Earlier this week we were working on a quote for a customer.  She had been speaking with one of our competitors about a heart pine floor.  They had provided her with a ton of technical information about their products and the differences between their different grades of flooring.  Based on her interaction with this company she was very confused and frustrated.  This once again highlighted a problem that we have encountered many times.  It’s such an important issue that it will take several entries to thoroughly cover the topic.

In a nutshell, the problem is that there are no established industry wide grades or grading system for heart pine and other species of antique floors.  Each individual company sets their own grading criteria.  The antique wood business is an unregulated industry.  This unregulated nature causes some companies to overcompensate by creating extremely complex grading systems and grades.

At Our Heritage Preserved we strive to provide the highest quality reclaimed wood floors with the highest level of customer service possible.  That means that we want our customers to have a pleasurable experience from the time they express interest in our floors until they actually walk on the floors and beyond.  Part of this experience is that we do not complicate things for the customer.  

Many of our competitors complicate the process with literally dozens of different grades and highly technical specifications that define each grade.  This just serves to confuse the customer and complicate the process.  We maintain five different grades of reclaimed pine.  Our company has a simplified system which is easily followed by industry professionals and flooring novices alike.  These grades are based on the aesthetic appeal of the floor.  Each of these grades has a distinct look associated with it.  We feel that five distinctions provides plenty of differentiation.  Beyond that you reach a point where confusion begins to set in about the true differences between the grades.  However, if a customer has some specific element of a grade that they would like to accentuate or eliminate we can certainly accommodate their wishes.  We can match the specifications of any other heart pine company out there.  Our goal is to remain flexible and serve the needs of the customer as best as possible.  We adamantly feel this is best done by keeping things simple and focusing on the appearance of the floor not some arbitrary statistics.

Make sure that you check back in for future entries concerning heart pine grading.  We will explore all aspects of this issue in great detail.

Some of the terms we will cover in our glossary do not take a great deal of space to define.  Therefore we can cover multiple terms in one entry.  Today we will define two terms that are important for different reasons.  One has to do with the floor ordering process and the other is concerned with the installation process.

When a customer calls to place an order one of the first questions that our customer service representatives will ask is what the necessary coverage area is in square footage.  Thus coverage simply means the amount of floor necessary to cover the area where the flooring will be installed.  This figure can be obtained by either carefully reading the plans or by actually measuring the space by hand.  The coverage area does not equal the amount of flooring to be ordered.  Once the coverage area is determined then an appropriate amount of waste must be factored in to determine the total amount of flooring that must be ordered.  For instance, the actual coverage area of a home might be 1532 square feet.  Typically, we allow for 10% waste in our floors to ensure that your installer can have extra flooring to cut off around walls and doorways.  So if your coverage area is 1532 square feet then you would need to order 1685 square feet.

Cut nails were the only type of nail available until the industrial revolution made nail production a much easier process.  Thus most heart pine floors were installed with cut nails.  These nails were often hand made on site by the carpenter or home owner himself.  The nails featured square blunt ends and square heads which made them more difficult to work with but more decorative as well.  As we discussed in a previous entry these nails provide the most authentic looking antique floors.  Special techniques must be used when installing a floor with this style of nail.  Follow the link below to learn more about cut nails, their use and even see some pictures of these unique nails.

http://www.bobvila.com/HowTo_Library/Cut_Nails_Bring_Authenticity_to_Wood_Floors_Walls_and_Cabinets-Miscellaneous_Carpentry-A1595.html

A concrete slab as it relates to the flooring industry is simply a concrete surface that serves as the subfloor of a structure.  A good deal of new construction is built on concrete slabs, meaning that concrete is poured directly onto the ground to create the foundation of the house.  In more traditional home building, the structure would be built up off of the ground with a crawl space between the ground and the subfloor.  In this type of construction, the subfloor would be made of plywood.  Virtually any type of flooring can be installed on a plywood subfloor that is above a crawl space.  However, much like with below grade areas (which we discussed in a previous entry) concrete slabs present a special situation as it relates flooring installation.  Concrete slabs that are poured onto the ground are subject to the moisture variations that occur with the soil.  Thus a large rain might significantly raise the moisture level of the concrete and wreak havoc on a floor. 

Concrete subfloors are also encountered in large multi story buildings that are primarily built of steel and concrete.  This type of concrete subfloor is also highly susceptible to moisture variations.  That is just the nature of concrete.  So the third floor of an office building that is comprised of concrete is just as susceptible to moisture variations as concrete that is in contact with the ground. 

This fact means that only engineered floors can be directly applied to concrete.  Unfortunately, several variations of our heart pine and barn wood floors are not conducive to being produced in an engineered format.  We have worked closely with customers that insisted on a certain style of our floor but were stuck working with the limitations of concrete.  Through our work with these customers we developed a style of installation where solid wood floors can be installed on concrete.  However, this type of installation still does not work below grade.  The only type of wood flooring that should ever be installed below grade is engineered flooring.

The first such customer that we worked with was building a hunting cabin on a slab in the Georgia woods.  The hunting motif required a rustic barn wood look.  The other customer was remodeling his office which was located in an industrial age warehouse in New Jersey.  This building already contained some heart pine flooring from a previous remodeling and we were required to closely match the pre existing floor. 

Our work with these customers yielded a process that will work for virtually any type of concrete installation.  Basically we create a new wooden subfloor on top of the concrete which produces a barrier between the concrete and the wood floor itself.  Please keep in mind that this is an expensive process but if your project requires a very specific type of reclaimed floor it may be your only option.  If you are interested in the specifics of these installations we would be more than happy to talk with you about them.   

Jim Blount, President of Our Heritage Preserved will be making his first public presentation about the company tonight at the Greenville, NC Rotary Club.  Club members have been urging us to make an after dinner presentation to their group for sometime.  The club has a speaker at every monthly meeting on a wide range of topics.  

The presentation will cover all kinds of topics relating to the business from formation to our participation in the 2007 Coastal Living Idea House.  Special attention will be given to our processing operations and the history of our raw materials.  People are always fascinated by these parts of our business especially the historical signifigance of heart pine wood.

Our Heritage Preserved is pleased to announce that we are now offering this same presentation to any interested group.  If you have any civic or social group that is in search of an interesting speaker please contact us about our presentation.  We will provide this service free of charge and we promise an interesting evening.  We already have several other engagements booked so if you do have an interest please contact us immediately so that we can work you into our schedule.    

The Captain’s Quarters is the title of the article in this month’s Coastal Living magazine about 2007 Idea House in Oriental, NC.  The 47 page feature article covers almost every detail about the house.  Of course our heart pine flooring is featured throughout the home but the real beauty of our floors is most easily observed on page 70 in the magazine.  The picture on page 70 is a shot of the kitchen but the angle of the shot provides a great view of our flooring.  The warm, rich tones of the floor provide a fanatastic contrast to the lightly colored walls and cabinetry.  The interior designers intentionally made this one of the most inviting rooms in the house because they know how people love to congregate in the kitchen.   

The actual builders of the home are featured on page 100.  We would like to offer some special recognition to these gentlemen because without them we never would have been involved with the project.  They choose us to provide the heart pine flooring and we are very appreciative of that fact.

On page 103 you will notice a list of the local sponsors.  The group that actually installed and finished our flooring in the house are recognized here.  We work very closely with FloorMasters of North Carolina on many projects.  Their attention to detail and tremendous skill ensured that our flooring turned out beautifully.  We recommend FloorMasters to all of our local clients.

Finally, we mentioned in an earlier post that Coastal Living provided Our Heritage Preserved with some special thanks for providing the heart pine flooring.  Be sure to check out this recognition on page 86.       

Character is a frequently used word in the flooring industry but what exactly does it mean.  Character as it relates to flooring can best be described as any type of marking or characteristic present in the flooring that makes it unique and distinctive.  Some of the character that exists in flooring is natural.  For instance, knots occur naturally in many species of wood.  However, in antique flooring many of these character markings are caused by something that the wood was exposed to in its former life.  This exposure creates unique markings that cannot be replicated by hand they are the work of time and nature.  For instance, some of the heart pine material that we are working with today was removed from a cotton mill.  Large equipment was used inside the building to process the cotton.  Over time the equipment began to leak oil and other lubricants which eventually seeped into the wood that we are processing.  This oil stained wood creates a very unique heart pine flooring option.  Some reclaimed oak that we milled recently was salvaged from the outside walls of an old barn.  This wood had been exposed to the wind and rain for over 100 years.  The look that this created was unique and beautiful. 

Knots, oil stain and weathering are certainly not the only types of character present in antique flooring.  Other frequently seen types of character include but are not limited to: nail holes, bolt holes, voids, cracks, checks, worm holes, mineral streaks and discolorations. 

One of the really great features of antique flooring is that it is essentially customizable.  We can produce a floor that is essentially void of character or we can produce a floor with just certain types of character or we can produce a floor full of all types of character.  Thus the amount of character in a floor is completely dependent on the preferences of the customer purchasing the floor.   

The vast majority of the flooring that we produce is tongue and groove.  However, there are alternatives to this type of flooring.  The two alternatives are butted flooring and ship’s lap.  We will discuss tongue and groove as well as ship’s lap more fully in a later entry.  For today, we will examine butted floor, its positives and drawbacks.  Simply put, butted floor is a style of flooring where the sides of the flooring are square edged and “butted” together.  (Square edged just means that we plane the side of the board to ensure that it is smooth and straight). 

Some customers (including one of our owners) choose this option because it is a very traditional style and look.  Prior to the 1850s almost all floors were butted together.  The reason behind this is simple: the equipment, money or manpower necessary to produce tongue and groove or ship’s lap was not available to the home builder.  Today we use expensive, highly technical machinery to produce our flooring.  This ensures that we produce consistent easy to install flooring.  However, back then the craftsmen only had hand equipment to produce the tongue and groove or ship’s lap profile on the side of the boards.  Some of the craftsmen did not even possess these basic hand tools.  The craftsmen that did posses the necessary tools sometimes found that the process of producing these types of flooring with their primitive tools was either not cost effective or too labor intensive or both.  Thus a lot of old houses contain butted floors and therefore it is considered a very traditional, authentic flooring look.

Despite its historical accuracy and authentic look, butted floor has its drawbacks.  First of all, butted floor is more difficult to install than the other two types of floor.  Ship’s lap and tongue and groove can be toe nailed in from the side of the individual planks.  Butted floor on the other hand has to be faced nailed (nailed through the face of the board).  This requires a great deal more skill than nailing through the sides of the other types of floor because specialized equipment exists to assist with those types of installations.  Also, the nails must be carefully counter sunk (tapped down below the surface level of the floor with a nail set) prior to sanding.  Otherwise the sander would be sanding the nails instead of the wood.  However, if the right style of nails are used to install this floor it can further add to the authentic look.

Another issue that sometimes arises with butted floor is that it does not fit together as tightly as the other types of floor.  Ship’s lap and tongue and groove profiles are designed to allow boards to fit very closely together (the tongue fits into the groove and part of one board ”laps” over part of another).  With butted floors the boards are just pushed together and not joined in any manner.  This can lead to cracks between the boards.  To some customers, cracks between their floor boards are considered unseemly.  However, these cracks are also part of the authentic look of butted floors.  Some gaps can even form between tongue and groove boards.  Unfortunately, that is just the nature of wood (it contracts during certain seasons of the year).  However, gaps are much more pronounced in a butted floor.  Once again though, this is all part of the charm of this more rustic style of flooring.           

Board foot is a unit of measure commonly used for lumber.  Typically flooring is measured in square footage and we will define that more fully in a later entry.  So why is board foot an important term to understand?  It is important to understand the measurement because we sale several of our products by the board foot.  Many of our customers buy our wood in raw material form to use as exposed beams.  Other customers buy rough and planed stock lumber for a variety of projects.  For instance, they purchase this type of material and then have craftsmen build certain antique wood accessories at their home or job site.  Other times customers request that we build these types of accessories at our facility and then ship the item to them.  When we do projects like that we factor in our cost based of the board footage of material used in producing the item.

So what exactly is a board foot?  A board foot is actually a measure of volume.  It is equal to the volume of wood contained within a 1” thick by 12” wide by 12” long space.  Board foot is so important because it takes thickness into account as opposed to square foot which is a measure of area and ignores the thickness of the wood being measured.  As you can see the fact that board foot takes thickness into account is critical for accurately measuring material with different thicknesses instead of a standard thickness like flooring.      

The November issue of Coastal Living magazine which contains the 10th Anniversay Idea House is now available on newsstands.  The editors have informed us that they have placed some special recognition for Our Heritage Preserved in the print edition. 

As promised, Coastal Living has posted a 360 degree virtual tour of the 10^th Anniversary Coastal Living Idea House in Oriental, NC.  We invite everyone to view our flooring via this unique application.  Our Guilford grade heart pine flooring can be viewed throughout many of the rooms on the first and second floor of the house.  Also take special notice of the heart pine stair treads on the stair case. 

The actual magazine should be on newsstands any day now and we encourage everyone that is not a subscriber to pick up a copy of this special issue.  Besides our heart pine flooring there are many other unique design features displayed in the magazine article.

http://www.coastalliving.com/coastal/homes/ideahouses/article/0,15171,1634337,00.html