Recent Ruins / Catalogue / Wood
Heart pine flooring
| Period range | 1850-1930 |
|---|---|
| Usual fabric | Dense old-growth southern yellow pine heartwood |
| Usual form | Face-nailed or tongue-and-groove boards, varying widths |
| Wear to expect | Nail holes at every joist line, cupping, a worn traffic lane down the room |
Growth rings are the whole point. Count them on the end grain before you look at the colour.
What it is
Heart pine is the dense heartwood of old-growth southern yellow pine, and it is much harder and much heavier than modern pine of the same species. Early boards are face-nailed and often wide and of random width down the run. Later boards are milled with a tongue and groove and blind-nailed through the tongue, which is why they can be lifted with less damage.
How to tell age
Look at the end grain and at the back. Tight, closely spaced growth rings indicate slow old-growth timber. A back face bearing circular saw marks is later than one bearing straight up-and-down sash-saw marks. Random widths within a single floor point earlier than a uniform milled width.
What commonly fails
Boards cup when they have dried unevenly after lifting, and cupped boards must be re-flattened or ripped and re-milled. Nail holes at every bearing are unavoidable and are part of the character, but they concentrate at joist lines and can weaken a board that is then cut short. Old finish and embedded grit will destroy a planer knife.
What to check before fitting
Ask what the boards have been through since lifting, and look for grit and broken nail shanks in the backs, which is the single most common problem. Measure thickness at several points along a board, since re-milling loses more than people expect. Buy meaningfully more area than you need, because the yield after de-nailing and docking is never the nominal figure.