We are working on selecting a hardwood floor for as part of a home remodel/renovation. We have collected some samples and checked them out in the home. To get the look we want, match existing decor, and satisfy my wifes's preference, we are looking at either north american cherry, brazilian cherry, bolivian cherry, or north american hard maple. We are fine with any of those 3, like the cherrys best.

I have been lurking on this board and other places for a while to gain info. Based on that, I have some concerns about each, and I wanted to get some of your opinions. Concerns:

1. NA Cherry - too soft and sounds like it may be trouble with kids and toys.
2. Braz Cherry - high hardness makes install difficult. uneven darkening with rugs, etc.
3. Bolivian Cherry - don't know much about it. have not heard any reports. this website says darkening is not as bad as the braz cherry
4. NA Maple - poorish stability, the lighter color is not as desirable for us.

I think the preference is the braz or bolivian cherry. I have heard mixed at best reviews here on that product though. Also concerns about non-north american products and milling standards. It looks like the stuff Ken sells here is great, and that would be my choice of the stuff I've seen, but a lot of people seem negative on braz cherry in general. Is that due to inferior products, or inherent qualities of the wood? Any experience with the bolivian vs. brazilian cherry?

I plan to complete the install with my father in law. He has done a few oak floors. I helped him with the last one (red oak, 1500 sqft) 4 years ago in their house and it looks great. So I think we are up for this job. It sounds like the south american woods are so much harder though. Are they going to give us fits or is it something we can deal with?

Any feedback or suggestions would be much appreciated!

Hem:

Sometime in the next four weeks we'll have a "color fast" solid prefinished Brazilian Cherry. Color fast? It undergoes a darkening process before it leave the manufacturing facility. No more dramatic color changes. The final color is the same as it comes out of the box. It will replace the $ 4.95 special on the website. Price yet to be determined.

Santos Mahogany Is a better choice for a red dark wood. In my opinion, It looks better and is much more stable that the South American cherries. Jatoba can be durable if installed correctly and maintained well, but it seems very susceptible to moisture. I also like Ipe though it is brown rather than red and darker than cherry. A lot of people give it an average stability rating but in my experience it is a very stable wood. They have used it for years unfinished on exterior decks and it endures the whether well. From my experience both of these woods are great for a darker floor and would be my first recommendations if someone where looking for an exotic dark floor.

I don't find Braz Cherry harder to install. In fact I find much easier in terms of straightness of boards and minimal overwood. In fact the last unfinished install I did I could only find a few boards with noticeable overwood and no surface defects whatsoever! In fact the quality was almost as good as prefinished or engineered. Besides average length (4" wide) was 5' long. Often with maple I have to screw a pry block into the floor to straighten a board (and even then the board sometimes pulls the nails right out when I release it!) and I didn't have to do that once with Braz Cherry.

Tongue splitting seems to be a problem but I think you can mitigate that by experimenting with air pressure, nail spacing etc.

I don't have extensive long term experience with Braz Cherry but most of the darkening seems to happen very quickly (approx 1-2 months) compared to other woods so moving things around initially will prevent light spots.

Good Luck

Thanks for the info, that is helpful to know. A 5' average length is really long, who makes the brazilian cherry you used? It looks like the BC advertised here is nice with long lengths, no info on how long they are though.

That is good to hear that the quality was good, sounds like other people have maybe had more trouble with the imported stuff. How would you say the milling compared with some of the high grade flooring made in north america? From what I see it doesn't look like the same clear/select/etc categories are adhered to on the imported stuff - is that true? If you had to compare it with north am categories, where would the wood you used fall.

Does anyone have any other experiences with it?

Thank for helping a newbie out!

[quote="kls"] In my opinion, It looks better and is much more stable that the South American cherries. Jatoba can be durable if installed correctly and maintained well, but it seems very susceptible to moisture. "

Thanks for the feedback, just wondering if you can clarify a bit. What is it that you like better about the look of the santos? Color? Grain? I kind of like the color of the cherry i've seen. I have never seen a whole floor of the santos besides in real life though.

What is it about the jatoba that makes it so much more susceptible to moisture?

Probably stupid questions, but hey I am just learning here.

I think Kevin summed it up the best not long ago. Brazilian Cherry outsells other imported hardwoods by a long shot here in the states. In fact if you put them all together in what we sell($4.95 product not included) it outsells all other imported hardwoods by a 4-1 margin. There's bound to be isolated incidents and the same is true of other hardwoods.

Hickory or Maple on the other hand are both low on the stability scale. Installed and maintained under good conditions with knowledgable professionals, they will perform well through the years. Incidentally there are ALOT of people pushing Brazilian Cherry and there is some junk out there. I get at least two trying to sell it each week.

I like Santos because most all of the mahoganies have been used for centuries for flooring and have a proven track record of durability. On a more subjective note I think it looks better than cherry as well. It has a shimmer to it especially if a coat of tung oil is applied before a harder finish is applied. It just has a rich luster that I like. It is similar in tone to Brazilian cherry. The drawback is Santos is generally around $1 to $2 a sq. ft. more expensive than Brazilian cherry.



That could turn into a long answer but to put it simply for the most part the denser a wood the less room moisture has to absorb into wood. Think for a minute about a piece of steel and a sponge. If you put a piece of steel into water it will not absorb much water, therefore it will not expand that much. It had dimensional stability in the presence of moisture. Applying the same experiment to a sponge will cause the sponge to grow as the sponge has less dense characteristics; therefore it readily absorbs the moisture. So given two pieces of wood, with the exact same characteristics with the exception of density the more dense wood will win when it comes to moisture deformation. Where this falls short is that not all wood is the same. Grain patterns, cellular structure as well as a multitude of variables that have been the subject of research for years all affect dimensional stability, but for simplicity sake lets say that a wood with a consistent grain pattern and a consistent cellular structure as well as being dense is going to be significantly more stable than a wood that only meets the final requirement. This is why bamboo is so stable the grain and cellular structure is very consistent as well as it being a very dense wood. As well to try come to the point and keep it simple Santos mahogany has a better combination than Brazilian cherry.

Given, that explanation I have installed Brazilian cherry before and I will in all honesty probably install it again. When I do though I make sure that the homeowner knows that it is susceptible to moisture and that it must be treated with more care. I have never had a BC floor buckle on me but this is not my main installation product and I would caution you that there are probably others with far more experience than myself with this wood. I look at it from this approach, people have reported more problems with BC than some of the other exotics sure some of these are installation issue but a higher volume of complaints can indicates an inferior product for floors. This is a subjective measure but why risk it, I adopt a wait and see attitude and try to offer proven solutions to my clients. If they are dead set on a particular product then I do my best to mitigate any issues that may arise from the issues with that product. Less subjective is the info that I provided above, Santos is just structurally superior to BC then again it is superior to oak but that is installed all the time. It comes down to trade offs if you absolutely want the BC and it has the look that you want then you will sacrifice some stability for the look you want. The same can be said for oak when compared to Santos, it really depends on what you the consumer wants. Remember I look at it from an installer’s point of view. If I install 10 BC floors and one buckles I have a warrantee issue and a potential to eat costs, my exposure is greater than the homeowner. It is more in my interest to stay away from a product that is getting ill reviews. Given that scenario 9 homeowners are happy and one will be once it is fixed so the odds are with the homeowner.



There is never a stupid question when it comes to a large investment such as wood floors.

All I know is it is stamped made in Brazil on the back. Others have reported long lengths. I think it has more to do with the fact that BC trees are huge. I don't know if it's typical but I have seen pics of logs that are at least 6' across.



I'm not sure you can generalize on the quality of foreign mills vs. domestic.

Buying unfinished product is something of a crap shoot for a non-pro. The only thing you can do is buy from a reputable source.

I suspect again due to the large size of the trees there is a low percentage of common grade BC so essentially all product is clear.

I have about 100 sq ft of BC in my house and another 600 of hard maple, both for about 2 years now. The BC has no gaps whatsoever even when viewed on hand and knees. The maple has small gaps. I know this does not prove anything regarding stability but perhaps others can comment if they have installs. The official stability rating of BC is slightly better than oak or maple.

Hemlock,

I thought about the stability issue of BC and perhaps the reason for the reported stability promblems are as follows:

When the MC of flooring goes up the wood expands across the grain. Now obviously across a large distance if unrestrained the expansion would be measured as something on the order of an inch (I calculate 1" over 100" width @ 3% MC change for BC). Obviously this can't happen so most of this is taken up by compression. Repeated compression causes compression set and this is partly what causes gaps (Obviously the other contribution to gaps is a reduction of MC compared to that during initial install. However this contribution to the gap size will vary with MC whereas the compression set part is permanent).

Regarding compression and compression set (failure of the wood to return to it's original size when compressed), I think it's safe to assume that the harder the wood, the greater the resistance to compression and thus compression set is also less likely to occur.

So in the case of BC with it's extreme hardness, it will resist compression and compression set more than other woods and thus put a large strain on the fasteners and the subflooring. In a large installation this may be more likely to cause a problem than with other softer woods. If large numbers of fasteners fail, the flooring may have a tendency to heave.

There are well known ways to guard against this -

1. Make sure your subfloor meets NOFMA standards and is in good condition.
2. In large rooms start the install in the middle of the room and use a spline to split the expansion (for BC you may want to use this technique for all or moderate sized rooms).
3. Make sure you follow the nailing schedule for your strip width.
4. Avoid extreme MC changes at all costs.

Although Santos Mohogany is almost as hard as BC it does have better stability (.00238 vs. 0.00300 in/MC) so this may explain why less problems are reported with SM. In this respect it is a superior choice to BC but obviously cost and appearance are factors also.

Also if we compare stability of BC to that of maple we find that BC is slightly better than maple but the extreme hardness is what contributes to it's reputation for poor stabilility as explained above (just my opinion).

In other words, moderate stability combined with extreme hardness may create stability problems but this can be mitigated with proper install procedures.

you guys really know your stuff. Those responses are very helpful, thanks!

A couple things I wanted to respond on:

"2. In large rooms start the install in the middle of the room and use a spline to split the expansion (for BC you may want to use this technique for all or moderate sized rooms). "

What would you consider a large room? The largest room in this application is 16' X 20' (living room) it has a hallway off it and eating area, and the longest total dimension including these "extenstions" is close to 30'. That seems pretty large to me. Other rooms are 12 X 10 and 12 X 14 bedroom.

Also, I know what you mean by compression set. The home we just moved out of had 60 year old maple floors. The had gorgeous grain and character, but there were lots of gaps. Probably the result of the 1st 50 years with no humidity control...

I'm not sure even NOFMA defines this but it usually anything more than 20' across the strips. I don't really feel that it adds much if any difficulty to the install so for me I might do it for anything more than 15' or so. I would temporarily screw down some kind backing before you nail the first strip to make sure it's dead straight. I have used scrap MDF molding or strips of ply etc. (primarily because these materials don't warp - some people use flooring strips but of course this will ruin them). You still have to place it dead parallel to your chalk line of course. Check the distance every 2' or so from your chalk line before screwing it down then double check. Then you can whack away with your blind nailer w/o fear of knocking things off kilter.

This is really no different than when you start at the edge of the room except you reverse on one side with a spline. Note that you insert the spline (after you have blind nailed a few courses and removed the backing) hold it in tight with your foot and blind nail through the spline (this is how I was taught anyhow). This way you will have no face nails in the center strip.



In my house when my wife complains about "defects" like that I just say it's "rustic" or it's "character"

Ditto...thanks kls. Good stuff! And wlecome to the board

Ken,

thank you for the welcome.