What's So Great About Heart Pine ?
- It greatly increases the value of your home
- It's stable and durable and easy to maintain
- It's rich coloration is like no other wood in existence
- It gets more beautiful with age
- It's a virgin heartwood which is now essentially extinct
- It's an environmentally green building material because no living trees have been cut down
What Is Heart Pine?
Long- Leaf Southern Pine, Pinus palustris, an aristocrat in our country’s original forests, had needles that grew 10 to 15 inches long. It flourished in an area that ranged from southern Virginia to eastern Texas, including most of Florida. Many of the heart pine timbers and materials that we work with today are from trees that were well established and growing in 1620, when the Pilgrims set foot in America. Recognized early on for their extraordinary strength and ability to support and span large open areas, heart pine beams and timbers provided the backbone for the factories and ships built during the Industrial Revolution and before. By that time these virgin trees had been growing for 200 years or more, and yet they were almost entirely eliminated by 1915.
Today there is a finite source of available heart pine for new construction and renovation. Opposing factors such as problems with de-construction projects, the rising interest in conservation and recycled materials, and the wider awareness and appreciation of this unique virgin resource, contribute to the ever increasing demand and value of this diminishing treasure.
Where Does Our Antique Wood Come From?
Our heartpine plank wood floors and other antique wood floors are 100% reclaimed wood products from the deconstructed factories mentioned above. First harvested in the mid to late 19th century, our remanufactured materials have been kept under roof for perhaps 120 years already, which has added stability to an already stable wood. Your reclaimed recycled wood flooring, stairs, walls and beams will be enjoyed and appreciated for generations to come, and not a single living tree has been sacrificed.
What Is Heartwood And What Is Sapwood?
When selecting wood for flooring, an important consideration in determining the best price for wood flooring, is comparing the total heartwood content to the total sapwood content. This is usually expressed as
"percentage (%) of heartwood content" which may be any designated percentage, and will vary greatly. It's important to know the percentage of heartwood in your floor as some benchmark of value and for price comparison.
Sapwood, is the lighter, yellow colored or blonde wood, which was just inside the tree bark when the tree was cut. It's aptly named because it carried sap from the roots to the needles. It represented the more active part in the life of the growing tree, compared to the older, denser inactive Heartwood, which is reddish to brown in color, more resinous and super resistant to decay . The inherent beauty of heartwood focuses on the rich coloration and interplay of the Red/ brown/amber/yellow woodtones of the rings and the sides of them, compared to the yellowish blond/white woodtones of sapwood.
In the virgin forests, Heart Pine grew very slowly and heartwood made up the greatest portion of the log, though not even forming until the tree was 20 years old. Compared with trees grown and cut today, the reverse is true: the greatest portion of the log is sapwood.
What Do I Need To Know About Pine Plank Flooring Installation?
- When your floor is delivered, keep it dry and don't unload in the rain, drizzle, snow or extremely moist weather, if possible.
- It's important to acclimate your new floor to its surroundings for a 7-10 day minimum, prior to installation.
- While the wood is acclimating, be sure it's stacked so that air can circulate around it.
- The unique character of Heart Pine may differ from the sanding and finishing of other wood floors.
- For best results, have sanding and finishing done by a flooring contractor familiar with Heart Pine.
