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The Forest Floor Project by Old Wood LLC.
Wooden block floors, also known as end block, butcher block and
parquet floors have been around as long as someone has had a cross
cut saw to cut a tree into rounds or a square beam into blocks. The
resulting ‘slice’ is true, perfect, vertically grained wood with
the annual rings being the evenly distributed wear surface. Even
soft woods become much harder, so hard in fact that Pine was and is
used extensively as a paving block for streets in major cities
around the world. New York City at one time in the early 1900’s
had millions of feet of wooden paved streets as did Boston, Paris,
Tokyo and many other world capitols. To this day, remnants of these
bitumen treated blocks can be found on streets and bridges of towns
in Florida and elsewhere. Edgar Allen Poe wrote a paean of praise to
the marvelous, quiet character of the wooden streets of his day!
Today, wood blocks are considered excellent, durable and beautiful
materials and are used all over the world in custom applications,
generally being specified by upper echelon architects and designers
for fine lobbies, commercial, museums and better homes. The
Highest Best Use for small and ‘at risk’ trees.
There are many reasons wood blocks have not come into common usage
and Old Wood LLC strives to address most of these as we grow our
level of expertise and knowledge. Solutions such as stress relief
sawing and slow but thorough drying help greatly as we seek to move
this product to the forefront of a new wave of applications which
showcase it’s significance as the highest best use for woods from
at risk western forests and ‘problem’ woods elsewhere in the
world such as the beetle killed forests of Belize. Your blocks are
made on a custom basis in various shapes and sizes as well as
thickness, from stocks of slow dried cants. We are eager to
make the right block for your specific application, so please, work
with us to find the perfect synthesis of design and function for
your custom job. We have Squares, Rectangles (generally based on
either a 1-2 ratio to allow for brick patterns and herringbones or
the Greek Golden Rectangle). Hexagons and Octagons are available in
both Pine and Douglas Fir. All our wood is from certified forests
being either FSC or better grade harvests (ALL of our harvests far
surpass FSC criteria but FSC is expensive and extremely paper work
intensive at present). We are all about great forestry solutions in
all we do.
SPECIES:
We are extremely specialized in material from
‘at risk’ western forests at this writing. Primary products are
Douglas Fir and Ponderosa Pine blocks. These are proven and good
looking work horses in the wood block world and their use
contributes to healthy forests in a way that ‘paper work’ cannot
begin to match. See the article on The
Forest Floor elsewhere on this site! Red Oak, Walnut
and Mesquite are available for significant orders. All our woods are
dried to New Mexico dryness levels at a measured 6% or better, even
imports from out of area. This truly sets us apart as acclimation
becomes a much less significant challenge. In most cases no
acclimation will be necessary other than re-humidification in wet
climates.
SIZES:
We can make blocks as large as 8” but we
recommend trying to stay under 7” for structural and manufacturing
reasons.
Hexagons will generally be 6”or smaller as will Octagons.
Octagons allow for extraordinary flexibility in choice of center
block material: wood, differing species of wood, tile, stone, glass,
what would you use? Octagons come in 6” as standard.
THICKNESS:
Wood blocks can range from one half inch to six inches thick or even thicker, depending on the application.
Half inch thick Douglas Fir 4x4 blocks are excellent for many applications while a typical factory floor would be between two to three inches in thickness in pine.
We can easily build a floor to your requirement and our modern Tiger Turbo saw cuts to a tolerance of five thousandths or better.
Sizes can range from ¼” to 6” . ½” is entirely ‘doable’ using our in house drying methods.
Commercial blocks will usually be 2”-4” while residential and conventional flooring applications will
range from ½” to 1”.
Ordering and pricing:
We will price your floor in line with
‘conventional pricing’ in the $4-$8-$12 per square foot range
depending on what you have in mind and of course, volumes. Hexagons
and Octagons are of course more expensive and the center block on
the Octagonal pattern can be very inexpensive or very ‘dear'. Lead
times can be from one month to three months depending on the size of
the job and how ‘special’ it may be. We take a 50% deposit (if
outsourced materials are used for center tiles or wood species,
deposit may be higher).
GUARANTEE:
We guarantee every block to be suitable for
the application but you or your installer will bear the final
responsibility for the integrity and suitability of the floor. We
will replace any block for up to two years from date of shipment,
but our responsibility is limited to cost of materials and shipping
costs of up to $50 and we do not cover cost of replacement or any
ancillary costs of construction or damages caused by any failure or
losses due to or arising out any claim.
Our Hope, is that we will be able to
work with you to produce a world class floor of unique character,
extreme durability and great beauty. Lets begin the conversation at
your convenience!
David J. Old
The Old Family and crew are all
at your service at:
888-545-9663
or email at: david@douglasfirfloors.com
This is where End Block Flooring or Wood Block
Flooring comes in!
We envision a healthy export market for the process and
the product and are excited about the terrific and varied design aspects
which we are already exploring in depth.
The rest of our site will grow as we add completed projects to our
‘book’. If you’d like to collaborate with us on a project of any size,
we’d love to talk with you so please feel free to call.
Phone toll free anytime: 888-545-9663.
Thanks for reading, check back, check in as we move this project forward with
your comments and help. Write and call anytime! The Old Family
and crew are all at your service at:
888-545-9663 or email at: david@douglasfirfloors.com
Your friend in the woods,
David J. Old
wood block floors, woodblock flooring, endcut flooring, endblock floor, butcher block,
parquet, wood pavements, commercial, industrial, residential
We are the source manufacturer of the woodblockflooring products you want!
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