General Flooring Knowledge

Measuring for your hardwood flooring:

Here is a great link to a site that has some great tips for measuring your floor. The basics you need to know are how much surface area do you need to cover and how much waste do you need to account for.

http://www.hardwoodinstaller.com/hardwoodinstaller/measuring.htm

Selecting your hardwood floor:

Download our catalog and we can walk you through our 4 step selection process. Here are a couple things to keep in mind:

Grades of Flooring
Character Grade: Character Grade is just the name we have given to prefinished flooring in that grade. If it was unfinished it would be #2 Common lumber. This grade contain sound natural variations of the forest product imperfections. The purpose of this grade is to furnish a floor suitable for homes, general utility use, or where character marks and contrasting appearance is desired. (prominent knots throughout)

Select: Select grade is just the name we have given to prefinished flooring in that grade. If it was unfinished it would be #1 Common lumber. This is a flooring product which contains prominent variations in coloration and varying characters. Very few knots (pea sized)

Premium: Premium grade is just the name we have given to prefinished flooring in that grade. If it was unfinished it would be considered Select & Better lumber. This is a flooring product with coloration variations produced by differences of natural heartwood and sapwood. No knots.
Although we do separate flooring into 3 different grades there is not much of a difference in quality. It is all milled to the same specifications, with the same topcoats. It is mainly a difference in “look”. For example a cabin may look better with a Building grade floor, because of its natural color variations an knots might make it look more rustic. But a premium floor might be better for a very contemporary house. Don’t try to be an interior designer, just tell the customer the facts, let the product speak for its self, and allow the customer to choose. That’s the beauty of marrying retail with manufacturing… you get what you want, not what we have to sell.

Choosing a Species of Flooring
Everything we carry is ¾” solid flooring or engineered. Everything is random length 1’-8’. With an average length of about 4’, however; the average does go up some in higher grades. Our flooring comes in widths of 2 ¼”, 3 1/4”, 4”, 5”. Also 6” is available on special request only in Ash and Red Oak. All of our flooring is kiln dried between 5-7% moisture when it arrives at our Pittman Center location. All of our flooring products are tongue and grooved end to end and side to side…which means it has a tongue or a grove on all 4 sides of the board. This is not true, however; with the Wormy Chestnut and Heart Pine. The different species that we carry are:
Red Oak, White Oak, White Ash, Hard Maple, Hickory, Pecan, Black Walnut, Wormy Chestnut, Heart Pine, and Eastern Aromatic Cedar.

Red Oak : Is the most commonly used flooring species. It is 5% softer (Janka hardness: 1290) than White Oak which makes it easier to sand into flooring, it also takes stain with a more rich, of course red, color. It is different from White Oak in than it has a wider grain pattern/ ray length, Red oak will have 4-6 rings per inch because of its fast growth, whereas White Oak, a slower growing tree will have 10-20 rings per inch.

White Oak : Is, of course, whiter or grayer than Red Oak. It has a Janka hardness of 1360.

Ash : Is the same material which baseball bats, and tool handles are made out of. It is a little harder than Red Oak (Janka hardness: 1320). Ash is generally straight grained, but can have wide grain patterns similar to American Chestnut. It is a very durable wood compared to its light weight.

Hard Maple : Is the same material used on Basketball Gym floors. It has a uniform density which makes it 1450 on the hardness scale. Because of its uniform density it has no soft grain. This makes it sand and finish with a glass like topcoat, making any dints or dings associated with
normal wear more noticeable. It is also has the whitest appearance of any species.

Hickory : Is similar to Ash in appearance, and has a typically straight grain. It is the hardest species that we carry, and is the hardest species used in flooring in North America (Janka 1820). The only exception is Mesquite, which is primarily used in cooking/grilling. There are some, but very few companies that use this species in flooring. Hickory is used in many of the same situations as Ash, but it is heavier and harder.

Pecan : Is in the Hickory family, and it has the same hardness. It has more of a pink/ reddish tint to the heart wood.

Black Walnut : Walnut heartwood is rich dark brown to purplish-black and is usually straight grained. Wavy or curly grain is sometimes present. It is a relatively soft hardwood species (Janka 1010). The foreign market (China) has driven the price of this species through the roof over the last couple of years.

Wormy Chestnut: Is Straight grained easy to work, and rot resistant. Chestnut lumber went into everything from barn beams to furniture. It is now extinct. Once it was the dominant species in much of the Eastern forests, but it was brought down by a disease. It was an exotic disease (fungus) imported from China. From its point of introduction in New York City around the turn of the 20thcentury, the Asian chestnut blight moved outward at a remarkable pace; fifty years later all that remained of the species were millions of acres of dead but still standing trees. The blight killed 3 billion trees or 25% of the Appalachian mtns Forests. There is an effort to cross the Chinese chestnut with an American chestnut and bring the species back with a resistance to the blight.

Heart Pine: A century ago the southern long leaf pine was a predominant wood used in mills, railroad turn houses, and homes. The heart of these massive trees was often milled into flooring for southern plantation homes. It was often favored for its hardness, rich amber tones, and vertical grain patterns. Although the long leaf pine tree still grows in the south, it rarely grows to the size needed to mill lumber from the heart. Reclaiming pine is the only way to produce heart pine and old pine is rarely heart pine. Finding a supply of heart pine is challenging, but we have developed a supply chain from barns in North Carolina to Mills in Southern Georgia. Janka Hardness 1225.
Sometimes customers ask where we get the raw material our flooring…I try to be vague…we don’t want anyone knowing where we get our materials. I say everything grows in the Appalachian mtn. region. We get the Pecan from southern Alabama and Georgia…the Wormy Chestnut and Reclaimed Heart Pine from Virginia…and the rest mainly from Tennessee and Kentucky (like Red Oak which is the most abundant hardwood tree in Tennessee). Every type of species is also available in unfinished, if they wish to finish their floor onsite.

Installation

Installation of ¾” hardwood flooring isn’t as hard as most people think, for those who are fairly handy and physically capable. This and a bit of common sense (which is sometimes hard to come by) should allow most anyone to install hardwood flooring. Of course the tongue slips into the grove when installing. The nail is applied into the tongue with a 2” nail or staple, the staple then goes into the subfloor and secures the flooring. We do not install as a company, but we can refer customers to local installers that do a good job. You can usually figure around $2 per square foot for most installations.
When deciding to purchase ¾” solid hardwood flooring from Tennessee Wood Flooring, one of the things you should worry about would be weather you have a wood subfloor or not. Although it is possible to glue down ¾” flooring to concrete, the easiest way to install our wood flooring is to nail it to a plywood subfloor. There are many different types of plywood that are recommended for use, but you should mainly know what NOT to use. If your subfloor resembles fine pieces of sawdust pressed and glued together you should stay away from nailing anything into this subfloor. If you use this press board it will either bust when you nail into it or just not hold the nail securely, however; if you have a subfloor that looks like mulch or bigger chips of wood pressed and glued together this should be sufficient for your install.
When trying to budget on what materials to use, make sure you include 30 weight felt paper. This paper will give you a moisture barrier between your subfloor and your hardwood flooring. 30 weight felt paper is recommended over 15 weight, this is because it is twice as thick and not that much more costly.
Here at Tennessee Wood Flooring we have personally been involved in installing dozens of wood floors, and we have found that a 2.5” flooring staple holds your flooring more securely than a standard flooring cleet. This is a debate that many have argued, however; through our experience the staple has shown to be the best for installing our flooring.

Click here for step by step instructions on how to install hardwood flooring
http://www.hammerzone.com/archives/flooring/hardwood/wh_oak1/stapled.htm

Care and Maintenance:

Cleaning your hardwood floors. There are numerous products on the market claiming to be the best (Pledge, Murphy’s oil soap, Orange glow, Bona, etc.).

Orange glow contains polymers and monomers, however it does leave a film on your floor while creating shine.

http://www.orangeglowood.com/

Bona is a water based product that doesn’t leave a film. The best solution to find your perfect cleaner is just by trial and error. You should try 2-3 different products on a small area to achieve your preferred desired results.

http://www.mybonahome.com/Home.aspx Keep checking in with us...we’re up to no good as usual!! We are experimenting with an all natural floor cleaner and soon you could get our very own brand of floor cleaner with your hardwood purchase!

Difference in Topcoats:

1.Water Based Urethane w/ Aluminum Oxide:

This finish is 10-15 sheen, which can be altered with more or less flattening paste. Like we discussed before, in this process the finish is rolled on with Black Brothers glue spreaders then air dried. The finish is applied with multiple (3) passes, with denibing between passes. Each pass puts on approximately 0.5 mils of finish with a total finish thickness 1.5 mils. These three passes do not include a pass of thin water to raise the grain (hickory), but until we get some samples of the material we won’t know how it reacts to our stain, because of the added pass this is also added cost.
The only drawback to this process is that it doesn’t get any finish down in the worm holes or deep knots. It is also more time consuming, and in turn more expensive. We would average about 3000 square feet per day on production in this process, and the material would need to set for at least 24 hours before shipping to make sure the curing process was complete.
Price per square foot: $1.49
Add $.06 for a water pass*

2. Sprayed Zero VOC- UV Top Coat w/ Aluminum Oxide:

After the stain and the sealers are applied (0.5 mils) the material is ran through the sprayer which applies about 2 mils of finish in one pass. You get more finish applied during this process (2.5 mils), and the gloss can be manipulated between 20 and 100 sheen chemically, by heat, or lamp strength. The good thing about the UV spray is that it doesn’t matter how deep the knots or galges are in the wood it will seal them.
After the material is sprayed it goes through a UV oven which fully cures the material in 0.5 seconds. The material goes directly into an unmarked box and is ready to ship. We could produce about 4500 square feet per day. This process diminishes the amount we have to handle the wood, which in turn is less expensive and more time efficient.
Price per square foot: $1.25
Add $.06 for a water pass*
*The water pass is most of the time reserved for Hickory and Walnut.

Glue Down Hardwood Flooring:

Tennessee Wood Flooring offers two options for glue down hardwood flooring. Recently we found an engineered product that meets our strict criterion. See the engineered section of this page for more information on these products. One way to assure industry standards are met is to use engineered flooring for glue down needs. However, we make ¾” solid hardwood and it can be glued directly to concrete. Please call for pricing and installation instructions. Call direct 800-238-1009.

Random Width Flooring:

Random width flooring usually consists of a 3,4,5” pattern. Some prefer to add the 2.25” width as well. Random width flooring is unique floor and most people looking at this type floor do not realize what they are looking at. The random pattern is just as easy to install as any other wide plank floor because you run one row of 3, one row of 4, then one row of 5, and then keep repeating the pattern. It really doesn’t involve rocket science. This style of flooring emmulates the old style of flooring where the home owners went into their backyard and cut down trees and planned their own flooring by hand uswing whatever they had so there would be very little waste.

Sanding Hardwood Flooring

Sanding wood flooring is the most difficult process of installing hardwood flooring. Sanding takes years of practice and training to perfect this art. There are fewer and fewer qualified individuals that are considered experts in this field. One must use extreme caution while sanding, one slight hesitation can leave huge dips in the floor which causes a snowball effect of sanding the surrounding area until you have taken off as much surface wood as possible to “hide” your mistake. Hence, rarely does an amateur job look anything other than an amateur job. Tennessee Wood Flooring provides sanding as a service for $.59 per square foot. Our process creates an eased edge on the sides of the hardwood flooring. Having Tennessee Wood Flooring presand your flooring takes the need for an expert sander out of the picture for your custom flooring. Contact Tennessee Wood Flooring at 800-238-1009 for more details.

Staining and Sealing Hardwood Flooring:

Staining
All of our stains are water based. This stain gives more vibrant and natural looking colors, compared to other more volatile stains used by other companies. We have 9 stock colors: (From lightest to darkest) Golden Oak, Auburn, Chestnut, Mountain Smoke, River Stone, Historic Blend, Antique Cherry, and Jacobeans. However, we can match almost any stain by other companies if we just have a sample of what the customer is looking. The possible colors are only limited to the color spectrum. Or the customer can set up a meeting with Montana and work on a custom stain together, for no extra charge.

The staining process can be fairly difficult. You will want to “practice” on several scrap pieces of wood before you start applying stain to your expensive wood flooring. Rarely does an amateur job look anything other than amateur. If you are up for doing it yourself, it is imperative that you practice. Different stains contain different accelerants and some may have a drying time quicker than you are able to work with. As the stain dries in between coats, you may begin to have color variation as you overlap your stain. Practice makes perfect. Contact Tennessee Wood Flooring for more details 800-238-1009.

Sealing
We also use a water based sealer, a urethane, on top of our stains. This fills the soft grain out, and gives better adhesion for the topcoat to be applied in a later step. This sealer also has aluminum oxide in it.

Finishing Hardwood Flooring:

Finishing hardwood flooring is a fairly difficult process that requires proper training. Rarely does an amateur job look anything other than amateur. Please contact Tennessee Wood Flooring for more details on properly finishing your hardwood flooring. Toll free 800/238-1009.

Packaging:

Every species varies in weight, but in general with packaging the flooring weighs 3lbs per square foot. Every box is 8’ long and 11” wide. Some people want an idea of how much room a pallet will take up…from 500’-800’ it will be the size of a large couch. We deal with random length boards so the packaging of the boxes depends on how much a person can put in one box, so it is hard to say how much is in one box but there is an average: 2.25”- 29’ per box, 3”- 28’ per box, 4”-25’ per box, 5”-up to 33’ per box.

Top 10 Hardwoods in the World:

Out of the top 10 hardest woods in the world, Tennessee Wood Flooring carries 3 of them. We offer Ipe, Cumaru, and Brazilian cherry. Most of the other “hardest woods” are not used as hardwood flooring. See Janka hardness scale (www.jankahardnessscale.com) for wood density. For more details contact Tennessee Wood Flooring toll free 800-238-1009.

Hardwood Basketball Courts:

Wood flooring used as basketball courts. Wood flooring required by a vast majority of architects in the US require the use of second grade maple or #1 common (depending on grading rules applied). Premium grade is rarely used because of the lack of color variation and contains mostly sapwood. Sapwood is mostly white in appearance. The lowest grades (building grade or #2 common grade) contain more color variation and have dark streaking throughout the boards. The #1 common maple is most commonly used as basketball courts. So, if you are trying to install or match up an existing basketball court the #1 common is most widely used as gym floors. For more information contact Tennessee Wood Flooring 800/238-1009.

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