I have some old timbers, should I turn them into flooring or just buy it instead?

Q:

I have some old timbers, should I turn them into flooring or just buy it instead?

A:

There is something to be said for taking old timbers and having them milled down for flooring, it is unique and creates a wonderful talking point for you when you are having company at your new home. There are some downsides to doing it as well;

• The process of having your timbers turned into flooring can be more expensive than buying the product from a company that has it in stock. Having your own timbers made into flooring is a limited run and will be done at a premium.

• The time it takes to have the timbers milled and kiln dried can take longer than your construction schedule will allow. You could end up having to wait for the flooring to finish your home.

• Depending how much weather the timbers have been exposed to over the years you might not be able to get enough material to make all the flooring you require.

If you sell your timbers to a company that recycles barn material then you will get paid for it, then you can turn around and buy the flooring material from a company that sells antique flooring. The cost difference will be close to a wash. Doing this is also being “green”, you are recycling the material from your old barn by selling it to someone that will reuse it and the buying of antique flooring that was created from old timbers is the exact same thing that you would have gotten by having your old timbers turned into it.

The antique flooring should be ordered so that it is tongue and grooved and not square edged. The t&g will help hold the flooring together especially if the flooring has wide and long pieces.

You need to understand that antiqued flooring comes milled as flooring but is not ready to be finished immediately. You have to sand the floor until it is smooth with a floor sander, then you can apply the finishing coats, you will need at least 3 coats to finish the floor so that it will stand up to wear and tear of everyday life. Make sure that you have several different stain samples applied on different parts of the floor, they can be sanded off so don’t worry about damaging your floor. Antique flooring never looks uniform that's why you need to have several different stain matches, make sure that you pick a stain that will allow the true character to show through.

Remember that you will need to order more than normal waste or overage for the flooring, with antique flooring you don’t want to end running short.

Rob Abbott
Operations Manager
Village Builders Inc.

I’m having old barn timbers turned into flooring, do I need to have them t&g or can I just install them with a square edge?

Q:

I’m having old barn timbers turned into flooring, do I need to have them t&g or can I just install them with a square edge?

A:

You really should have them t&g (tongue and groove) when you have them milled, there are several reasons for this;

• No matter how old the flooring is it will shrink and expand as the humidity levels change in your new home. If you do not t&g the flooring then you will see large gaps in the flooring. Things can full in these cracks and restrict the movement of the floor when it swells from the humidity in the warmer seasons. If a floor cannot freely move back and forth it will deflect.

• The t&g will help keep the old boards straight and also give the boards a tighter fit during installation.

• T&g helps the flooring act as one large sheet of wood. The flooring becomes stronger when it is linked
together with the t&g, it helps it span any dips and rolls in the sub-floor and also will help reduce the squeaking in the floor from individual boards.

• If you don’t have the boards t&g’d then you have to face nail the boards which costs a lot more money, t&g’d flooring is nailed through the tongue into the board at an angle. This nailing helps in two ways; the first is that it drives the boards together for a tighter fit and the second one is that it gives the floor the look of no fasteners and a clean finish.

A lot of companies won’t warranty a floor if the common practises aren’t meant when installing in a new home.

When using older wood even though it is kiln dried you need to make sure that when it is delivered it sits in your new home for at least a week before you try and install it. The floor needs time to adjust to the humidity level of the new home and you also need to make sure that there is a dehumidifier in the room. This is the easiest way to help the floor to adjust to the humidity of the home. After the flooring is installed you must take great care that you manage the humidity in your home, if you allow large fluctuations from one season to the next you will end up with a damaged floor. Wood is a living things no matter how old the material is and being a live it reacts to the moisture in the air expanding and contracting, use heat when it's cold and air conditioning when its warm and humid.

Make sure that when you have the timbers milled down for the flooring that you will have enough of it to do all the rooms that you want to do, make sure that you add 15% at the least to the order as extra. Old timber flooring has a lot of waste; there is a lot of holes, knots, cracks and problem spots that you will need to cut out when installing. The one thing that you don’t want to happen is to run short of a flooring material that you will have trouble getting quickly or at all.

Remember that your flooring will come raw and you will have to have the flooring sanded and finished onsite, make sure that you add this to your budget and your time line. When a floor is sanded and re-finished no activity can happen in the house, the more activity in the house the more dust and debris is thrown into the air which will end up in your finish.

Rob Abbott
Operations Manager
Village Builders Inc.

I have an old barn that I want to tear down and use the material in the new house I am going to build, how do I do this?

Q:

I have an old barn that I want to tear down and use the material in the new house I am going to build, how do I do this?

A:

Taking down an old barn can be dangerous if you don’t know what you are doing, there is a certain way that you need to take down a barn so that no one gets hurt and also so that you don’t damage any of the material that you will want to use.

The best people to contact to remove a barn are Mennonites. In our area we use Mennonites to remove barns and also to cut and saw beams and flooring. If you find the right ones you can even have them kiln dry the material.

If you can’t find Mennonites then you need to find companies that specialize in demolition, as before you need to make sure that when they take the barn down it’s done in a safe manner that will not damage the material.

There are companies out there that do custom cutting and kiln drying, you just have to look around to find them. Since you are building a new house you should ask your contractor if they have a company that they work with that can do this for you. They are usually called custom millwork or custom lumber milling.

Since you are on the West coast you shouldn’t have to much trouble finding lumber mills, a speciality mill will do custom cutting and kiln drying for you. The cost is more than just buying the material for your flooring because you are asking the mill to do a small custom run for you, the set up fees for you will be higher than when they do a larger order.

I have done this custom milling and kiln drying for my clients before; in a house that we built in a beach community we removed several large pine trees because the new house was going to be much larger than the old cottage that it was replacing. We took the large pines to a custom mill worker who sawed the trees up into 1x6 tongue and groove boards and then kiln dried them and stored them until we required them in the new house. We installed the 1x6 on the ceilings of the dining room making a beautiful wood ceiling that became a talking point for the clients when they had people over for dinner.

Another way to find a company to mill the timbers for you is to call companies that deal in antique flooring, that’s what old barn timbers that are made into flooring are called. If you call them they should be able to help you by either doing your custom order for you or pointing you in the right direction.

The wood that you recover from the old barn can be used in many different ways, it can be used as flooring, trim, decorative panels, barn board walls in a rec room or den and the some of the beams can be used in the new home as either decorative or actual structural supports. You can take some of the beams and mill them into actual timber trusses to use in the great room of your new house.

Whatever you end up using the timber for it will give you a wonderful talking point in your new home and will help make the home a truly custom one for you.

Rob Abbott
Operations Manager
Village Builders Inc.