Choosing Hardwood Flooring

Hey Everyone - Rob Jones here.

Just to let you know, we’ve moved the posts of this blog to blog.builddirect.com.  And this is also where future posts will be published.  Really, it’s like we’ve moved next door - not too far away.

So, if you’re a subscriber to this blog, please subscribe to our new feed to get the latest posts to your Google, Yahoo, MSN, or other homepage or the RSS reader of your choice.

Thanks a lot, and I hope to hear from you in our comments section!

Cheers,

Rob.

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This may be considered a blogging equivalent of nepotism,  or perhaps more accurately split-personality since I’m involved.   But a new blog has been launched by myself and Marc McPherson who also blogs here at BuildDirect.

The blog is called Watch Us Wreck a Floor. Check it out!

As many of you already know, every laminate flooring worth its salt is held to international standards, using controlled tests that burn, scratch, whack, stab, and drown a laminate floor.

The reason they do this is to figure out whether a laminate floor is worth selling, and if so where it should be best installed - a residence, a store, only in low-traffic rooms, and more.  The rating it gets is called an AC rating, where AC3 is the all-purpose residential floor.

Here’s what we had in mind, which is explained in greater detail on that blog.  Basically, we’re going to do a version of these tests ourselves, even if we’re not German guys in lab coats with clipboards.  And we’re going to invite as many people into the fun as possible in seeing just how much damage a laminate floor can take.   Once again, you can get the details here on where we’re going to install our test floor and what we’re planning to do.

Visit the site and submit your suggestions.  And we’ll be filming everything, so we hope you’ll tune in.

Cheers!

Rob.

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Happy New Year regular readers and first-time visitors too!

We’ve been a bit quiet here since just before Christmas, shopping, worrying about the right gift, coordinating plans to see loved ones, and negotiating our way through some of the most persistent snowy weather here in rainy Vancouver since 1964!  We’re reeling from a White Christmas.

But, now that we’ve kicked off 2009, I’ll be posting here regularly about wood flooring, and about bamboo flooring too. In the next few weeks, we’ll be rolling up our individual product blogs into one big happy product blog that will pull in contributions from all of our department heads.  So, watch out for that.  I’ll be making an announcement on this wood flooring blog, and on the other blog to which I contribute - ‘Bamboo for Flooring’.

In the meantime, thanks for reading us in 2008.  And I look forward to hearing your opinions and getting your feedback as we march into 2009 together.

Cheers!

Rob.

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Recently, the snows came to beautiful Vancouver where we at BuildDirect are situated.  As such, our sales team flashed into action.  And in between talking with customers and making sure everyone gets what they ordered, they decided that the best way to expand the sales force is to get in a new member of the team in place.  So, being creative types, they made one.

This is of course, nonsense.

What they did do of course was to go out on our east-facing balcony and make a good, old-fashioned snowman.  Take a look:

I’m not sure if he’s got a name by now. But, we’re open to suggestions.

Yay! Snow Day!

Cheers!
Rob.

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I’ve been reading about a local firm in Massachusetts which has brought together a love of woodworking with green building practices.  And their main tool for this?  A portable sawmill.

An upcoming feature on the This Old House program, Woodpecker Industries is the brainchild of Michael D. Moore and Noella M. Senecal.  Their vision was to allow local builders to draw their resources locally, and to therefore add something of green building principles to their local area at the same time.

Here’s an article that talks a bit more about Woodpecker Industries and their upcoming appearance on This Old House.

The wood they cut is used for framing, custom wood flooring, and crates, and is cut on the building site with the use of a portable sawmill. This saves the cost of shipping from bigger lumber distribution sites, seeing as all the wood is local, and is cut to order locally too.  It’s kind of a neat innovation that subverts the traditional way of getting building materials to a job site, which we at BuildDirect can appreciate.

When I think of a sawmill, I think more of a location than I do a piece of equipment.  I guess I’ve watched a lot of movies where there are epic struggles at the old sawmill, dodging this way and that to avoid getting chopped up by the giant bandsaw.  Maybe I watch too much TV.  That’s another post on another blog.

Yet, there are many different varieties of portable sawmills in use today, all derived from equipment used since human beings first decided it would be a good idea to build things using wood.  Portable sawmilling has a unique history that has evolved from two men with a big saw, to gasoline powered portable sawmills used on woodlots and major lumbering sites.

I guess the ultimate in green building using this kind of equipment would be a portable sawmill that runs on bio-diesel.  But, one step at a time.

Cheers!

Rob.

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Hey Everyone,

Here are a few videos that show us BuildDirect types in our natural environments - eating, drinking, and trying to win prizes.  This was all to benefit the Movember men’s health charity, which involves sponsored mustache-growing for fundraising and awareness-raising too for protate cancer, and other related men’s health issues.

Take a look!

Excuse the mustache. It’s for charity!

I show off the lunch spread, and a few of the dodgy mustaches we’ve got going here which are not to be outdone by my own, of course.

I show off some of the prizes, later won by Rob Banks (our Co-founder) and Deidre in Logistics.

James in the laminate flooring department explains how he’s raising money without growing an embarassing mustache:

The Grand Prize Winner is announced: Tom Froh (one of the authors on this very blog!) wins an all-expenses paid night on the town, and a couple of grace days to recover thrown in as donated by James.

Cheers!
Rob.

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One thing which has come to light in traveling from Canada to China are the cultural differences. Some of these differences are pretty obvious and often well documented. For instance, some of our expectations of food are considerably different, in that what we would never dream of eating is quite often a delicacy in China. This is to be expected.  More on that later, maybe.  Yet, other differences come as more of a surprise.

Just by way of an example, let’s take a look at Rob Banks on his flight from China back to Canada after a week of touring the laminate factory. While making a trans-Pacific journey,  what could be more natural than a series of group calisthenics while in one’s seat, led by the flight attendants? Let’s hear what Rob had to say about it, as it was happening…

Cheers!

Rob.

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Hello everyone!

Recently, Co-founder of BuildDirect Rob Banks took a trip to China to visit our composite decking factory, and a few of our laminate flooring factories too.  While he was there, he took some video footage, and asked some questions about how laminate flooring is actually made.

This is the first entry,in which Rob and factory manager Danny talks about how the paper layer of laminate floors are prepared to be permanently attached to the high-density fiberboard (HDF for short).  Take a look:

Stay tuned for part 2!

Cheers!
Rob.

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I found an article in the San Francisco Chronicle which gives some great advice on the common problem of a how to fix a squeaky hardwood floor.

The flooring in question is a vintage hardwood flooring in a building constructed in 1912.  And the cause of the squeaks?  A piano.  Well more specifically, a piano being moved across it.  The weight of the instrument as it was rolled along the boards caused the nails to loosen, becoming even more loose as they were walked upon after the piano was moved.

The crux of the advice is that this is a fixable problem, one you can make for yourself. In any case, I suggest you give it a read - and let me know what you think!

And for more information about moving a piano, complete with a video, check out learntomove.com, which not only talks about the subtle art of piano moving, but also about some best practices on how to move your furniture without damaging your floors.

Cheers!

Rob.

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Harvesting cork is more than just a process - it’s a grand tradition.  And these days, it’s one which dovetails nicely with the idea that environments should be preserved.  Here’s a cool article from the BBC about harvesting cork, mostly in the context of the wine industry.

Cork flooring, which is what we deal in around here at BuildDirect when it comes to the industry, is actually a bi-product of the older wine industry.  Well, we deal in the wine industry too.  Y’know; non-professionally.

But, I digress.

Part of what the article addresses is the misconceptions people have of the cork industry, and with natural wood products in general.   A lot of people are surprised to learn that the trees which produce cork are still standing by the end of the process, preserved not just to keep the industry going, but also to protect the local eco-systems.  The cork oak tree is an important species, giving shelter to local wildlife, and also maintaining the integrity of the soil with their deep root systems.

Other than that, it’s a great little article that will give you a general overview of where cork flooring comes from, and a little bit about the people who make it happen too.  Be sure to watch the video attached to the article too.

Cheers,

Rob.

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