing less than a 1/2" in thickness and a where the joints get glued up, or, choose a good reliable click-lock system like the valinge or Uniclic joinery systems. They both hold together well. The wood should also be waht is called balanced.... the top layer equals the bottom. You are very typical of alot of my clients. Quit stressing so much :).

I had decided a while back on the BR-111 Brazilian Cherry Triangulo Engineered wood and got a good price from a local store that was close to an Internet Price except I have to pay sales tax. The installers they sent over here gave me a good price also and I was read to buy everything from the store until the store owner told me the installers changed their mind and instead of moving the heavy cabinets a little bit away from the floor and pulling up sections of the carpet (is on tackles on the edges but the pad and carpet are not glued down over the slab) and gluing down the floor and moving the heavy 42" wide 5 drawer Hon putty cabinets back on top, they want everything out of the two room home office (dining room and living room) and everything out of the family room (very easy to do since I have light furniture in there and not much but a sofa, recliner, small TV stand, TV, and end tables and coffee table that are very light weight glass with cherry legs). Then they have to seal the floor and I have to buy an expensive sealer and wait a day to put everything back. So the stress of emptying four 5-Drawer 42" wide Hon heavy putty cabinets, two 4-drawer 42" wide putty cabinets, five 2-drawer 30" wide Hon putty file cabinets, my 72" wide Cherry Credenza, my big 72" wide cherry desk, my small computer cherry wood desk that is not attached, the two roll out drawers (desk is easy to move since I paid more to have the pieces that are not attached), two supply cabinets in a putty color, has me stressed out. I had thought I could empty the cabinets but not move the furniture and then replace everything at once when the cabinets are moved back. If I need to move everything out of here, I have a garage and a backyard with a patio to put the furniture on. So I had other estimates when I just wanted the job done to see what should be done about my slab floor and a few others want to move everything out of here also but do one room at a time and glue down the floor with no sealer. One installer wants me to rent a POD to put all my furniture in until the job is done and that is my responsibility to move it in and out of the home. Another installer wants to float the floor and had me go to his wholesaler to like other woods telling me he feels I should go with a 5" wide oak or pecan natural wood so one day when I move my furniture I do not have patches of light spaces but agrees that the Brazilian Cherry looked wonderful in my home office an my family room with the beige furniture and glass tables with putty legs. The natural oak or maple clashes with the tile I chose and the file cabinets. I need a little bit darker. Right now I have a beige rug that is darker than the natural wood and it is hard to keep clean. I actually like the Auburn Maple but everyone tells me it is too boring. The other installer wants to float a laminate floor and tried steering me back to the Bruce Park Avenue Makore or Pradoo Laminate I was looking at. I wonder how sturdy this will be with all the furniture on top of the floor? Then the installers at the store came back to me and want me to buy the more expensive floating Mirage Lock floor from the local store they work with (Mirage Lock comes in only maple or oak ... now the store's price is a lot more than the Internet price versus the other product was a good price) or the Mullican floating floor (sliced cut Brazilian Cherry rather than the sawn face cut of the BR-111 or the Hartco Valenza collection I was looking at) that I can get much cheaper on line but prefer to buy from a local dealer if I get a reasonable price. They want to float the floor and say they can move the furniture a little at a time their old way and save me in installation despite the extra cost of the materials. Hence, I had a tile guy here today and the other day for estimates. I want the damage out of the foyer areas NOW. It has been too long. I have engineered Bruce Oak very thin veneer glued down there that got damaged from the water leak from my central air conditioner/heating system failing a few months ago. The wood floor is discolored, warped and has buckled up. I was able to pull up a piece of this 18.5 year old floor that came up in veneered pieces of and the cement floor looked dry to me. So if I do Porcelain tile (going with Lowe's Rialto Beige 5 Rating tile) in the middle foyer by the utility room, garage, coat closet and bathroom in between the two home office rooms and in the front foyer, I can get rid of one decision. :) I can choose a porcelain tile in the kitchen that will be easy to install since the linoleum floor can easily be pulled up. Then the three rooms downstairs can have the 18.5 year old light beige always dirty carpet (I have to steam clean often and this water damage was the last straw for me despite how great the beige carpet looks in my home when it is clean) taken out and I can put the engineered hardwood floors there or the laminate. I have little dogs that I want to put puppy pads in trays down in the middle foyer when I am not home so I prefer a floor water proof there after seeing what water can do to a wood floor. OK, this is long but I am stressed that the project is not getting done since everyone is trying to talk me out of the Brazilian Cherry floors telling me I will regret the decision if I move. I am open to anything that will work at this point. I am open to suggestions. I even thought the Amendoim samples looked nice with my furniture but worry if it will be too knotty since I can't see a floor in person. So should I float the floor with heavy furniture on top of it? Should I choose an easier locking floor? Would laminate look cheap in my professional home office that has clients visiting? Would it be best to seal the floor that I really feel is dry despite my townhouse being built on the wetlands since the glued down foyer engineered Bruce hardwood floors never came up in 18 years? I just want this job done ASAP and I am tired of not knowing what to do. Wish you lived near me since you seem to have knowledge and can do both the tile and hardwood/laminate flooring for me. Sorry this is so long but I am trying to explain since maybe you can steer me in the right direction on how to handle my project to get this over with already.

This is an old thread, but it seems both the bamboo (Teragren) and the pecan/hickory (Armstrong) were from good companies. I suspect this poster could not have gone wrong with either. I nearly bought bamboo, but went with a handscraped hickory for the same reason, to hide flaws. My installer mentioned it was a good product based on the amount of good boards and that there were long lengths. It was not Armstrong. It seems I hear more complaints about scratches in bamboo, but that could be from buying bargain brands. My installer mentioned the Teragren bamboo I almost went with and said it was so hard, he bent nails trying to install it. Although he dropped tools on my hickory, and I have three sons, there are no dents. I've had it a year and although there were scratches in the first week, I haven't seen any since then. Maybe the oils on our feet are soaking in and preventing them? That is strange to see scratches in the first few weeks and then not for nearly a year after. I also notice that it is ambering and changing color when compared to where there are throw rugs.

I feel that the Kempas will look wonderful in your kitchen. I feel you are better off with Kempas floors that lean more toward the cherry color than cherry hardwood floors despite the beauty of American Cherry if you have a lot of floor traffic being that Kempas is a harder wood. If I did not have to have a hard floor, I may have went with the American Cherry floors since to me that beauty is unmatched but the 950 Janka Rating is not good for me with 4 small dogs and home office client traffic. I love Kempas hardwood floors so I feel you made a great choice. I keep going back and forth between the Brazilian Cherry, Kempas, Pradoo and Santos Mahogany engineered hardwood floors since I find all of these exotic woods gorgeous. It is just that I really seem to like the BR-111 line due to the sawn cut and the looks of its grain and they do not offer Kempas. So I would have to go with Bella Kempas engineered hardwood floors or Hartco Valenza Collection which both have a thicker plywood base and are 1/4" wider but cost more also. I like that the Kempas only has a medium degree of color change and not a dramatic color change difference and I like that it is about the same price as Brazilian Cherry while the Pradoo and the Santos Mahogany cost more despite their beautiful grain and coloring.