Anyone with experience using quarter sawn flooring?

[EatenByLimestone]

Encapsulation isn’t a hard DIY job. Depending on how you plan to use (or not) you can choose a thin membrane and save more cash.

 

[GrumpyDad]

Encapsulation isn’t a hard DIY job. Depending on how you plan to use (or not) you can choose a thin membrane and save more cash.

yea probably isnt a hard job but my knee wont like me. When Im down there I have to be careful not to twist in a certain way.

 

[Ricks]

In my last house I had two rooms with quarter sawn oak. The house was built on a slab (for a heat sink) with radiant heat. The living room had the floor nailed down on a sub floor over the concrete. The master bedroom had the oak glues directly to the concrete. Never had an issue or problems with either approach.

No cracks, splits or anythin. When we moved out 20 years later the floors still looked new.

I strongly recommend quarter sawn flooring. Instead of expanding across the floor quarter sawn will expand vertically. That said we never noticed that. It is much more stable then regular flooring.

go for it!

Rick

 

[GrumpyDad]

In my last house I had two rooms with quarter sawn oak. The house was built on a slab (for a heat sink) with radiant heat. The living room had the floor nailed down on a sub floor over the concrete. The master bedroom had the oak glues directly to the concrete. Never had an issue or problems with either approach.

No cracks, splits or anythin. When we moved out 20 years later the floors still looked new.

I strongly recommend quarter sawn flooring. Instead of expanding across the floor quarter sawn will expand vertically. That said we never noticed that. It is much more stable then regular flooring.

go for it!

Rick

thanks for the real world experience. I appreciate it. I was originally going to go with a 2.25" board because it was cheaper but decided on a 4" board. I can't wait to lay it down, sand it , stain it, hate my life at that point then finally poly it. $6.75 a sq/ft. That's as much as many of my local yards want for white oak plain sawn. Im getting a lower quality that will show knots and stuff like that but nothing that impacts the structure and it will add to the cabin look honestly.

 

[dznam]

Encapsulation isn’t a hard DIY job. Depending on how you plan to use (or not) you can choose a thin membrane and save more cash.

How hard a job it is depends on the complexity of (posts/boilers/fuel tanks and other items you need to seal around)and access you have in the crawl space (what is headroom, for example) as well as how wet/dank/dirty it is (dirt floor, running or standing water, etc) and is headroom so low that you have to sit or lay in it (?),shape of the crawl space, need to drill the foundation to fasten the membrane to the wall and varmint density (bugs and other small mammals). It can be a very nasty job - I've actually done them. I've never done one that I considered an "easy" job.

If you use a quality, thick plastic you don't have to worry about anyone tearing it (yourself included) when working down there (utilities, etc). Also, thicker plastic will provide an effective radon barrier. It's false economy to use a cheap grade of plastic - the labor is the real cost of the job and if you value yours then you won't skimp on materials.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I've never done one that didn't start with animals making it a home. Its why we were brought in to begin with.

Yeah, headroom important. I've done some that you can barely crawl in, but its been rare for me. Proper tools make the difference. Tyvek suit, full face respirator, knee pads, sds drill. And don't skimp on tape!

I've never dealt with running water! I'd pass on that job!

 

[GrumpyDad]

How hard a job it is depends on the complexity of (posts/boilers/fuel tanks and other items you need to seal around)and access you have in the crawl space (what is headroom, for example) as well as how wet/dank/dirty it is (dirt floor, running or standing water, etc) and is headroom so low that you have to sit or lay in it (?),shape of the crawl space, need to drill the foundation to fasten the membrane to the wall and varmint density (bugs and other small mammals). It can be a very nasty job - I've actually done them. I've never done one that I considered an "easy" job.

If you use a quality, thick plastic you don't have to worry about anyone tearing it (yourself included) when working down there (utilities, etc). Also, thicker plastic will provide an effective radon barrier. It's false economy to use a cheap grade of plastic - the labor is the real cost of the job and if you value yours then you won't skimp on materials.

Well said. Part is ok. Aside from spiders. Other side is lower and creepy

 

[Fingerlakes Fireplace]

Thanks for the tip.

I found quarter sawn unfinished wood fairly inexpensive now in comparison to what Id pay at the box stores, so..more money in the budget for encapsulation and dehumidification

According to some tables that i found online, 100% quarter sawn, will only expand and contract 50% as much, as plain sawn wood in the same environment.
I plan on installing some wide plank ash flooring in my 1848 cobblestone house.
I felled the trees, cut the boards with a bandsaw, seasoned the wood, had it kiln dried, and then milled into flooring, 1 1/8th in thick, by 9 1/2 wide. I plan to install directly on the floor joist, with no sub floor. I plan to control humidity, to control some of the shrinkage.

 

[GrumpyDad]

According to some tables that i found online, 100% quarter sawn, will only expand and contract 50% as much, as plain sawn wood in the same environment.
I plan on installing some wide plank ash flooring in my 1848 cobblestone house.
I felled the trees, cut the boards with a bandsaw, seasoned the wood, had it kiln dried, and then milled into flooring, 1 1/8th in thick, by 9 1/2 wide. I plan to install directly on the floor joist, with no sub floor. I plan to control humidity, to control some of the shrinkage.

Well it's important to note that the expansion (most of it) happens in a vertical fashion vs horizontally. Which even if a floor piece expands 1/16 of an inch, over my 26' span almost 5"! I've heard that the expansion can be so strong that it can knock walls off their foundations. I dont want that. I do plan to leave a 1" gap around everything, then use my 3/4" baseboard and some shoe molding.

your install sounds amazing. You should post some pics when it's done.

I got my dog in the fingerlakes area. Nice area.

 

[GrumpyDad]

I've never done one that didn't start with animals making it a home. Its why we were brought in to begin with.

Yeah, headroom important. I've done some that you can barely crawl in, but its been rare for me. Proper tools make the difference. Tyvek suit, full face respirator, knee pads, sds drill. And don't skimp on tape!

I've never dealt with running water! I'd pass on that job!

no standing water thankfully but I do have a very high water table. It's only 100' from a large creek with almost no slope to it, and 30' from a feeder stream that turns into a river if we get a sudden warm up / snow melt. It's just dank under there. The amount of spiders in there are alarming. Mice. And yes a couple snake skins. I hate it.

 

[Ashful]

USS Constitution was nicknamed "Old Ironside". She's made of Oak. Still sea worthy 200 years later. If this house is your forever home, get the flooring you want, you'll love her all the more. If you plan on selling in a few years, go for the budget. My 2 cents.

Well-funded ships of the time were often made of white oak, which is dense, hard, and very rot-resistant. But most flooring is red oak, which has very poor rot resistance. Think of the two like closed-cell vs. open-cell foam, white oak is resinous and rot-resistant, red oak is like a bundle of hollow straws that would make for a very leaky ship. You can use a riven piece of oak (eg. dowel) like a drinking straw, albeit a rather slow one.

According to some tables that i found online, 100% quarter sawn, will only expand and contract 50% as much, as plain sawn wood in the same environment.

Wood expands and contracts mostly tangentially to its growth rings. Quarter-sawn expands and contracts by the same percentage as flat-sawn (sometimes called plain-sawn), but in thickness rather than width. Any table claiming 50% as much expansion as flat-sawn would be likely calling out only it's width expansion (the one you care about when laying flooring), and assuming some off-radial fraction of quarter sawn (i.e. rift-sawn), which is fine. It's a reasonable rule of thumb to use when laying flooring.

I didn't read all of the replies, Grumpy. But as you know, I've spent a lifetime living in and working on very old houses, most of which were laid with quarter-sawn flooring, albeit mostly various flavors of pine. Not only is it more attractive and stable, but it also wears much better, although you won't live long enough to make that a big factor in your decision. I have made, and have had made, many pieces of furniture with quarter-sawn oak, both red and white. It's beautiful, giving off amazing ray flaking that, once you've seen it, will make you think all flat-sawn oak is ugly and boring.

 

[GrumpyDad]

Well-funded ships of the time were often made of white oak, which is dense, hard, and very rot-resistant. But most flooring is red oak, which has very poor rot resistance. Think of the two like closed-cell vs. open-cell foam, white oak is resinous and rot-resistant, red oak is like a bundle of hollow straws that would make for a very leaky ship. You can use a riven piece of oak (eg. dowel) like a drinking straw, albeit a rather slow one.


Wood expands and contracts mostly tangentially to its growth rings. Quarter-sawn expands and contracts by the same percentage as flat-sawn (sometimes called plain-sawn), but in thickness rather than width. Any table claiming 50% as much expansion as flat-sawn would be likely calling out only it's width expansion (the one you care about when laying flooring), and assuming some off-radial fraction of quarter sawn (i.e. rift-sawn), which is fine. It's a reasonable rule of thumb to use when laying flooring.

I didn't read all of the replies, Grumpy. But as you know, I've spent a lifetime living in and working on very old houses, most of which were laid with quarter-sawn flooring, albeit mostly various flavors of pine. Not only is it more attractive and stable, but it also wears much better, although you won't live long enough to make that a big factor in your decision. I have made, and have had made, many pieces of furniture with quarter-sawn oak, both red and white. It's beautiful, giving off amazing ray flaking that, once you've seen it, will make you think all flat-sawn oak is ugly and boring.

yea Im pretty excited to get this laid down and coated. I think my wife is just excited that the construction will end.
And I love old houses, it's a shame to see what happens to so many in the inner city. Many of the victorian ones were torn down for crappy office buildings or, left to such a bad state they get condemned. This one street I drive by in the country to get to the local box store, they redid all of the older mansions and their gardening looks like something from a magazine. All fairly close together with stone foundations. I often wonder what materials are used in there, but Im afraid I'll walk into one and see laminate flooring and just throw up right there and then.

 

[Ashful]

yea Im pretty excited to get this laid down and coated. I think my wife is just excited that the construction will end.
And I love old houses, it's a shame to see what happens to so many in the inner city. Many of the victorian ones were torn down for crappy office buildings or, left to such a bad state they get condemned. This one street I drive by in the country to get to the local box store, they redid all of the older mansions and their gardening looks like something from a magazine. All fairly close together with stone foundations. I often wonder what materials are used in there, but Im afraid I'll walk into one and see laminate flooring and just throw up right there and then.

We sold one old family home built in the 1690's to a builder, who had said he wanted to restore it to it's original glory, as my elderly aunt had not really updated things in many years. We should have asked him what he considered "original", as it was one of those situations. He tore out entire sections of the second floor to vault ceilings up from the first floor, and other major changes which cannot be easily undone. The house was largely original to each phase of its construction, which happened in three phases from 1692 - 1820'something, prior to this guy's "restoration".

 

[GrumpyDad]

We sold one old family home built in the 1690's to a builder, who had said he wanted to restore it to it's original glory, as my elderly aunt had not really updated things in many years. We should have asked him what he considered "original", as it was one of those situations. He tore out entire sections of the second floor to vault ceilings up from the first floor, and other major changes which cannot be easily undone. The house was largely original to each phase of its construction, which happened in three phases from 1692 - 1820'something, prior to this guy's "restoration".

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wow, that'll keep a guy busy.
In my years I learned never to own a wooden deck. Dont over landscape with things that need to be trim shaped. Build bigger than you think you need. Never trust a builder who is drunk before noon.