I have a cabin in northern michigan that we close up for the winter. Everything freezes then we go up at hunting season and warm it up and sometimes at christmas . so the floor will freeze and thaw. What should i put in there that can endure the differences in temperature?

Personally, I don't think a modern wood floor would be appropriate. The best would be a nailed down engineered floor. Either that, or a rustic pine. Sounds as if these floors could gets some heavy use. Depending on the type of subfloor you have, if it's plywood, you may consider a floor epoxy paint, which maybe more water resistant and allow the floor to be washed and would be less money. Plank subfloors would most likely have some gaps between the boards. My preference would be to use a nailed down floor as I think an adhesive only floor may not continue to perform long term. An option would be to find some 6 to 8" pine planks that are kiln dried to about 6% moisture content. Then glue and face nail down ( or screw and plug ). After that, disc sand them to clean them up and apply multiple coats of Waterlox Satin Tung-oil floor finish. That could be an inexpensive floor, except for the adhesive and floor finish. It would dent easily but most wood floors in a cabin do anyway. If this is a high end cabin that is pretty fancy, then you could upgrade the flooring to Carlisle brand flooring. Accept that if you use wood floors, they will develope some gaps between the planks over the years and possible cupping as well.

5 inch white pine would be my choice, and was actually, for similar application at our hunt camp in Northern Ontario. Wanna talk about extreme weather changes?lol.
I finished the floor with pentrating Gym treatment (Duraseal) and every fall buff in a fresh coat. I get some movement to the floor, but nothing extreme. Floor was nailed only to allow for this movement.

Yeah Dennis, that was my thinking as well. One could use a urethane adhesive in a tube to aid in holding the boards down, especially if they are not T&G. This would still allow for some minor movement. If using T&G flooring, blind nailing ( or secret nailing as the brits call it ) would still be acceptable most likely. A penetrating gym finish would be fairly easy to maintain accept for the buffing it in or burnishing part. Not hard for us pros, a PITA for novices and DIYer's. Waterlox is similar except is does form a film after the third or fourth coat, so no burnishing is needed. And no buffing is required to re-coat or add maintenance coats down the road. An easy finish for the DIYer to use. The downside? Expensive.

Gary, can you send me a link to info on "waterlox"?. Not familiar with it up here but sounds like something that may fit into some projects we do.

The waterlox site is not coming up at the moment but their site is:

www.waterlox.com Another is: http://www.paintsource.net/pages/produc ... terlox.htm

I have a cabin in northern Minnesota. I use it in the same way as cindysss. In the winter we close it up and every thing freezes and we go up to it maybe 2 or 3 times all winter long. I have been asking the same question and have gotten a different answer just about every time I ask. I asked a builder up there and he says only a floating floor will work. A guy at a major hardwood floor store in the twin cites says he would do a solid wood prefinished nail down floor as that's what he has in his cabin, and sure there are cracks when its cold and dry but in the spring the wood expands and all is ok. He told me the narrower the planks/boards the better.

If I follow this guys advice and nail down 650 sq ft of prefinished oak, what kind of problems might I face? What problems would I have if I put in a floater?

And in either case is there anything I could do during instillation to limit these issues?

Can you point me at any references that may help?

Acclimate and install the flooring during the most humid of the seasons.

Try and go for a rift and quarter sawn Oak. Not a plain sawn.