At Home In The Woods

[Obed]

For shopping for wood floor, you need to ask some key questions: ...

Dave,
Thank you for the detailed answers. I can't tell you how helpful this information is.

Do you have any suggestions regarding interviewing hardwood flooring installers? Can you think of any questions we should ask them or any installation specifications we should ask for? What are some common installation issues that we should look out for and try to avoid?

Thanks again,

Obed

 

[ruralruss]

Obed,

We have been looking at hardwood flooring as well. Some of the ones we like the best are bamboo. It is suppose to be very durable, not very sensitive to moisture and very sustainable if that is a concern of yours. Nice looking ceramic tile works well in a kitchen and looks very nice up against wood. It also works well at door entries. Having a large area with open rooms together all with the same floor can look almost monotonous. Areas rugs help a lot but can be pricey.

Dave,

Do you have any experience with bamboo wood floors? I have noticed that most of the hard wood flooring in the Lowes and Home Depot, etc. are actually 5/8 inch but in 3 layers like plywood. Is this better of worse that solid wood?

Russ

 

[eepete]

On the hardwood floors, we did the "Air Conditioner Only" AC on permit and ran the AC with the wood in the house for a month before putting it down. But it went down at the beginning of August, not mid September. A win of this is you can also wire up your outlets and turn them on when you are in the house to make some of the finishing jobs easier. You just can't leave anything on when you are not there, and no one else was allowed to turn them on. I also turned on some light circuits for when we were working in inside areas. But I did all the electrical, so I was able to trim the elecrical out just after painting.

Agree that you want to paint very early because it's easiest. We painted before the floors went down. On paint prep, I took the dust off the walls with a damp towel before painting. A pain, but great results. Did a prime (with a sprayer) then the color. Be sure to write down the "magic numbers" for each color, not just the name. With the mix numbers anyone can match the paint. We actually covered all the windows and outlets with plastic so the primer could be sprayed on. Colors then done by hand. All trim done much later when the floors were down. YMMV depending on your time availably and how your paint crew does things.

On your gutter drains, I got close to the right slant on them, but some were more horizontal than they should have been in a few placeds. I was shooting for a quarter inch per foot. This turns out to not be a problem because unlike a sewer drain, when it rains there is some serious water flushing the drains out. I'm not advocating you run everything close to horizontal and just eyeball it- your measuring is what you need to do. But if a section is off a bit it's not a big problem. In one area, I just did not have the slope so the pipe is near horizontal and actually came up about 3" near the end. It flushes out any debris and drains just fine. Some year I'll fix that last 10' when I tweak the grade of the lawn in that area.
So my point is that if you are off a bit, or have to have a section or two of pipe that's not sloped as much as it should be, it will work OK. This is especially true with your average drop of 3/4 inch per foot, which is pretty steep (and I understand why you need to do this).

Gutter drains into smooth 4" pipe was one of the best things that happened on the house.

congrats on all the other progress :thumbsup:. Did the drywallers miss any of your electrical boxes? They missed two when they did our place. The extra boxes in odd places for the automation are the ones they missed. They know to look for light switches and outlets.

Pete

 

[Wooddust]

Mark and anyone else who can assist,

We are considering purchasing #1 grade hardwood floors, which as we understand is one grade below the best grade "select". We plan on using oak as it is economical; we have a lot of floor to cover. We have been considering red oak or white oak. The wife is leaning toward red oak as she thinks the color of red oak floors might look better with the cherry cabinets. How much does using red vs. white oak affect the color of the floor? Can the color of the floor be adjusted to what she might want just by the finish put on the floor?

The flooring installers tell us that we shop for and buy the wood; they just install it. So what should we look for when shopping for wood flooring? How do we determine if the wood supplier is providing quality wood flooring? How important is it to get quarter sawn wood? Is quarter sawn wood so expensive it doesn't justify the extra cost?

Most of the installers are recommending that we install and run the air conditioning before the hw floors are installed. How important is it to do this, especially when we will just open the windows as soon as we move into the house? Also, running the AC is an extra hassle for us because we will have to get an "early on" electrical permit to do so. Normally, the county/state won't turn on the electricity until the house is ready for moving in and the occupancy permit is approved.

Since we will keep the windows open whenever possible, do we need to instruct the hw floor installers to do anything special when they install the floors?

We plan to have hw flooring in the kitchen. Yes, I'm nervous about water leaks but the wife want's hw floors in the kitchen - so that's how it will be. Should we install the hw flooring under the kitchen cabinets or put Advantek subflooring under the cabinets? If we put Advantek under the cabinets, where should the Advantek end and the hardwood flooring start?

Thanks a lot,
Obed

I used number 1 red oak in my hunting cabin on the farm and I cannot be happier. They experts told me to account for waste due to needing to cut out some bad spots...I cut a total of 2 pieces. I was amazed. Its been down a year and a half and every time I look at it im am more pleased. Red Oak with no stain has amazing figure and colors.

Hope this pic shows it ok.

 

[woodlandfarms]

Our LA house has been refloored twice (due to flooding). The entire house is hardwood except the kitchen. It is a 50's modern home so designing is fun and interesting (for me anyway). We went with Red Oak for our floors. For us that slight touch of color was a nice way to go. Helped blend in furniture.

A few personal notes. I am NOT a fan of water based Polyeurathane. It is all we can get in California, but next time I refinish I am going to either do it myself or find someone who will do it illegaly with oil. We have used the best water based and it does not hold up like oil based. Lots of reasons to not use oil based but for us those issues have not outweighed our unhappiness wtih water based Poly.

Second, if you want to use wood in a kitchen might I suggest an alternative media. Cork for example is killer in a kitchen. Or take a hard look at some new linoleum based products. There is some stuff that looks like bamboo, laid down as tile and has an amazing look. For me, having gone through the two broken pipe floods, putting wood in a kitchen is too much of a risk. If the floor gets wet, and buckles, it takes your cabinets with it, and a 20K floor repair becomes 100K suddenly.

Carl

 

[eepete]

Forgot about water on wood floor info. We have tongue and groove Cherry in the house. In the kitchen and half bath, when they were putting it down I put a thin beed of clear RTV on the tongue. Also a thin line on the end of the boards. A few places a little bit squished up through, it wiped right off. The idea here was if water got on it, it would be hard pressed to sink down through it. We heard of it from one person we know who does floors. The people who put the floor down (head person) said they had never heard of doing that. The workers had heard of it. The knew how to do it "right", the owner just didn't want to. Generally speaking, I don't like just about all of the trades (there are some good ones, I just never can find them )

An added bonus: The kitchen floor has zero squeaks.

We did the cabinets 1st, then the floor. Down side is if anyone ever re-does the kitchen, they will have a floor problem. They will either have to try to match the floor, or take the kitchen area to a new material. There are two door-sized areas where the kitchen floor ties into the rest of the house, so a new material is doable.

Be sure to score about 4 boxes of wood for repairs. We just got one, and found out after we paid that the box was mostly rejects. Did I mention I hate the trades? If you decide to do the cabinets 1st, you could also get and put aside enough wood to re-work where the cabinets were if the kitchen were re-done.

Pete

 

[dstig1]

Dave,
Thank you for the detailed answers. I can't tell you how helpful this information is.

Do you have any suggestions regarding interviewing hardwood flooring installers? Can you think of any questions we should ask them or any installation specifications we should ask for? What are some common installation issues that we should look out for and try to avoid?

Thanks again,

Obed

One thing I would ask up front is if they have a moisture meter and do they use it (and when/how often)? Many (most) won't. They will say things like "3 weeks in conditioned space and it is fine". Which is right...if the wood arrives in a decently dry condition. But how do you know that if you don't measure it? Unless you are lucky and find a really good installer that is this detailed, your best bet is to buy a moisture meter, buy the wood, and start checking it. It will condition faster if the bundles are broken up so air can circulate. Find a good out of the way area to spread it out. Then graph the MC over the space of a few weeks. When it flattens out (stops changing) then call the installers to have them go to it. Then sell the meter on ebay or CL if you don't need it. Consider it part of the wood cost...

You are going for hardwood vs the many engineered floor products. Sanding and finishing in place helps ensure a less wavy floor (if they do it well). I think that solid wood is better in this regard than prefinished as you level it in place during sanding. Prefinished floors always look wavy to me. Especially over large areas.

There isn't a lot you can spec for the install. Some use staples, some use nails. Nails supposedly hold better but staples result in less splitting damage. I think either works fine if done well. The subfloor is a key part, but you have a solid Advantech OSB, IIRC so you should be in good shape as OSB has good fastener holding (plywood is better but not head and shoulders). Fix anything loose/squeeks in the subfloor before installing the wood. You also should check for flatness in the subfloor. This is tedious, but any humps will cause issues and you should take a belt sander to them ahead of time. They can fill in some depressions with leveling compound. They need to leave enough room for expansion across the width of the boards which is usually done with a 1/4 round shoe molding and baseboard to hide the gap. They should all use rosin paper between the subfloor and the wood floor.

Square rooms help a lot. It will pay for you to take a few minutes with a tape measure and your wife to check that the rooms are pretty close to square (across the width of the boards) so you know what to keep an eye on (and warn the installers about) before hand.

Other than those things, it comes down to the usual stuff - ask for references and check them. Ask down at the lumber yard who are the top installers, etc.

 

[dstig1]

Obed,

Dave,

Do you have any experience with bamboo wood floors? I have noticed that most of the hard wood flooring in the Lowes and Home Depot, etc. are actually 5/8 inch but in 3 layers like plywood. Is this better of worse that solid wood?

Russ

Not much, nothing first hand. The generalities if you don't know them - Bamboo is actually a grass, not a wood. The flooring is made by pressing strands of it together with glue/heat/pressure. There is no such thing as a bamboo "board" at least not as you normally think of boards.

As for the engineered flooring being better or worse than solid wood, it is one of those huge "it depends" questions. EW will be more stable, but has limits on things like refinishing (minimal thickness for re-sanding) and is generally prefinished. In high moisture environments/severe fluctuations (like a basement with a slightly moisture permeating concrete floor), EW is a much better choice if you are **** bent on doing wood. But there are tradeoffs there too.

-Dave

 

[PAGUY]

With all the uncertainties of wood qualities and the maintenance after installation I think a young family would be better suited to carpeting most of their living space. I would never take the chance with wood floors in the kitchen. The best would be ceramic tile or linoleum. No problems with spills or leaks. Dining room floors are susceptible to scratched surfaces from chairs being pulled in and out from the table. A formal parlor is an okay but not if it is used as a family room. In my opinion wood floors make for a spectacular look to a room but who lives in a showroom type house. Carpeting is quieter and less maintenance to keep it looking good. How many lay on a wood floor to play with the baby or to just stretch out and relax their back muscles. Carpeting can be cleaned or replaced with no big time trouble. Changing the carpeting can change the look of any room. Another thing to remember, Obed, you mentioned keeping the windows open which will make wood floors dusty and constantly need sweeping to look clean. I'm sure money-wise carpeting would be cheaper and could always be replaced with wood floors as lifestyle changes occur. I've seen the opposite many times where wood floors get covered with carpeting to hide flaws. JMO

 

[EddieWalker]

Obed,

We have been looking at hardwood flooring as well. Some of the ones we like the best are bamboo. It is suppose to be very durable, not very sensitive to moisture and very sustainable if that is a concern of yours.

Russ,

Bamboo is a grass. It grows very fast, which makes it a renewable source of material. Due to this feature, it's being pushed as a "green" alternative to wood for flooring.

Unfortunately, it's a very soft material compared to wood. What you are buying when you get bamboo floors is really a degree of hardener and/or sealer to protect the bamboo. Kind of like electric cars. People think they are saving the planet by buying toxic batteries filled with acid that require more power plants to charge these vehicles. Same thing with bamboo. You have to use more chemicals and polutants to make it and protect it.

Then there is the real problem with bamboo. Depending on the quality of the chemicals used on it, is how long it will take for wear patterns to show. High traffic areas will wear out very quickly compared to wood. If you have a desk with a chair on wheels, it will show extremly quickly. Dogs are also good at scratching it, and once you break through the finish, it's just get worse at a rapid rate.

I'm no expert on it, and have never tried to sand and seal it after it's started to show wear. I've been asked to bid it out, but decline every time. I've seen it fail in just a few years, but don't know all the details or brands that sold it. I've never seen wood, or even engineered wood fail like I've seen bamboo wear out.

The only thing worse than bamboo for a floor is cork.

If you really want bamboo, I would suggest you buy the most expensive product out there from a company that you have researched and know for a fact has a really good finish on it that has proven to last the test of time.

As for warrantees, they are pretty much worthless. If you call them on it, and they agree that there is a claim and honor your warrantee, they will just give you more flooring. You have to figure out what to do with it. Remove the old and install the new is on you. It's also where all the money is. I don't know of any manufacturers that include labor in their warrantees, and I don't know of any installers who will replace flooring that fails because of manufacterer defects. They installed it correctly, it wasn't their fault, type of reasoning.

Good luck,
Eddie