I am getting ready to purchase flooring for the timberframe I am building, looking for wide plank white pine. Anybody have any recommended suppliers in NH, VT, or MA? A few I have located include Carlisle, Timberknee, Longleaf, and VT Plank. I think Andy may have bought from a few of these?
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Mike,
I'm not certain what you are looking for, do you want to install the plank flooring yourself or do you want it installed for you?
Wide plank flooring is not really that difficult. I have had my planks milled at a local sawmill and will plane and edge them myself (You'd be amazed at how much you can save) there is a lot to learn and several sources to learn it from but if you are going to have someone install it for you your best bet is to speak to those who have had flooring installed.; another words check referances....
I will be doing the install myself, but probably not the planing and edge jointing prior to installation- I don't have the equipment (although if I thought I could save enough to pay for a small planer, I might!). I have noticed a significant difference in price between the various manufacturers, such as between Timberknee and Carlisle, for example. I am hoping for experiences with the specific manufacturers to help me make a decision if the extra costs are worth it.
Mike, I did a 6,000 sf addition in Carlisle MA 4 years ago (I'm the GC/carpenter/cabinet maker). We put Carlisle flooring in everywhere and I am very suprised and impressed with how it looks now. The 13 to 20" soft pine was glued down to the subfloor in August. I thought it would shrink like hell when the radiant floor heat went on. It hardly moved at all, maybe a small 16th between boards. The 8" heart pine moved quite a bit (as much as I would have expected). I don't remember if we glued it down or nailed it but I'm sure we followed Carlisle's specs. The 13 to 20" white pine is really really soft though. If you like that distressed/antique look it's great. It also stained very well after a sealer. The heart pine got a lighter color, like a minwax colonial, and it looks kind of mousey. The soft pine got a darker stain, like a minwax dark walnut cut in half. We used the brand recommended by Carlisle, again I forget but we had to go into the Porter Square hardware store (escapes me now, ask later if you want it) for the stain.
I've never seen their set up but Parlee lumber is a mill in Littleton or Westford MA that mills what you bring them and stocks some inventory. Otherwise call Feuer Lumber in Atkinson NH and ask John (i think is his name) for a source. There is also Northland Forest Products in Kingston NH, ask for Kerry.
I'll tell you more if you want. Good luck
Mike,
the economics are pretty simple, I pay 40 cents a bdft for white pine and at that price I can be a little picky about what I want, (I can ask for all planks over 12 inches for example or get everything sawn to say 6 inches). (figure length times width and that's the number of bdft you will need) I'd add about 10% to cover selection and maybe add 20% if I was real particular about things...
a small portable planer that goes up to say 12 inches can be purchased for under $500.00 and resold for about 2/3rds of its price when you are finished. Buy a decent router and a couple of bits for say $300.00 and then you can resell it later for about 1/2 of what you paid for it.
Thus a 20x 30 foot floor will cost you $288.00 in materials and the "rent" of tools will be $320.00 add your nails /screws and such and you have your costs.;
Let me be up front, it's not just a simple weekend job to do. there is a fair amount of work involved and you'd better be ready to solve all the problems that crop up yourself. While there is plenty of advice out there you will find some of it very contradictory.; For example I read one post that suggested you glue planks while several other posters feel that glue will cause all sorts of problems later..
frenchy
I'll let you know in a year about glue vs. just nails....I did both on my house as an experiment.
Be floored???
a...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.
Andy,
I don't believe that a year will be long enough to tell, the real weakness of glue as I understand it is that sooner or later it will give up, when it does you get this nasty crackling sound like you're walking on really loud egg shells.
Second glue should be applied wood to wood. While it is normal to use rosin paper between the sub floor and finish floor, that precludes using one or the other in the manner intended.
I like the concept of glue, I believe that it might limit the swelling and shrinking of the finish floor relative to humidity levels. To attempt to do the same thing with mechanical fastners (screws or nails) would be to risk splitting the wood. Yet that same feature is why glue is bound to fail. stress a joint on a regular basis and sooner or later the glue has to give up. I suspect if you were to check all of the fine antiques made over time almost none of them have original glue joints older than 50 years at best!
I like the 100 year concept.; If something has been proven to work well after 100 years it is probably the way to go.; I doubt you'll find any 100 year old house that relies on glue to hold down a floor.
Guys-
Thanks for all the advice and insight- that's the kind of help I get so often at BT, and it has helped me through many aspects of this project. I already have a good router, I am assuming either T&G or shiplap?
I know what you mean about conflicting advice, or at least different ways to do the same project. I am still trying to sort through it all, such as glue and topnail, or rosin paper and topnail, or felt paper and topnail, or glue/ screw and plug and felt paper, or......well you get my point. Do you think I should relieve the back on my tablesaw if my flooring does not already have it? How about sealing the backs before I put it down? I will probably finish it with Waterlox. I realize the job will take me much longer than strip oak, but I don't really have that much sq ft to do.
Thanks again for the help
If you don't use glue, definitely backseal
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Does this mean I should not use glue if I back seal? Will the glue not grab well if it is sealed? Using 8-15" widths, would you:
1. top nail over felt paper or not seal?
2. not use felt paper, not seal, but use glue and top nail?
Just trying to get as many opinions, but they seem to differ so much.
Also, the sales lady at Carlisle told me that the width of the board has nothing to do with moisture driven shrinking or expanding, i.e., that 6" boards will not shrink any less than 16" boards. That seem to contradict what I heard and thought was logical....
No conflict between the sealer and the glue. My point was that if you only edge nail and not glue to hold it down vertically, then any wood movement is likely to lift the boars, so you want to limit the movement of the wood by limiting the amt of moisture the wood can absorb.Ladie from Carlise is misunderstanding her own self. Wood movement is by a percentage of the whole so if the whole is bigger, the movement is greater.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Piffin and Frenchy-
I understand your points about the moisture swelling and use of glue. I think I will try the felt paper (15#?) and top nail combined with back sealing (shellac type?), that seems like it should work ok. I still have not decided if I should get it ship lapped or square cut. I'll probably get flooring in the 8-14 " range.
I agree with you about the sales person's explanation of swelling being wrong. She was trying to say that wood width does not matter, only the quality of the wood- and of course, their product was the best! Pride in your product is one thing, but when it leads you to mislead your customers or just be plain ignorant/ mistaken, you can easily lose sales to a customer who is willing to do a little fact checking. It's not worth arguing with her........
That is how we did the last one.
Dry delivery
stickered a week
Shellac both sides
stickered two more weeeks
Nailed down over paper with rose head nails.
finished rest of house and trim, paint etc.
sanded surface, stained and poly.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Had some guy stop in here a cpl of weeks ago. They primarily sell wide plank pine floors here on LI.
Saw the age of my house and just thought to stop in and try and sell me their floors.
Told him he should have come last year.
He came in....I gave him the tour and he seemed a bit upset at all the wide plank I "already" installed.
Told him not to worry because I'm positive I'm going to be getting more work in the future when people see this house finished.
He asked if I glued the planks down.
Told him I glued all of downstairs sides the rose heads....red rosined the upstairs and nailed with rose heads and NO glue.
HE thought I was nuts not to glue it.....Told him I was experimenting on my own crib so he cocked his head a bit...blinked a few times....gave me his card and told me to call him in another cpl of years to let him know what happens.
BE floored?
a...
PS....I know you asked me to post some pics but its beens so dusty non stop all you'd see is volcanic dust from either the soapstone counters or whatever else I'm doing (poor Katrina...what a trooper)
Also you should look into soapstone a bit deeper....its incredably awesome looking and does not stain.....scratches yes, but won't stain.
Trust me...lolThe 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.
Mike,
you'll get a variety of opinions here and I freely admit this is my opinion and not carefully researched fact. However I intend to use rosin paper rather than felt paper (the pink stuff not the black stuff) the reason is that when the wood dries out and opens up a bit I'd rather not smell the tar they use to make felt paper.
I'd tongue and grove the wood rather thanship lap.; I've almost never seen ship lapped wood and I have seen billions of bdft. of tongue and groove.
My only issue with wood swelling is that of the swelling differential.; Assume that you lay the wood in parralle with the sub floor.; High humidity arrives and the sub floor swells as well as the finished floor.; won't the differance be the differant rate of swelling between the wood of the sub floor and the finish floor's rate of swelling? If you use Eatern white pine for a finished flor and the subfloor is another pine like jack pine wouldn't the rate be 6.;1 % for eastern and 6.;6% for jack? Assume 100% saturtion and a floor that is mostly 12 inch boards we'd then have the total differance in swelling to be .072 of an inch. per board or a total of 1.;44 inches across a 20 foot room.;
Now granted if the sub flooring is tangential and you lay the finish flor radially then you'd have a much greater total differnace wouldn't you?
If you'll give me the wood types I'll try to do the math for you.;
Frenchy-
Interesting point on the rosin paper, I never thought about that.
My subfloor is 3/4 advantec, so I don't think I'll have too much subfloor movement. Also, the ceiling under the floor (underside of the floor) has been sprayed with foam, so that should also retard any moisture movement from underneath. I like Piffin's idea about coating both sides with shellac, then sanding and finishing the floor after the rest of the rooms are done.
mike, it's mark again.
I never glued a whole floor down and I never layed soft white pine down before this job in Carlisle. We were finishing the floors on 9/11/01. I remember that well. 4 years later the 13 to 20 looks really great, dings and all. I saw it in November with the heat on. Glue definately works very well despite what you might hear from others. The Carlisle product was relief cut on the back side (little 1/4" flutes). The stock was tacked down w/gun finish nails. Acclimation was critical. The stock was definately expensive. Sanding at opposing angles and lifting the grain w/water while screening helped get rid of the machine marks. We did not use a water based stain. A good crosscut jig (supplied by me) kept my installer motivated to butt everything nicely-20" butts can look really lousy if they're off. Good luck
Mike I built a 40'X40' "farm stand" in MA a couple summers ago. We got 1X10 white pine T&G from Cape Cod lumber in Massachusetts. I don't have a number handy but IIRC they are out of Hyannis. Try 411 or even Google 'em. They may have what you're looking for.
Again, IIRC, I was really surprised at how reasonable the prices were. Nice stock too.
Mike
I bought mine from Carlisle "and" Timberknee for this house.
Carlisle was way more expensive so I switched to Timberknee for the majority of the house. A huge savings "but" way more knots if that bothers you. Still looks fantasic though. I also think Carlisle gave me a lot of extra where as Timberknee gave me "exactly" the amt I ordered yet also gave me some planks that were incredably wide that I didn't order which was nice to throw in here and there.
I hated using the water based stain that came from Carlisle that they recommended and sold of course. The color was nice but it was a pain because they also recommened and sold me their tung oil. The oil kept pulling up the stain. I had to work so fast I was shidding bullets and crapping in my pants....nice visual huh?
So its up to you. As for me? I spose if I didnt have a lot to do or it was someone elses money I'd reuse Carlisle...if it "is" your money and you "do" have a lot to do and you aint rich I'd go with Timberknee.
Be floored????
Also....I thought the wide plank flooring would be easier than the normal oak I'm used to laying but not so AT ALL!
BEing that I faced nailed it (rose heads) it takes way more time between getting them all lined up just right....not dimpling the soft wood with my hammer and when I did dimple it I had to drop some warm water on it....let it sit...put a damp cloth over it then an iron to swell it back to normal.
It all takes a lot of time.
You can leave the planks that don't sit tight tohrther like that or fill em'.
I was told by my floor sanding guy that some people use window glazing.
I may just try that in a closet as a test spot. Not a bad tip.
Be well
a...
The secret of Zen in two words is, "Not always so"!
When we meet, we say, Namaste'..it means..