What’s the best way to mimimize gaps between one foot wide, air dried, 7/8 inch thick native whtie pine flooring (in a Western Mass hilltown house)? 900 board feet of it have been planed, stacked, and stickered inside the customer’s living room and are now at 14% moiture content. If it’s kiln dried and installed with no gaps between boards, will it buckle in humid months as it expands? Is it better to have it kiln dried (as customer suggests) or let the moisture content drop to 11% and install (as the timber framer suggests)? I’ll be using tremont box nails. Thanks for your imput!
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I've already done one room last winter.no problems at all.
butt edges,not T&G here. I used rose head nails from tremont.
I didnt use rosin paper under it but rather construction adhesive after seriously cleaning the floor below it.
I let the wood acclimate to the room for over a month.
I was told by two different companies not to sticker the boards as that will leave marks on them..don't know if its true or not but I did it their way with great results.
I have a shid load more that was delievered about a month ago for the rest of the "entire" house.Maybe 2000 or more sq ft.
The boards range from about 4" to 20"....awesome product.
One giant bit of advice. DO NOT USE A TUNG OIL FINISH.
I was told by one of the bigger companies to use it....serious mistake.
Thank god I just did one room with it....I'll be redoing that finish when I do the rest of the floors.
My suggestion is either Waterlox or tried and true poly..
I simply butted all boards tight...stained and finish coated it.
I also eased all the edges before indtallation with my vibrating sander.
Still looks awesome almost a year later....maybe even better than all the T&G oak floors I've installed over the years far as gapping goes.
Be floored
andy
The secret of Zen in two words is, "Not always so"!
The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life.
—Robert Louis Stevenson
http://CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
Thanks... so what was wrong with the Tung Oil... and...Is this flooring you've been using locally sawn stuff and air dried or was it kiln dried?
The timber framer was upset. it had sat outside, stacked, stickered, covered for a year...it was rough... I planed it and brought it inside to dry after planing... he said I should have dried it rough inside, taken it outside (900 board feet... work), planed it and brought it back in to dry for a month or so. Anyway, apparently white pine can compress and not buckle with seasonal expansion if I install it tight together in the dry, winter months. I mean T&G 1x8's do ok so why not 1x12's or 1x15's right? but kiln dried or room dried for a month is the question.
Thanks for any more thoughts....
seems that Tung oil actually attracts dust like you wouldn't believe!!!
Nothing even close to other finishes I've used.
Personally I like butt edges because it looks more realistic....more hand done, but to tell you the truth probably a bit more difficult to install as opposed to T&G.
T&G initially gets locked together right from the get go but butt edges need more attention IMO.....but looks nicer (to me).
The boards I got were kiln dried. My newest batch have been sitting in the rooms now for maybe two months and maybe one more before I get to them.
I'm glad I did one room before doing the entire rest of the house especially because of that Tung oil. Whewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!
Let me know if the stickering thing is true or not.I see no reason why the rep would lie about something I already bought....but you should know because youre doing it.
The boards I got were from a mill in Vermont and New Hampshire (I'm on Long Island)
One from Timberknee
one from Carlisle
Timberknee was way less expensive.
Be well
andyThe secret of Zen in two words is, "Not always so"!
The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life.—Robert Louis Stevenson
http://CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
what andy said final clean subfloor w shop vac for good adhesion of pl400 type subfloor glue glue keeps floor quiet, helps prevent cupping longer the acclimation the better leave expansion space around perimeter to be covered w baseboard, shoe/ quarter if poly, use oilbase, brings pine out if time/budget allows, first coat raw floor w neutral/natural stain brings out grain, makes big difference good oil poly is fabulon, 3 coats very durable, isn't all goop in bottom of can
ed
I went all out and used casesss of PL Premium glueThe secret of Zen in two words is, "Not always so"!
The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life.—Robert Louis Stevenson
http://CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
Strong recommendation to find a copy of Hoadley's "Understanding Wood" (1980 Taunton Press) and read the chapter on water and wood. Particularly, dimensional change in wood. Your eastern white pine is listed as tangential shrinkage of 6.1%, radial shrinkage of 2.1%, and more importantly T/R ratio of 2.9, making it quite unstable as pines go.
Hoadley is the widely recognized wood expert from UMass Amherst. Wood movement is very predictable. When I first heard of him, at a national woodworkers conference in Utah, he was the one presenter that all of the other presenters sat in on.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Tom
The book might say Eastern White Pine is unstable but mine hasnt moved in almost a a year and the climatic changes in that room are seriously fluctuant.
BE floored
andyThe secret of Zen in two words is, "Not always so"!
The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life.—Robert Louis Stevenson
http://CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
" seriously fluctuant" huh..sounds like acid reflux or something..LOL
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations.
Thanks to all. What does IMO mean. Ok on cleaning subfloor and using adhesive. and oil based poly.I stickered it inside WITH NEW, CLEAN FURRING STRIPS. The stickers used outside were rough pine and did stain the wood... hopefully this clean stuff will not. hopefully.At anyrate I'll let it dry more inside. A kiln dryer advised the owner not to bother having it kiln dried as it would only reabsorb moisture anyway to the house level, and maybe buckle... so probably 5-6 weeks inside in the living room where it will go will be sufficient. Thanks to all.
IMO means "In My Opinion"
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Andy, two parts to that. You glued the hell out of it, and you put a finish on it that properly retards water vapor. Whether or not you liked the finish, it worked. Move it to a more humid climate, un-conditioned, and watch it try to go into compression set. That's where the wood tries to expand, can't (due to mechanical constraint), and ends up with checks in the boards. I'm sure you've seen it, if not in your floor. Panels in F&P doors are a common example.
Note the difference between radial and tangential shrinkage, bearing in mind that's green to oven dry. Guess which way Piffin's old floors were sawn? 1/4" gap for that wide a board is good, 1.4% and it's predictable. What's unstable about that pine is the differtial in shrinkage, doesn't matter after the wood's relatively stabilized, like Piffins's old floor, and after what he did with his curing process for the new floor.
Den's question was a different scenerio. If the final mc of his floor was known, along with grain orientation, it's easy to predict movement. That's what Hoadley teaches.
I gather you don't believe Hoadley. PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
here's my two cents worth, starting with some elaboration on Andy and Tung oil.
I'm not sure which kind he used, but pure tung is VERY slow curing, so ANY dust in the house will have more time to find it. We are pretty fanatical about ussing air cleaners to sweeop the air of dust when finishing. use vacs on the sanders and then vac the floor twice before using a tack cloth. That is for any floor finish and sand lightly between coats with same cleaning priocedure.
Also - there is pure tung, polymerized tung, and mixed tung. waterlox is a mix of tung oil and linseed and thinner, according to the label on mine. I just used some on my own bedroom floor which is white pine I turned into flooring out of trees from this property cut seven years ago and stickerd in the shop for all that time.
Stickers can cause staining because when moisture in the air is absorbed into the wood, that wood where it contacts others will asatay damp longer, so the staining is a function of moisture, dust for bacterial feood, etc. Dry and clean means less staining. Stains in the rough will mostly plane out and the shadow left is more interesting character wood than a flaw.
Attached below are some photos of floors we laid this summer that are in process of stain and finish now. The master bdrm is new 9"-12". The others have been there for up to 200 years and are as much as 18" wide with gaps up to 1/4".
Here is how I dealt with the new wood;
I bought it kiln dried and milled as flooring stock which has minor dado on the back - relief kerfs if you will, and T&G. I stacked it in the job for a couple weeks in a space that was kept below 50% humidity all thru the year with a dehumidifieer.
I mixed down some shellac and sealerd both sides of it and stickered it in every course to finish off until we could lay it. That was about a month or so, but two weeks would have been plenty.
Then we used a flooring nailer to put it down over resin paper. I might have used tarpaper as well, but we will have heat under floor on this job so the VOCs might have been offensive. The regular flooring nailer helps pull the edges tight together. Then we hand nailed the decorative head nails in at about 1-1/4" from edges.
You can see there is no gapping as of yet. It was just a day before I shot these photos that the head painter and I were admiring the work, and he said that he was frankly suprised that it had not swelled to buckle during humid August, nor shrunk down to gap now that we are getting into the heating season.
i'm understandable proud of that, but I told him we should still wait until it has been lived in for a whole turn of the seasons before we pat each other on the backs yet.
But - I think somebody mentioned this - that the wood is soft enough that the growth wood can copmpress between growth rings when in compression and still rebound later, in my thinking.
Somewhere around 11-14% is about right, but it is not an exact science. if you lay it drier than surronding materials, it will absorb water and giove a try at buckling. if you lay it wetter, it will definitely ddry in place and cup or shrink to gap.
Andy used glue to prevent that kind of movement, which is also what I did on my bedroom floor. I used shellac to prevent taking up moisture omn the job shown here. A surefire fanatical approach would be to do both.
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Good job on sticker stain. I just want to add that it can be wise to use the same specie of wood for the stickers to avoid a problem. This is very true with ash and maple for some reason.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations.
I just want to add that it can be wise to use the same specie of wood for the stickers to avoid a problem. This is very true with ash and maple for some reason.
Those two have the worst time with fungus staining, extremely difficult to avoid. I don't try. KD stickers help, but don't eliminate.
Fungus needs 75-90°, mc above 20%, the food and oxygen are obviously there. To quote Hoadley: "Drying wood quickly down to below 20% moisture content and keeping it dry is the principal way to prevent fungal deterioration, and one of the main reasons for drying wood is to prevent fungi from developing."PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Nice job Paul
Looks awesome!
What I meant by attracting dust wasn't while its drying.
I meant after its dry.....I can even see the cats paw prints when she walks in the LR and thats after the house is vaccumed.
Might just be my imagination or maybe this ol' house is just a dust bowl but I never saw it happen on any of my other floors.
Also.did you use the waterlox? Do you like it?
I may do a small powder room with it first to see the results before I do the whole house.
Be well
####The secret of Zen in two words is, "Not always so"!
The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life.—Robert Louis Stevenson
http://CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
Waterlox on my bedroom floor. I did like it, but it takes time and patience, and more time.
The job photos are Minwax stain and oil based poly over. I really wanterd to use waterlox there, but the painters resisted. Theuy had just done Waterlox on another job and while they agreed it ooked fine, the time involved was trying their patience. Another point - the off gasing of VOCs is probably higher than with oil based poly and that should be considered when you are living right there in it.
I can't shoot photos right now 'cause wife is up there this minute with drop clothe over it doing the bifold doors with water based poly. This floor was a work of love for me, cause time invested from chainsaw to finished floor and finshed surfacec was astronomical, but for myself, it was a romantic notion to use wood from the proterty for portions of the house. The casings are all from this lot too.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
really does look gorgous and I'm sure the photos don't do it justice.
Cant wait to see some shots of the bedroom.
I think I may have to go with poly because I only have one life and so much to do if you know what I mean.
I have a serious amt of floor to put down and that alone should try my patience because as I learned from the living room..butt edge planks take a whole lot longer than T&G (who'd a thought). And face nailing with the rose head nails take a whole lot longer than using a flooring gun....between predrilling the holes and setting each nail.....so I guess that part will have to be my labor of love.
I think I'll use a moisture cure finish on most of the floors with a matte finish.
I also think I'm going with the soapstone counters....they look unbelivable in spite of it scratching but it can be sanded out....so I'll have to do maintenance on it and use lots of cutting boards and regularly oil it to prevent staining.
The pluses are that I can install it myself routing into it anything I want.
Not to mention its less expensive than honed granite by a lot....and looks beautiful.
I also can get it in Vermont or New Jersey. Two places Katrina found that she likes.
Be well Paul
andy
The secret of Zen in two words is, "Not always so"!
The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life.—Robert Louis Stevenson
http://CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
Edited 11/7/2004 7:21 am ET by Andy Clifford(Andybuildz)
I managed to flip back a corner of the drop clothe
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Now that IS tight knot if I ever saw it...looks real smooth and purdy.
Why are the nail heads so dark out of curiosity. From the stain/finish or is that how they came?
I never saw anything like that.The secret of Zen in two words is, "Not always so"!
When we meet, we say, Namaste'..it means..
I honor the place in you where the entire universe resides,
I honor the place in you of love, of light, of truth, of peace.
I honor the place within you where if you are in that place in you
and I am in that place in me, there is only one of us.
http://CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
That's how they come, hand made cuts nails with beveled heads, not quite as pretty aas the roseheads, but somewhat less expensive and still easy to get. They stock 'm at the lumberyard here.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
I paid $180 for 50# of roseheads.......yikes.
Whatever....same as you..labor of love.....
you had more work in yours per sq ft and I had more work in it far as making the money to have someone else grow the trees and mill em so....same shid but yer shid is more personal which is better IMO...yet....
Your labor of love exceeds mine....lol
Be well Paul
andy
The secret of Zen in two words is, "Not always so"!
When we meet, we say, Namaste'..it means..
I honor the place in you where the entire universe resides,
I honor the place in you of love, of light, of truth, of peace.
I honor the place within you where if you are in that place in you
and I am in that place in me, there is only one of us.
http://CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
Labours of love aren't open to competitions of which is the greater love.
BTW, that's not a bad price for the roseheads. Think mine were about three bucks a pound
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Just want to add a bit to this thread. I'm building my timber frame house over the winter, and I've been agonizing over the perception that I need to drag all of the thousands of board feet of pine to the kiln. Right now it's all stacked and stickered with dry pine stickers, has been since March, and it's all around 12% MC right now. I'm not too awful worried about gaps, most of my pine is between 6-9" wide, some wider, so I don't think that expansion and contraction will be too much of a problem. Plus, my floors will be heated with radiant, so I'm going to try to either shiplap or T&G the boards. They will be face nailed though.
I have been told that I should kiln dry the flooring. As long as I acclimate it to the environment, I'm doubting that over time, kiln drying is going to make that much of a difference.
You are right
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
As long as I acclimate it to the environment, I'm doubting that over time, kiln drying is going to make that much of a difference.
Absolutely. Kiln drying is over-rated. What you want isn't 7% (typical KD), but whatever the rest of the wood in your house is at the time. If you've had the opportunity to work both air- and kiln-dried wood, particularly with hand tools, you'll prefer air-dried. Hardwoods more noticeable.
Last time I bought white oak from a commercial yard they claimed 7%. My meter measured 13%. Yeah, they probably dried to 7% and then left it exposed to our humid summers. Didn't bother me at all as 13% was actually better.
Your radiant heat will dry the floors more. PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Wel,, I'm used to working with air-dried woods, mostly hardwoods, and I greatly prefer air dried wood. It seems to be easier to work, and has much better color. Kiln drying seems to fade the color out of most species.
Plus I hate the thought of sending close to six thousand board feet of lumber to the kiln at 20-30 cents a board foot. $$ ouch.
Plus I hate the thought of sending close to six thousand board feet of lumber to the kiln at 20-30 cents a board foot. $$ ouch.
A quarter/ft was the last price I got. At least it was for a solar kiln which is between air-dried and normal kilns in terms of wood friendliness. I'm in the process of building a solar kiln as a part of my lumber selling plan. Which is what you should do if you wanted drier wood.
Fact of the matter is that small commercial shops here won't normally consider buying air-dried, fear of the unknown. And, no, they don't have a moisture meter. So I'll join the crowd drying to 7% mc, knowing that when I sell 7% it'll soon rise. All the while suggesting to anybody who'll listen, that air-dried is usually better.
As much as century or few old furniture is revered, you'd think it would be more common to consider what the old guys had to work with. Worked for them, no reason not to work now. Still need to understand wood movement. That hasn't changed over the years.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
I'm curious.
I live in an 1880's home with wide plank pine throughout. About 5,000 sq ft of it.
Why in the world would anyone want a flooring that expands and contracts dramaticaly, is soft, requires frequent repair and refinishing, and stains unevenly ?
I live with it everyday. As the humidity drops, and the cracks widen, no more walking about without shoes on, thats for sure. Splinter city. Forget about moving furniture cross grain. Don't let your ladies wear heels. I could go on and on.
But since it has become so popular, there must be some aspects of it I have missed. Sometimes my experiences don't match to mainstream.
I'm just a user of it, but do your customers ever get back to you with their livability of it ? Or is it just a decorative thing, and people put up with it.
Greg, I think you wanted to direct your post to All. I'm certainly no proponent of wood floors, particularly pine. Actually I don't like pine for much of anything. Fortunately I live in my own hardwood wood lot.
Spike heels sure are fun aren't they? Not sure anybody was interested, but Hoadley goes into why not to use eastern white pine for flooring.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
In new England, White pine is a historically authentic wood/flooring choice. I do review the disadvantages of it with my customers before installing it but when you are restoring a two to three hundred year old house, you don't want linoleum or bamboo flooring any more than you would want vinyl siding.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
greg try a humidifier in the house during winter to lessen shrinkage of the flooring adding the moisture also let's you set the heat back a little on the thermostat