Why choose heart pine flooring?
Choosing the right wood flooring is an important step in any project. Many people ask why choose heart pine for my flooring? Whether you opt for new growth longleaf pine or reclaimed heart pine floors, pine wood is an ideal choice for flooring.
Heart pine is cut from the center of the longleaf pine tree, where the heartwood resides. The heartwood is incredibly stable and dense, making it a great choice for flooring materials, whether you are looking for wide plank, engineered, or solid wood flooring options.
On top of it being a quality material for building, it is a long lasting one. There is a reason you walk in to 200 year old homes and still see beautiful hardwood floors. Heart pine flooring is made to last a lifetime. It can be refinished several times, if necessary, making it a great investment.
Not All Pine is Created Equal
When you buy pine, it is all the same, right? Unfortunately, there is more to it than meets the eye. There are over 100 species of pine, worldwide and over 30 in North America alone. The wood from the various species ranges from very soft to hard. Specific types of pine are chosen because of their qualities to be grown commercially for lumber and wood pulp.
Several species of pine are categorized as “Soft Pines”. As the name implies, they are a softer wood making them not ideal for building. Examples of soft pines include Sugar Pine, Western White Pine, and Eastern White Pine.
Heart pine flooring is typically manufactured out of Southern yellow pine and Longleaf pine. These species of trees are categorized as “Hard Pine”. They are a denser wood, making them a more durable lumber and ideal for wood flooring.
The hardiness of wood is measured on a scale called the Janka Scale. This scale was created using the results of a wide range of wood types tested by the Janka Wood Hardness Test. This test measures how much force a piece of wood can sustain before denting. The softer pines range from 25 to 28 lbs/ft3. The hard pines can sustain 36 to 42 lbs/ft3, a considerable difference.
New Growth Heart Pine vs Antique Heart Pine
At Albany Woodworks, we offer flooring from both new growth pine and antique, reclaimed heart pine. New growth heart pine is considered anything younger than 200 years old. New growth pine flooring is a more budget friendly option.
However, sourcing your new pine flooring from a reputable company ensures you are getting a quality product. Because new growth trees tend to grow faster than original growth trees, there is not as much heartwood with the dense growth rings available. This means that a manufacturer has to be careful to select from the best longleaf heart pine, ensuring a consistent dense growth and excellent quality.
Reclaimed, antique heart pine is the best of the best. These original, slow-growing trees had hundreds of years to develop into an almost solid heartwood tree with dense growth rings. This made these original trees highly sought after through the decades.
Antique heart pine flooring is sourced from original beams that were used in the framework that built the United States. The beams are cut into flooring. Each beam contains a variety of grades, which Albany Woodworks separates into their collections. From character grades like the Silvan Collection with knots and nail holes to the clean and clear, traditional vertical grain Prestige Collection, heart pine offers every look.