We are attempting to restore a warehouse in the research triangle area of north carolina. The original flooring is in such bad shape it is difficult to identify, and the building was probably built in the 1910’s or 20’s. We have been told it was heart pine, and probably was built on an unlimited budget. I know that various species of pine were consumed progessively- can anyone help with the history of pine flooring in this area, its distibution and use, and the use of that term? Thanks. -Kellie
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During the 10s and 20s a lot of what was termed Heart Pine was harvested in Florida. The wood was transported by RR up the east coast and west into the gulf states.
Many of these trees were five feet or more in diameter. Most were sold cheap as, at the time, the wood was considered nothing special. A lot of it was burned by the railroads for fuel. There were miles and miles of these old growth forests. By the mid 30s the large stands were gone.
Florida heart pine commonly had enough oils to make it highly resistant to rot and termites. It burns hot and fast, the material is commonly used as a fire starter for campers, but rot and bugs aren't an issue.
I have been in relatively inexpensive houses with 5/4 solid heart pine planks 30+ feet long and 18" wide used as roof decking. Wood a cabinet maker would pay an arm and a leg for now used as roof deck, where carpenters put the cheap wood.
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Heart pin eflooring is the heartwood of the lomgleaf pine. The only ones ofthe same species growing now are on about 150,000acres and plantation grown. the only equivalent you will find now is from reclaimers recutting old factory beams into lumber and resurrecting logs from in the swamps wjhere they have lain submerged for a hundred or more years.
The plain sawn new growth wood was more often nmade into planks, casings, and cabinets, while the heart was so hard that it was more suitable for flooring, but as $lorn notes, there was sdo much back then of this virgin lumber that they were not terribly econommical about where and how they used it.
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Hey Kellie:
Welcome to BT. I live in Raleigh....
I think the 2 previous posters covered most of it... Newly sawn lumber is also being produced from old logs that are being retrieved from rivers and lakes in the eastern US. These logs called "sinkers" have been submerged in rivers for as much as a century or more after being lost during logging operations as the logs sunk when being floated down the river for transport to the saw mill. Other logs come from trees that were submerged when a damn was built. Popular species being retrieved include long leaf pine and cypress.
My next door neighbors have heart pine floors through-out their home. As noted perviously theirs is reclaimed from old beams that were resawn.
Depending on the grade, etc of the material purchased, heart pine can have a large amount of variation in color.
Up here in Mass during the 10's and 20's the tract homes of the day often used oak in the front rooms (LR and Dining) and the cheaper heart pine in the back (kitchen and bedrooms).
Now, it's much more valuable - you can still get oak strips anywhere.
Remember it is trickier to sand (no drums) because it is softer (though real 100 yr old heart pine is not at soft as you might think).
Can you flip the boards?
Re: "real 100 yr old heart pine is not at soft as you might think"Genuine heart pine is the toughest 'softwood' I have ever seen. We got one job no other contractor would take. Two contractors had pulled off already. We got a lot of those jobs. Oh joy.During a renovation and even using the finest professional auger bits we could find we kept finding the lead screw, worm, pulling off the bits. Without this feed screw it was nearly impossible to get enough pressure on the auger to grab and drill. As opposed to spin and and burn. We were able to avoid the worms pulling off, for the most part, by applying extreme pressure to the bits, taking some of the load off the worm, and keeping the bits as sharp as possible. Drilling down we resorted to having a helper 'ride' the drill motor. Sometimes literally putting his entire weight on top of the drill while a second man worked the switch, watched the alignment and kept the whole dog and pony show from spinning. A 3/4" pipe about 3' long, a bender handle padded with a bit of carpet if needed, making the later task a lot easier.In the crawl space under the house we resorted to hammering in a 16d nail in a floor joist and rigging a rope to it to act as the fulcrum for a length of rigid steel conduit. This was placed to bear on the rear, 'D' handle, of the drill. Depending on the angle it might take three hefty guys straining and grunting, one to apply pressure, one on an extended handle to counter the torque and a third to work and guide, to drill a single hole in that heart pine.Fortunately once we got the system down the limited number of holes needed went pretty quick. Had a bit of a time with the sand plaster that filled the bottom of many stud bays, it quickly dulled bits which caused me to become fairly handy sharpening auger bits and it tended to fall back over the drilled holes in large platters that bound up anything you tried to snake through the drilled hole. But how we did it is a post for another day.Old heart pine. Good wood but not easy to work with. I must say it was aromatic. With every hole we drilled, even in wood 80 years old, it smelled like a fresh cut Christmas tree.An interesting site on the general subject and includes the cypress harvest. A couple of nice shots of the pines in there: http://www.heartpine.org/history.htm
Edited 11/7/2005 10:37 pm ET by 4Lorn1
that's a nice little site, how did you find it?
Just Googled: "heart pine" + Florida + 1920sGets you Goodwin Heartpine: A well known company that recovers and mills logs from rivers in Florida. Never bought anything from them but I read and understand they are good folks and one of the few companies which can set you up with woods like what was easily available 80 years ago. Of course what they sell is no longer cheap. Still good stuff but no longer cheap.And about three links down the link I cited. Due to the similar site look I assume a related site to Goodwin's. It seemed a bit more informational so it seemed more appropriate.
A nice little game is on the site:http://www.heartpine.com/how_to/pine.htmMostly a simple coloring game designed for kids it has some meaning for adults not familiar with Florida scrub habitats. Florida has lots of critters. At least we did before we exchanged most of them for condos. If you look hard, and fail to notice the billboards, you can still find a few places with some of the habitats still surviving. Might want to hurry if your planning on taking a look.
One of the things that happened is that wood was installed more "green" then. The sap in the wood hardens (practically petrifies) and the result is like stone.I once had to pre-drill for drywall screws, but nothing as bad as you describe. It's amazing how fast plaster dust dulls bits, blades, etc, isn't it?
Re: "The sap in the wood hardens (practically petrifies) and the result is like stone."Good point. We also noted that once you started to drill it was best to keep the bit moving. As we understood it drilling generates heat which softens the sap in the wood. If you stop and the sap cools it can cement the bit in place. Particularly in thick beams. We lost one or two bits that way.
Now I don't feel so bad about the 1" self-feeding bit and extension I have stuck in a wall - can't get it to come out or go in. Spins just fine but won't move.
Hey there, I'm in Chapel Hill. Almost all of the turn of the century industrial buildings around here were framed with either long leafed pine (heart pine) or Souther Yellow pine (now called antique yellow pine).Downtown Durham has a lot of old tobacco company buildings, built out of brick and massive pieces of pine. I did a lot of remodeling in Bright Leaf Square. We were cutting out floors made of 4" x 12-20" pine. Amazingly heavy stuff. Smells just fresh turpentine<G>Another interesting reason for the decline of long leaf pine stands, is modern forest fire management. Turns out, these pines need a good forest fire or two to activate the seeds in the pine cones. The few remaining stands left in Florida now have intentional burns every so often...survival of the hottest.Where is your project? "what's in a name?" d'oh!
Good point about the fire. Most natural ecosystems had regular fire cycles. Without fire most landscapes turn into mixed scrub brush. Which, not entirely without irony, becomes a tinderbox that changes the fire event from a regular, but survivable, violence into a conflagration that destroys the system.Some of this was blamed on the environmentalists but environmentalism started with a 'leave it alone' stance. In some of the farthest reaches of the national parks and reserves there had long been 'let it burn' policy. Not so much out of any wisdom but out of a lack of resources to get to fires in remote areas. In fact it was in part study of these remote areas that burned regularly that made it clear the role of fire. Those areas truly left alone and allowed to burn were much healthier long term.The origins of the no fire ideas came from the commercial side which considered a fire a loss of a potentially profitable resource. The commercial side was also unwilling to wait the 100 to 150 years needed for trees to make it to near the same stage the old growth forests were when we harvested them wholesale. Now things have finally gone full circle. Some commercial lumber growers, as I understand it the first were Indian tribes, have started to manage their lands cyclically and in terms of decades and centuries. People planting and investing in resources that won't benefit themselves but are aimed to benefit their children or grand children. The essence of sustainability and environmentalism.I'm not much of a carpenter but even an untrained eye can tell the difference in quality and strength between wood available even 30 years ago and the stuff today. As one old carpenter put it, I paraphrase: 'The quality wood we build with today we used to burn to keep warm a few years ago'.If we are willing to be patient we, maybe the next generation, might get to see the return of better wood.
Kellie,
I think heart pine was a term invented to market recovered timber. I know of no specific species of pine that has the common name of heart pine.
Aside from that, there are generally considered to be 5 species of the 10 different southern yellow pines that your floor may be if it is yellow pine.
Longleaf, shortleaf, loblolly, slash and virginia pine were the major commercial species of the grouping of southern yellow pine.
These species were extremely valuable for the timber they would produce.
Loblolly is the major source for wood pulp used in making paper.
Longleaf and slash are used for naval stores.
J.P.