i'm installing 5" wide, 3/4" thick unfinished birch flooring, #1 common grade. i'm finding that boards vary about 3/32" in width...from slightly under 5" to slightly over 5-1/16".

i contacted the store where i bought the flooring, and they're pretty much dismissing me. when the wood was delivered, it was in bundles, and each bundle had hard plastic straps every couple of feet. when i acclimated the wood, i cut off all the straps, and stacked the individual boards in perpendicular layers to get air flow on all sides.

the store says i should have kept the wood as-is (strapped in a bundle), and since i didn't, they can't take it back and so i'm on my own to deal with the varying board width.

i'm going to try and talk with them again, but i have a couple questions so i'm more knowledgeable...

are there any guidelines to acceptable width variance between boards?

did i do the wrong thing (separating boards) when i acclimated them? should i have left the straps on?

should i have checked board width when the wood was delivered? i was so concerned with acclimating it the right way, it never occurred to me to check that.

it seems like the store is using my acclimatization process as a reason to ignore the width problem, although i don't see how they're related....

thanks

EDIT: Mods - please move this to "Yikes i have problems" sub-forum if that's a better fit.

Thats absurd. How can solid wood acclimate while still bundled up. I think you did it the best way. Some other guys like to lay it out on the floor racked out when the moisture content is close to the underlayment/subfloor.

Flooring is going to be unstrapped for the next 30 years on the floor....but you damaged it by unstrapping it for the acclimation process .... I love it....wonder which rule book they pulled that one from.

sounds like Lumber Liquidators to me....Verbatum what happened to me the 2 times in life tried to do a job with it..

went 2 for 2..both jobs screwed and both jobs LL gave the owner the run around.

Well I couldn't find squat about exactly how to store and lay out solid hardwood in my old NWFA manual but NOFMA has been around longer and says this. However LL is not a NOFMA member me thinks. LOL It's just basic general knowledge that you take apart bundles or else the interior cannot dry evenly.

Sounds like their attorney found an out in the literature. I'll have to search around some more.

Found another about laying out the floor and unstrapping the bundles. Good grief, you'd think it would be in the NWFA manual. lol Maybe it's in a newer version than I have. As far as width variations, thats a rather hot topic lately in some circles. The manufacturers can write their own standards for manufacturing krap and get away with it.

This is from The Wood Handbook from the Forest Products Laboratory, basically this is the Gospel for wood flooring and the basis of the technical part of the NWFA manual.

Scroll down cus the front page on this pdf on my screen is just black.
http://www.woodweb.com/Resources/wood_e ... l_2010.pdf

thanks so much for the info. it's good to know that i had followed best practices for acclimating the flooring.

a rep from the store (not LL, lol) did stop by the other day to take a look at the problem. i gave him a sample of the widest and narrowest boards. he said it was a milling problem, and he'd contact them to see if they have any answers. i'm hoping that this will work out in the end, and i won't be stuck in a game of finger pointing...we'll see.

thanks again

Let us know what happens. Had the same thing happen on a Mullican a client bought online (posted similar pics here) . But I knew going into it because his tile guy tried to glue the 3/4 solid to concrete and I spotted the width differential right from the get go. He paid lots extra to have me save as much as I could. He could not send it back to the online dealer (heads up online buyers) It was a painstaking process just racking it out so it fit good.

another question...how tightly should the tongue fit in the groove?

i test fit two short pieces together today, and i can sight an opening all the way down the length of the groove (i.e. the tongue doesn't reach all the way to the back of the groove...there's a gap of about 1/8", plus or minus).

is that normal?

It could possibly be, or it's just a crook in the wood and in that case the nailer will pull it together.

the flooring store offered to refund 1/3 of my original purchase price, plus deliver another 100 SF of flooring for free, if i'd agree to the extra labor of sorting through every floor board and separating/installing them based on width.

i was going to give it a go, but it turns out a good number of the shorter boards (1-4 feet in length) are tapered by about 1/16"+. decided it wasn't worth the effort for what could turn out to be a so-so result.

i'm in the process of working with the store again. trying to arrange for free pickup of all the defective flooring, and no-cost replacement with a new lot of narrower (4"), but higher grade birch. they're not happy that i separated all the boards for acclimatization, says the mill won't take back unbundled wood. but i was firm that current lot is un-workable.

we'll see how it goes...