I’m getting everything ready for my new first spec home. I’m doing most of the work myself so I’m splurging on a few items such as as cabinets and flooring. I’m going with quartersawn oak. I recently resided my own home with clear quartersawn red western cedar -primed on both sides. I love it.
I have a couple of pieces of furniture in quartersawn oak and I’m convinced there is no better wood to have around.
What I’m wondering is whether I should go with Red or White Quartersawn, as a local supplier has both with the same price, and how I should finish it. I’m sure that finishing after installation makes the nicest looking floor.
Also, I do a lot of finish framing work such as upper grade porches and decks & tongue & groove ceilings.
Why wouldn’t I put my hardwood floor down like I do the porches and ceilings with beveled splices? 22.5 or 30 or 45 degree bevels?
Replies
I like both.
Uhh just to warn ya. There'll be a guy named Boss Hogg by here anytime with a link for ya. Enjoy :)
GIVE ME AN............. F!
You could go with either but I prefer white. It is more traditional in the quartersawn world and it tends to be a more stable wood. I prefer the look.
Good for you for going with a traditional floor like this. I love the quartersawn look and it's so stable. You going to finish it so it shows the medulary rays real nice?
Send any picts if you can.
If you are talking about the end joints of the random-length flooring strips, they come end-matched, which means each piece has one end tongued and the other grooved.
Unless I'm missing something in the question.
As to species, white oak is by far the best choice in a quartersawn material.
For finishes, look at all the colors that are available from Stickley for their q.s. white oak mission furniture. Their website doesn't show them, but their catalag, available anywhere their furniture is sold, sure does.
I did a house in q.s. white oak for flooring, 2-1/4" strip, and used clearcoat only. It really looks better if given a reddish stain, IMHO.
"Why wouldn't I put my hardwood floor down like I do the porches and ceilings with beveled splices? 22.5 or 30 or 45 degree bevels?"
Interior hardwood floors are usually laid in a T&G with a tongue on the end laid into the groove of the end of the other piece. Are you having this milled locally or is it already milled flooring? Also when you go to sand, the wood that is left on the very end of the one exposed beveled piece is very thin and delicate which would give way to cracking and separation I would think, especially in high traffic areas. Better that they should be butted with some sort of tongue or spline between the two ends thus giving you more meat of the wood to tread upon.
Since red or white is hard enough to withstand residential living that alone would not be a reason to pick one over the other. White oak has a lime cast when finished natural that most people don't like. White oak is a good choice if one wants a true brown color with no red leanings. Red has a rich warm color when finished natural Quartersawn has a defect that you will find called checking in a small percentage of the bundles. Even an experienced flooring contractor cannot cull all of them out. Sometimes they show up as one sands the floor. They are near impossible to repair and need to be cut out. Q-sawn will have a tendency to shrink leaving large gaps. It is 100% more moisture stable than plain sawn. Good for wet environments; not so good for dry ones. Q-sawn is a good choice for a very high end look, but looks to homogenous for my taste. Color is pretty consistent. Plain sawn has a lot of life to it due to the variety of color and grain. Decades ago long length Q-sawn was the only floor that was acceptable for high end homes in San Francisco and Pasadena, CA. All of those old Victorians have that style of floor. Color near perfect; all of the trees removed from the same location and the trees were old with heartwood. Flooring was very cheap back then, so grades other than Q-sawn was relegated to lower end homes and later tract production. In todays market Q-sawn is not that desired. Multi-million dollar homeowners want a floor to look old with hand distressing and the lower end grades; #1 to #2 common.
You say that Q-sawn has a tendancy to shrink.... I will have in floor heat and I want Q-Sawn not just because it looks great but because I thought it would be a better floor to have over in-floor heat because it is more stable and less likely to shrink. Can you expand on what you meant about shrinkingI also have to note that what you say about the quality of the wood in million dollar floors is right on tract. I have not seen clear flooring in those houses. I was originally thinking about quartersawn cabinets and hickory floors (which has that random varying colors that I think you were thinking about with the non-clear grades)By the way, I'm in central Minnesota and would love to talk to someone local about finishing my floor with whichever floor I go with.sincerely,Chuck Charnstrom
Corner Oak Construction
Mayer, MN
Please don't put down hickory over radiant heat. QS oak, red or white, is the only way to go, IMHO, and for over radiant, the narrow strip at 2.25 width is the way to go.
I would refer you to Lon Musolf Distributing in MN. They are the biggest flooring distributor in your area. (800) 537-1966. Ask for the technical representitive. All distributors have a tech rep to field questions. They are usually old floor guys that quit the install/finish business and have decades of field experience. That person is the best person to ask these questions you have. He will have local experience.
For me on the beach in So. Cal, Q-sawn is used widely in wet areas with low water tables like the islands around Newport Beach. It can handle the moisture better. The swelling that is. The plywood subfloors tend to have higher moisture readings like 16-18%. Plain sawn wood floors will cup if they are not within 4% of the subfloor. When Q-sawn gets out of the coefficient, it tends to create slight overwood from one piece to the other. Fingernail catchers. That is more acceptable than cupping for the eye. With radiant, you need to open up the bundles and lay the wood out over it with the radiant on to acclimate the wood floor to suck out any excess moisture or it will shrink on you and leave gaps. Not all pieces of the floor have to be perfectly touching the radiant. Just open the bundles and kick the pieces out over the radiant for a week to warm them up. Do a moisture check before you open the bundles and then every couple of days to see if the moisture is going down. Realisticly, when the moisture stops dropping, you are ready to start the install. I know this is a pain, but a floor gone bad with lots of shrinkage is even worse and a big liability for you if you are building this for a client or your wife, a worse case.
I'ld go with the white, sometimes the red can be really red (pink) or very bland. When mixed some of the boards look out of place, kind of like a wall of Western red where some are almost dark purple and others you would think were eastern white. A few years ago we did a couple hundred kitchen cabinets with red oak, got call backs to almost half the houses to change out one or two "pinkish - red" doors that didn't seem to go with the others. On the up side now I have a nice supply of "pinkish - red" doors for my place :)
I would also go with the white for moisture resistance. I have not heard of QS being more apt to shrink, just the opposite in fact.
john
QS will shrink mostly in the thickness; flatsawn across the width. I also have not heard any general issues with QS shrinking.Cabinetmaker/college woodworking instructor. Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
I prefer white oak to red, the figuring is much more interesting.
I build a lot of cabinets and bar tops with Q-sawn white oak not just for appearance but mostly because of its stability. I've had great luck with it and never experienced any noticable shrinkage
Any floor should be acclimated to the environment before installation for best results