Harvest to flooring Process for local lumber
bob_swinburne
| Posted in Green Building Techniques on
A client asked a question that I don’t really know the answer to. I am in Vermont and the client is harvesting red oak from their property and hopes to use it for flooring in their remodel. What is the process and how long does it take? It will be sawn on site with a Wood Mizer and then off to the mill for tongue and groove and then kiln dried.
I think. Is this a two month process or much longer?
TIA – Bob
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Replies
There are a range of possibilities: haul the logs to a mill and let them do everything, all the way to woodmizer on site, air dry on site, planer and jointer on site, with tongue and groove cut on site with a router table.
We sent logs to a local mill (Wrights in Hartford VT) to be sawn and kiln dried, and then we cut tongue and groove on site. It would have made more sense to do more of it at the mill, but we hadn't originally planned on the tongue and groove.
Unfortunately our overzealous carpenter thought he was doing an extra good job by filling the T&G joint with wood glue, leading the boards to crack elsewhere in ugly jagged patterns each winter. So the effort to have wood from the site as a showpiece in a special room got undermined.
We also bought wood floor boards from another Vermont mill--buying from them directly got us beautiful boards at a very economical price Red birch was a variety that had lots of for cheap that looks great and has help up well. The name of the mill escapes me but I could look it up.