Posts Tagged ‘Portland hardwood floor’
Lowest price=Lowest Common Denominator
Tuesday, May 11th, 2010
I had a thesis advisor who did a lot to help me avoid one of the common pitfalls that happens to people. He always referred to it as the “lowest common denominator” as a suggestion that people would rather be a minimalist in their ways than really try to achieve the most that they could in every endeavor.
The problem that consumers don’t realize is that all contractors pay roughly the same cost for materials, unless they are stealing material, which I doubt. Therefore, to have a lower cost the contractor must have a lower labor cost.
To have a lower labor cost either jobs must happen faster or employees must be paid less. HERE are the pitfalls of such a model.
1) Faster jobs-If you want attention to detail on your project, then forget it if the job is a production job that has to be done quickly.
2) Low paid employees- Underpaid employees really don’t want to do the best job, end of story.
Here is my challenge:
If you know the name of a licensed hardwood floor company in Portland, Oregon that is “cheap” and always a low bidder, and has legal employees covered by workers compensation then please give me their name. I want to know their model and secret if their work looks good. I will donate a free premium Glitsa tack mop and cleaning kit once I see the job and you can convince me that their work is really a quality product if I know what finish they used on the floor.
Tags: hardwood floor contractor, hardwood floor professional, hardwood refinishing, Portland hardwood floor, portland oregon hardwood contractor
Posted in Hardwood floor Portland, floor refinishing portland oregon, portland hardwood professional | 1 Comment »
Real world waterbased finish
Sunday, April 4th, 2010
I get asked so often about finish durability. Honestly, my answer is always to explain the features of various finishes and suggest only the types of products I would use on my own home.
Two years ago in April 2010 I applied three finish coats of Glitsa HP two component waterbased finish to my floor (Matte sheen). Today while I was cleaning my floors using our suggested method and was really impressed with how they still look great. My children are two boys ages 4.5 and 2.5 (they’re wild and crazy) and they are my best testers along with my dog who is young and crazy. The photo below is pretty much the best proof I can give you for the real world performance of a finish. No hyped marketing behind this one, just real world for someone else to see if they are wondering about durability.
This isn’t that I am sold on only one particular finish, just that I have this product in my house on a daily basis and can personally vouch for how well it performs in durability.
Tags: floor finish durability, Hardwood floor durability, hardwood refinishing, low-VOC hardwood floor finish, Portland hardwood floor, waterborne finish
Posted in Hardwood floor durability, Hardwood floor refinish, floor refinishing portland oregon, hardwood floor finish, waterbased finish | No Comments »
Sustainability and the homefront
Monday, September 21st, 2009
I have to write this blog as a celebration more than anything. For those that have ever visited our website you may know that we are fans of sustainability from a bigger picture view. I am an avid fan of domestic wood species and local sourcing of material. Domestic species have less of a carbon footprint with regards to transport and they have a great dimensionality with regards to potential for appearances. In addition our domestic economy is strengthened from buying in our borders and as everyone knows right now we need that more than ever.
This is the latest news I received today from the National Wood Flooring Association:
“U.S. House Passes Pro-Hardwoods Resolution
The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed Resolution 81, non-binding legislation that urges American hardwood products be “given full consideration in any program directed at constructing environmentally preferable commercial, public, or private buildings” because U.S. forests are a legal, abundant and sustainable resource. The resolution passed with unanimous support. Integral to the resolution passage was Rep. Brad Ellsworth of Indiana. “We want to thank everyone who took the time to encourage their Member of Congress to support this resolution,” says the Hardwood Federation’s Deb Hawkinson. “The resolution needed 50 co-sponsors, and thanks to the industry’s efforts there were 52.”
Tags: domestic hardwood floor, Portland hardwood floor, sustainable hardwood
Posted in Hardwood floor Portland, portland hardwood professional, sustainability | No Comments »
Old houses and historically accurate repairs
Saturday, September 19th, 2009
I was working last week on the home of my friends Patrick Galvin and Ellen Galvin in order to restore a section of flooring in their home that was buried under carpet. As you can see in the following sequence of photos the removal of the carpet revealed a couple of surprises.
After removing the carpet we installed salvaged old growth fir flooring reclaimed from a school in Milton-Freewater. The floors were sanded and finished according to our standard process. As you can see in the next photos the floor maintains an original appearance. This is critical not only for appearance, but for maintaining a historically accurate appearance.
Tags: dustless refinishing, hardwood refinishing, Portland hardwood floor, Swedish finish, wood floor sanding
Posted in Fir flooring, Hardwood floor Portland, Portland fir floor | 1 Comment »
Oh, So you do that too…
Thursday, August 27th, 2009
The title of this blog may seem a little odd, but it serves a purpose. Sometimes there is a little bit of confusion to the services my company offers in the world of wood flooring in Portland. My portfolio on the website could possibly lead people to believe that our work is only high end and custom work. The truth is that 90% of the hardwood floor installations we undertake are adding new flooring to an existing wood floor and refinishing the whole floor. I will walk you through this with a couple of step by step photos. In the first photo is where the floor ended after a wall was taken out in a remodel by my friends at Envi Construction. 
In the next photo, you can see where we removed a selected number of boards so that we may integrate, in a random pattern, new flooring. The goal we seek to accomplish is making the new floor and the old floor look harmonious in every way.
Afterwards, new matching flooring was installed and sanded and finished for a contiguous appearance.
There are a couple of tricks to ensuring a proper appearance that involve grading and specifying the mill providing the material. Depending on the mill and the region of production some flooring (particularly red and white oak) can be quite variable in the tones. This difference doesn’t become evident until sanding, so specifying product relies on a particular attention to detail and experience.
Tags: dustless refinishing, hardwood floor repair, hardwood refinishing, Portland hardwood floor
Posted in Dustless Hardwood Refinishing, Hardwood floor Portland, Hardwood floor refinish, floor refinishing portland oregon, hardwood floor, portland floor, portland hardwood professional | No Comments »
Are you dealing with a jack of all trades or a specialist?
Saturday, July 11th, 2009
The other day I was in a discussion with a colleague about a new direction that a local wood flooring company is taking. They are a larger company and have a lot of employees that they need to keep working. Rather than let go of employees and focus on their specialty of wood floors, they are now doing remodels as well. This is interesting because it illustrates the phrase, “Jack of all trades, Master of None”. They aren’t a premium quality wood flooring company to begin with and with the added dimension of full service general contracting I really wonder how they will manage to maintain their quality in wood flooring.
As I understand it, a recession happens when the amount of available cash in circulation is reduced. It started to occur to me that during this time it is best to reduce your volume, increase your service, and specialize in a few specific facets of your trade. Passing more referrals in areas that are not your specialty allows more cash to circulate to other trades around you. This allows you to manage profitability much better in my opinion because you do what you do well and do that only. It improves your performance as a contractor and allows you to focus on service and quality.
The intent of this blog is to serve as an educational piece for those in any industry. If you are dealing with any professional who will always tell you they can do every part of your project, then I would really question their potential for quality. I have a favorite saying with which to end: “If you think you can enrich yourself by diluting others, you can only end by diluting yourself”.
Tags: hardwood floor contractor, Portland hardwood floor, portland oregon hardwood contractor
Posted in Hardwood floor Portland, portland hardwood professional | 1 Comment »
To salvage or not to salvage that is the question!
Sunday, May 31st, 2009
One of the latest rages in hardwood flooring materials is to use salvaged flooring materials. As you know we are all fans of the motto “reduce, reuse, recycle”. The word reuse is in play with salvaged materials and there are some things to consider when you reuse material that was already an existing floor.
Most hardwood floors have approximately 6-10 sandings available depending on the type of material and the aggressiveness of the sanding. Less dense hardwood floors such as old growth fir may be closer to six available sandings whereas a more dense material such as Brazilian cherry may be able to be sanded up to 10 times.
Keep in mind that every wood floor is connected to a subfloor, which is connected to the foundation of a home. While homes settle and shift over the years the hardwood floor follows suit. After a few sandings and a number of years your wood floors may be sanded to a thinner dimension in a hallway than in a bedroom, etc…
The salvaging process that we speak of is the removal and reassembly of an existing wood floor into a new area or home. When you remove and reassemble a floor that has been sanded multiple times, the true variances that are exascerbated by the settling process will be even greater. In reality when you reassemble a salvaged wood floor, there is an extreme amount of what we refer to as “over/under wood”. This greater amount of variance requires a greater amount of sanding in order to achieve a flat wood floor.
So what does all of this mean? If you install a salvaged wood floor in your home the consequences are good for the environment and possibly bad because you will need to pay more for the floor to be sanded because there is more effort to remove the necessary material to achieve a flat floor. A second consequence of the additional sanding efforts is that your floor will be closer to the end of its lifespan. This is especially important because with all of the interest in people requesting salvaged wood floors these days, after sanding I am seeing floors that literally have no more sandings available because there is virtually a paper thin wear layer remaining.
It is most important for me as an ethical wood flooring professional to advise you that salvaged wood floors have a lesser value for the life cycle of your project because of the greater reduction in wear layer. If you choose to use salvaged flooring, then I have two suggestions. The first suggestion is to either remill the flooring material or have flooring milled from dimensional lumber. The other suggestion is that if you choose to reuse salvaged flooring material without doing a remilling that you adhere to a very strict maintenance schedule of recoating the finish on your floor. This will greatly prolong the life of the wear layer of your floor and add more value to your efforts.
Tags: domestic hardwood floor, Hardwood floor durability, hardwood refinishing, Portland hardwood floor, salvaged hardwood portland, sustainable hardwood, wood floor sanding
Posted in Hardwood floor Portland, Portland fir floor, Uncategorized, hardwood floor, sustainability | 2 Comments »
Why can’t you sand that old fir floor?
Wednesday, April 1st, 2009
All the time I meet different people for an estimate who assume that their old Fir floors cannot be refinished, so they think that they will install new flooring over the floors. Usually the floors have been covered in paint, carpet, or linoleum forever and as time has gone on people have realized the best looking of their options is a wood floor. One important thing to understand about the floor sanding process is that usually only 1/32″ to 1/16″ of flooring actually is removed during sanding. If you consider that a wear layer on a floor is typically 5/16″ and a quality refinish will endure 10-20 years of wear with proper maintenance, then you can see that most floors ,even those that are 100 years old or greater, have some remaining life. I have seen some of the worst hardwood floors be revived in 5 days to a state of beauty that few would expect. My answer is almost always, “Yes, you can sand that old Fir floor!”. It’s more cost effective and has less impact on the environment because you reuse an existing resource.
Tags: dustless refinishing, hardwood refinishing, Portland hardwood floor, portland oregon hardwood contractor, Swedish finish, wood floor sanding
Posted in Fir flooring, sustainability | No Comments »
Who cares about the mill?
Tuesday, March 17th, 2009
Years ago, I had an experience that made me care more about the milling tolerances for products I install. The floor was a 5″ hickory floor that the homeowner purchased online from some mill in another state. I rarely am asked by a customer or general contractor to install hardwood material that my company does not provide. In this case, I agreed to install the material and made a mistake of assuming the quality was good. This turned out to be a major mistake because on average one out of every three boards was milled 1/16-1/8″ to wide or too narrow. This may seem trivial until you consider that forcing this material to become straight was virtually impossible. The floor may appear to be straight and well sealed early on, but after a few seasons of an improper fit the boards will win out over the fasteners and cause a loose floor. To the bargain hunters of flooring material, there is often a reason the price is too good to be true. A low price is a likely indicator of mis-milled product that was sold to reduce inventory for a mill, distributor, or retailer.
Tags: hardwood floor contractor, Hardwood floor durability, hardwood floor installation, Portland hardwood floor, portland oregon hardwood contractor
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Acclimation….How Long?
Sunday, March 8th, 2009
If there has ever been one wood flooring question with a great deal of answers, it is: “How long should I acclimate the flooring?” I’ve heard everything from overnight to 2 weeks. The truth is that you want the flooring to be acclimated to the point where it will no longer lose or gain moisture while being acclimated within the area of installation. Sometimes wood flooring is within a moisture content that is compatible with the sub-floor as soon as it arrives at the jobsite. Other times, it may take 2-4 weeks for the wood to be at an acceptable moisture level. Two driving factors affecting these numbers are how well the HVAC system is working and what species of wood is to be installed.
A few things to keep in mind:
1) Wood flooring should NEVER be acclimated within the garage of your home.
2) Never install or acclimate your flooring at a temperature that is less than 5 degrees of where you keep the interior temperature of your home.
3) If your flooring is strip flooring, then the subfloor and wood flooring must have moisture levels that vary by no greater than 4%. This number should be less for wider flooring.
These suggestions are for solid hardwood flooring. Flooring materials such as engineered and laminate flooring do not apply to these rules. E-mail us with further questions.
Tags: hardwood floor contractor, Portland hardwood floor, portland oregon hardwood contractor, wood floor acclimation
Posted in Hardwood floor Portland, portland hardwood professional | No Comments »