Attn: Dave (overmyhead)

Dave,
I tried to send a PM to you but without luck.

Here it is:

Hey Dave, whats up??
I've got a question and since you are the expert on wood flooring, I thought about you.

My home up north will be going through a remodel and expansion in a couple years. I've been looking at 3/4 Red pine in the neighborhood of 4 to 5 inches wide. I'm getting mixed reviews on the stuff. I've looked at the Janka hardness and was quite surprised on it's rating. If I remember correctly, it's rated higher than some Oaks. I will ether go to one of the mills in Michigan or my other choice is a local mill where I would get RS and do the finish milling myself. It will be going down on a radiant floor (Warmboard). The suggested method is to glue and nail.

My selection of the Red Pine is based on it being and appropriate choice for a rustic north woods home. BTW, it would be a "cottage" grade.

Any comments?

Have a great Thanksgiving as well as Christmas.

Pete

8122pbrainard wrote: Dave, I tried to send a PM to you but without luck. Here it is: Hey Dave, whats up?? I've got a question and since you are the expert on wood flooring, I thought about you. My home up north will be going through a remodel and expansion in a couple years. I've been looking at 3/4 Red pine in the neighborhood of 4 to 5 inches wide. I'm getting mixed reviews on the stuff. I've looked at the Janka hardness and was quite surprised on it's rating. If I remember correctly, it's rated higher than some Oaks. I will ether go to one of the mills in Michigan or my other choice is a local mill where I would get RS and do the finish milling myself. It will be going down on a radiant floor (Warmboard). The suggested method is to glue and nail. My selection of the Red Pine is based on it being and appropriate choice for a rustic north woods home. BTW, it would be a "cottage" grade. Any comments? Have a great Thanksgiving as well as Christmas. Pete

Hey Pete, I dont know whats up with the PM. We dont do a large percentage of pine floors, but I have done several, The red pine would look great in a cabin. I like the look of a mixed 3,4 5" widths, either in a pattern or random in that application, I am not convinced that Janka is everything. My experience is that the red pine will ding easier than the oak, but that is not a bad thing for a cabin. You can expect it to get a petina, and that is a nice look over time. I have even left it rough (cicle) sawn and finished it without sanding. Another option is Australion cyprus. I put 2400 feet of the stuff in a massive log cabin and it looked spectacular. It has lots of color variation and character and is very hard. Visually it reminds me of cedar but less red. It has a high oil content that makes finishing a little finicky. I dont do much on the finishing end but I could consult and get you the proper process. I know it does not stain well at all.

If it is a tongue and grove product nailing or glue down alone should be adequate. Things get messy when you try to do both, I refuse to use trowel glue and a flooring stapler, I always end up with my nailers and hoses full of glue. On wider boards (Over 5") I have run construction adhesive on the backs and used the nailers which is not to bad. I believe the trowelable latex adhesives used today would be a minor insulator and slow heat transfer. I am not familiar with "warm board", is that electric or hot water? I recently laid walnut directly over an electric mat in a master bath. We could nail through everthing but the feed wires. Otherwise you want 3/4 inch ply to "nail" into, actually a 1.5" staple or cleat (as opposed to the usual 2") at a 45 degree through the tongue stops just short of the bottom of the ply.   If you mill yourself without the tongue and groove you do not have a choice, you will have to trowel glue down, and with cottage grade you can throw in a few pin nails as necesary to hold it down until the glue sets. Old school cut nails throught the face look cool to, but are probably not an option with the heat. In either application you want to have the heat up and running, with surface temps not exceeding 84 degrees with your nifty infrared scanner. Sub floor should be below 12% moisture content, Then "rack out" or spread the boards over the floor and let them acclimate for several days. In most circumstances acclimation is old school and over rated. Having the ability to stick floors with a pin meter and ensure adequate conditions is better than stacking the wood in a room for a week and hoping. That said I advocate acclimating over in-floor-heat, you are asking a lot of a wood floor in this circumstance, and pre-shrinking the boards over the heat will give you a tighter floor long term.

When you are ready to go I can give you a few tricks of the trade for your choice of installation along with my phone number.

Dave,
Thanks for your input. I did look at the Australian Cypress way back when I was looking at the typical commercially available wood floors. I was at that time looking at engineered to keep a better heat transfer from the radiant. I leaned away from it just because of it's wide color variations. Then I talked with the Midwest Warmboard rep and he said a 3/4" floor is not a problem. This was when I really started looking at what local woods would have been used and decided the cottage Red Pine would be perfect.

Ok, I will suggest construction adhesive and pin nail to the contractor laying the flooring,

Thanks again.

dogs,high heels and pine floors dont mix.some call it patina

Australian Cypress is a great product for flooring. The first house I built had t&g Cypress flooring it looked awesome with the exposed Oregon timber beams. It can split easy when nailing so it needs to be pre drilled especially when you butt join two planks over a floor joist.

lewy2001 wrote: When nailing it needs to be pre drilled especially when you butt join.

Thats sick!


The Austrailian cypress is a brittle wood, cleats work better than staples, I shim the plate on the stapler with a few pennys to increase the angle of the fasteners going through the wood, otherwise you just split the tongue off the board.

Being a contractor doing a job for Pete Brainard......THE JOB FROM HELL!!!

OverMyHead wrote: [QUOTE=bbishop1974] for you I can recommend a good linolium guy!

I've been out of the flooring business since 1988 but even back then it was called vinyl flooring. Do they even still make linolium, or are yo just not being politically correct? I do remember linolium, my father installed miles of it.



Pete, it's your cabin and if it calls for red pine, then red pine it is. You want to keep it original

I believe linoleum is linseed oil based and was layered on top of asbestos in the old days, it is still around but has widely been replaced by vinyl. When I am being sarcastic linoleum sounds better, imagine a nasal tone and the vowels stretched out.

I would not mind working with Pete, the worst are the customers that have no clue and no involvement in the process, then they come in the end and complain about a few boards just to let you know they have some power because they are holding your final payment check. Pete would understand the project. I would expect to be grilled about the process, and that is a great opportunity to build credibility while setting expectations. After that is done I rarely have problems. Better yet is to let a particularly demanding customer work with me, laying out boards and making decisions. Like me, they might look back and say "I wish hadn't stuck that board in", but they rarely reject a final product that they are invested in.   

"For" was the original wording, on proof reading I changed it. Nice pick up on that. With somene with Petes likely expectations it has to be that way if you want to come out of it and still be in business. If I where in his market I would still take on the job, No one would fault me much if I failed and if I made him a happy customer (which I believe I could) I would have a solid gold reference!