# Making hardwood flooring from rough-sawn timber



## frank s

Just joined the forum today.

Posted this question over at DIY but was told this was the best place to post this thread.

I am making our own hardwood flooring from the trees we cut down on our property, mostly white oak and some poplar and pine.

This is seasoned wood and has 9% moisture content.

The flooring will be installed in our new house on the first floor ( we have a full basement that is dry and also insulated in the ceiling of the basement).

What do you all suggest for a vapor barrier over 3/4 Advantech plywood?

I am doing a tongue and groove and I need to know if it is necessary to make the tongue and groove on the end of the piece also.

Do you suggest relief cuts on the backs of the wood?

Appreaciate your response. Anxious to get this project underway!

Thanks.


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## mikeswoods

I am the one that suggested that he come here for advice--I'm o'mike at DIY--

I know some of you make flooring and can give this fellow the answers that he needs---Mike---


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## [email protected]

Welcome to the forum. I am a hardwood install. You do not need a moisture barrier when installed on wood that is above grade but, it does help keep the dust down. I use 15# roofing felt. 
As far as the ends being tounge and grove, we install gym floors and most of them don't have the ends cut. 
You will have to make relief cuts on the back. How wide the cuts have be and how many cuts you will have to make depends on how wide your boards are. Hope this helps.


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## frank s

[email protected] said:


> Welcome to the forum. I am a hardwood install. You do not need a moisture barrier when installed on wood that is above grade but, it does help keep the dust down. I use 15# roofing felt.
> As far as the ends being tounge and grove, we install gym floors and most of them don't have the ends cut.
> You will have to make relief cuts on the back. How wide the cuts have be and how many cuts you will have to make depends on how wide your boards are. Hope this helps.


 
Thanks woodman58! I do appreciate your help and expertise.

I am in the process of milling the lumber right now and just ordered the bits for the tongue and groove. Can't wait to get started on that phase.

Frank


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## JMC'sLT30

What about the moisture content? Ya'll got me curious now.


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## Daren

Seems wet to me, but I am not a flooring guy so I have stayed out of this one. For sure it will need to acclimate to the room in which it will be laid for a few weeks before install (correct ?)




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## TexasTimbers

9% is definitely too much moisture to be used inside *a modern home ** as flooring (or anything else), unless you're going for the rustic look and want wide gaps between the planks in the winter. Your great gramps would feel right at home in that case. 

When it comes to furniture or flooring or anything else related to wood suitable for fine woodworking - there's no such thing as _cured _or _seasoned_. These are terms best reserved for the culinary and medical fields. You season food or cure meat. You also cure sick people or animals, but you never season or cure wood. 

I guess one could _cure _a sick tree during the fall _season_ if one were able to rid it of borers or whatnot and save its life, but when it comes to woodworking or drying wood, these terms have no place. This isn't semantics either - it's a hurdle that many newbies can't seem to grasp and even some "seasoned" writers in woodworking magazines are guilty of on occasion. Maybe they will read this thread and be cured of their erroneousness, in their own season. :wacko: 

My point is Frank, stop thinking of wood in terms of being "seasoned" or "cured". It will hinder your ability to make an informed evaluation for any given application. 9% is . . . . . 9%. If 9% is suitable for your application then it is. But is "seasoned" wood suitable? Is "cured" wood suitable? You get my point? 



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A "modern home" is one that brings the moisture content well below 9% during winter. Your geographic region may be different for many reasons. 



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## Rick C.

Frank,
Try to get your wood below 6% mc. You'll have to bring it in the house(not the basement), to let it acclimate. 15#felt will also keep down squeaks. Don't mix your wood in the same run, pine and white oak will expand and contract differently. A good friend of mine is an installer, and he says t&g the ends. I may want to get with woodman 58 to review my options. I don't know how you're shop is equipped. I'm using a router table to t&g my boards so I don't want to set up more than once. I'll face joint and edge joint all the boards, rip them all to width, plane them all to thickness, mark bottoms, relief cut, tongue and the groove. I feel if I do one step at a time, I won't chance multiple set up mistakes...hopefully


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## JMC'sLT30

I'm not a floor guy either but 9% seemed kinda high for what I've been picking up on. That is unless you have no central air.:icon_confused:


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## [email protected]

As for the moisture, (I missed it on my first reply) it is a little high. There should not be any more than 2% differents between the flooring and the sub floor. It will definatly have to acclimate. This time of year the relitive humidity in your home is probably between 
35 and 50%. Your floor should be about 5 to 6%. When you bring the flooring in to acclimate, stack it in a cris-cross pattern. This will help it acclimate quicker. You will not be able to change the moisture in your floor, So just make sure the flooring is within 2% of the sub floor and you should not have problems.

P.S. If your flooring is 5 inches or wider you will have to glue it along with nails to keep it from cupping. I run a bead of liquid nail from the tounge to the grove on the floor every foot, put the wood in the glue and then nail.


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## frank s

My thanks to all for your replies - mikeswoods, woodman58, JMC'sLT30, Daren, TexasTimbers & Rick C.

Just to let you know:

I am currently working with just the poplar for two of the bedrooms. I will not be mixing woods in any of the rooms.
I did "acclimate" the wood to the rooms before starting the milling processes. ( Rick - I am following your lead as far as prepping the wood for install --



Rick C. said:


> I'll face joint and edge joint all the boards, rip them all to width, plane them all to thickness, mark bottoms, relief cut, tongue and the groove. I feel if I do one step at a time, I won't chance multiple set up mistakes...hopefully


As for the CURRENT moisture content it is now down to 6%. The meter I use only goes down to 6%. (It was 9% before I put it in the house to "acclimate". While working on the wood, I am keeping the temp in the shop the same as the house - 65 degrees.

Rick, I also will be using a router table for the tongue and groove.

As for the lesson from TexasTimbers, thanks so much from an obvious "seasoned" pro!

What do you all think of resin paper as a v/b instead of the felt?

My thanks again,

Frank :thumbup:


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## Big Dave

I only do wide plank pine floors and the moisture content is usually 9 to 12% depending on what time of year it is. A lot of humidity in my area in the summer. What I tell my customers is that the most important thing above all others is to keep the relative humidity inside the home at a constant 45% year round. If the relative humidity is the same all the time then the wood has no reason to move.

It is also better for your skin, especially in the winter.

I prefer to use red rosin paper or Aquabar.

After a quick search I found this calculator. After filling it out at 72 degrees temperature, 45% relative humidity the flooring should bottom out at 8.5% moisture content.


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## TexasTimbers

Frank, 

How do you heat your home in the winter? Maintaining a constant RH in any home is not likely to happen season in and season out. Most homes in the US lack sufficient humidity control system to maintain an ideal RH or anything even close. And Va. is not an area where you can rely on mother nature to give you a constant season. Most homes will see an interior range between 25% to 65% throughout the year. This will result in a 6% MC swing in your flooring. And the wider the board, the more the movement. And since you'll be milling your own wood you'll likely want wide boards like many of us sawyers have in our homes. 

You'll do yourself and your family a disservice by avoiding the kiln with Oak and especially Pine. It's an invitation for bugs to come and dine on your home - *starting* at the floor. I have seen all the arguments over the years such as "_Well they didn't used to kiln dry floors and I've seen 100 year old floors that looked fine."_ My response is _ Well, kilns have been operating in this country *over* 100 years and up until about the late 60s the vast majority of them were dedicated flooring kilns." _

The reason is because for every 1 old floor still around there are 1000 that were ripped out or the entire home demolished after only a few decades or less. You won't usually see the damage in the first few years. It generally takes a decade or two before it starts going south. So ask yourself how long you want the floor to last: 5 to 15 years, or 50 years or more? And how well do you want it to perform? Kiln dried flooring will outperform and outlast air dried in almost any scenario simply because you killed the bugs that were already inside. 

It's true that RH is the only determining factor in what the MC of the wood will be, but it's also true that unless you have an expensive and reliable humidification and dehumidification system, your flooring is going to be exposed to wide RH swings which will result in some undesirable MC %'s. For example, if wood flooring is installed at 10% MC & then it sees 25% RH during the winter, it will dry to 5% MC, and of course the more it dries the more it shrinks. You can predict how much your wood will move if you have any idea of the RH range it will be exposed to throughout the year knowing what species you will use. That way you can decide what time of the year you want to install your flooring, and at what MC% you want it to be when you do. 














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