It seems like with each path I have taken, I learn more about wood and wood flooring. Doing floors in the sunny South made me grab a handle on high RH and movement in a flooring system. Now working with Middle Tennessee Lumber, my skills are pushed coast to coast. Over the next few blogs, it’s my desire to see if we all can grow together.
Flooring going south needs to gain in moisture, while our friends in Denver wait for it to dry our. How dry? Well, how about 4-5%?
For this blog I want to start with Denver: a mile high and dry. As a NOFMA-certified manufacturer of flooring, our target wood moisture content is 6-9% with a goal of 7-8%. That is hard to do when the kiln is holding 70K board feet of wood. I understand it better today than in years past. Getting the middle as dry or wet as the outside is a big task, and with the demands we face, the race is on to get it right and into the mill. Flooring going south needs to gain in moisture, while our friends in Denver wait for it to dry our. How dry? Well, how about 4-5%?
Wide, long and dry flooring is something we never faced here, so how do I adjust? The first step is to understand that most meters will not read correctly below 6%. Time is now my friend, and that friend is not always the best friend. Nailing the flooring tight and never stressing about huge swings and movement in the flooring would be nice, but even in Denver it has movement, just not in the direction we faced in the South. We grow, they shrink.
I will start my thoughts over the next few days and post how to understand the mile-high problems.
I’m glad to be back, and I look forward to your help understanding how we all deal with wood coast to coast.
